Jack Hunter and the Quest for Akhenaten's Tomb

JACK HUNTER: THE QUEST FOR AKHENATAN'S TOMB is the second of a trilogy of TV movies featuring Ivan Sergei's Jack Hunter, a wooden rip-off of Indiana Jones. Hunter is a character who's made to slavishly copy every aspect of the Harrison Ford character, but Sergei is no Ford. In fact he gives a terrible performance, which is useful as everything about this film is terrible.

The female leads are reduced to eye candy from the beginning, standing back while the men take over and do the real work. The plot is a jumbled mess of globe hopping (most of the story takes place in Egypt) and non-existent budgeting, which means that 90% of the film looks cheesy and fake. The direction is rubbish as well, but the worst thing here is the script, which is a crass waste of time.

The whole series is a rip off of Indiana Jones, that's a given. But at least part 1 had some nice touches. This part 2 is pure rubbish. Soap opera story arcs. Over the top absurd chases. Incoherent story lines. So with what little part 1 had going for it part 2 went completely off the rails.

For a start, if you made it through to the end of this movie congratulations. You did well. (How did you manage it? Alcohol?) I'm not even sure how to begin to explain how terrible this movie was to watch. Crap story, absolutely terrible directing, and acting that is below par for a b grade porn movie.

So who is Jack Hunter? Well, according to this movie he is a suave, sexy, treasure-hunter whose knowledge of antiquities exceeds even that of the experts. Is he educated in archaeology? Who knows? To be honest, they may have mentioned his credentials during the 'film', but when your mind is being bombarded with visual diarrhea you are bound to forget a few details.

It's probably easiest to describe Jack like this: he's supposed to be the Indiana Jones of the new millennium. He's smart (apparently), has Indy's fedora and knapsack, and is dynamite with the ladies.

Unfortunately for anyone unfortunate enough to watch this movie, Jack ain't no Indy. Ivan Sergei (Jack Hunter) has zero charisma, which perfectly complements his acting skills. You can tell he's a big Harrison Ford fan, he even tries the trademark side-grin on for size, but sadly ol Ivan just can't pull it off. He's robotic. Let's just hope he doesn't opt for a Han Solo rip off next; he'd be more suited to C-3PO.

The rest of the characters are just as well crafted as Jack and the acting is equally as good as Ivan's, so five points for consistency.

The directing is some of the worst I've seen. Clearly Terry Cunningham is out of his depth in the movie world. I haven't seen any of his other work, but I'd hazard a guess and say that he's a low budget TV adventure director. Maybe he did a couple of Young Indy episodes or a Xena the Warrior Princess episode? I don't know. Without going into too much depth here, let me just point out one thing: he uses slow motion when a treasure is revealed. Classic.

The story, ah the story. I'd say the writers (Moore and Palmieri) once read a picture book on Akhenaten's history and wrote this drivel based on pop up caricatures. Classics students will find this movie hilarious.

Let me tell you one group of people who won't find this movie hilarious: females. Well, there are two very beautiful girls in this movie. And not only are they good-looking, they're smart too. One, with a doctorate in archaeology, the other, an egyptologist. At least, we're told they're smart. Jack Hunter says so. I wonder why it is then that neither of these two academically trained professionals can keep up with the brilliance of Hunter? They find something with hieroglyphs on it, but despite their training (and one being an egyptologist) neither can help decipher the meaning. They pout and ol Jacky boy gets to work. The girls make subtle hints about how they've both nap-sacked the great treasure hunter and leave the work to the man.

I'm not going to bang on too much more about this flick. It isn't worth it. Let me just say two more things. One: there really was an excellent moment when they showed the front of the Cairo museum and then took us inside. I laughed hysterically. They had clay masks and a few fake paper mache' obelisks inside. And pretty much nothing else. Two: I want my $2.95 back for hiring this piece of garbage. I know blockbuster won't give me money back for saying the movie was rubbish, so I guess I'll say it didn't work on my DVD player and hope to hell that the other copy of that movie has been rented by some other poor bastard.

This is purely awful.

There are NO cinematic moments. NONE.

Another reviewer said maybe "TV", but even quality TV transcends this work.

So much effort, and they really did put in effort, for so much of nothing at an end.

I had a bottle of wine while watching. The wine was nice. It made watching so much easier.

Some acting is promising. In the hands of a good director maybe? Others not so much, and how much of it is the director? How much of this film is really the director? The film is awful.

I tried to watch it for humorous moments. It is at one end so much of a cut above base and only peculiarly so, but so much so truly less than acceptable. I will remember this title for an instruction of unacceptable moments.

I loved it, full of action and humor, so funny show...Mario Naim Bassil? the BEST!