La Légende du Tombeau Perdu

This Hallmark movie is clearly aimed at a juvenile audience given that its main characters are teenaged Americans at loose in Egypt. John is there for a reuniting with his archaelogist father,where he meets Karen a keen Egyptologist.They are pitted against the unscrupulous Dr Bent,played by Stacy Keach with a wobbly English accent. Bent is seeking to exploit the discovery of a map pointing to the whereabouts of the tomb of Rameses the second ,which contains the key to treasure both temporal and spiritual. The sole asset of the picture is the striking location photography around the Pyramids and Aswan,and this helps offset poor effects and wretched script development ,which trades in insulting ethnic stereotypes Poor acting and I grow weary of the characterisation of the English as villains.

This is basically an 80s film that didn't bother getting made until the 90s -- and boy oh boy, this movie's got it all: Cardboard characters, a plethora of movie clichés, a classical Not-Really-Very-British British villain played by none other than Stacy Keach, a thoroughly annoying Boy Wonder, a quasi-wholesome teenybopper jiggle interest, lots of byplay and banter twixt Boy and Girl, fine literature (an Ancient Papyrus and a Teenage Girl's Journal), a Hidden Treasure, more clichés in the form of supporting characters/roles, heaps of I'm-So-Acting acting from a bunch of nobodies (excepting Keach, of course), and a script that's flatter than the proverbial pancake.

Oh, and it's got Stacy Keach as the Villain and he's got a black beard AND an Evil Henchman known as "Scorpion", and they delight in making schoolgirls shriek in terror.

I gave this film five stars but this should be taken as an *average*: If you're looking for a film to be taken seriously, that's a 1. If you're looking for something to riff on and rip apart à la Joel (or Mike) and the Bots, it's an easy 10. Fine fair for a Saturday afternoon when you don't feel like watching the footy and you're looking for any excuse to let the lawn grow just a bit longer.

Ooh ooh ooh -- and did I mention that Stacy Keach plays the villain?

This production, as with many having to do with ancient Egypt -tombs, treasure, etc.- relies heavily on authentic backgrounds and locations to bolster up weak plot, inept acting and lazy direction. It shares with "Death on the Nile" the technique of conflating locations. One minute the characters are at the pyramids at Giza and suddenly they are in Khan el Khali markets, half way across Cairo, or at Abu Simbel, Aswan, and Abu Simbel, all in the same sequence. It reminds me of one conversation in "Death on the Nile" where one character was in Luxor and the other in Aswan, a considerable distance away but cut so they spoke to each other. There is a light moment when Zaki Hawass, the noted Egyptian Egyptologist, then the director of the pyramids, plays himself. He is to be found often on the Discovery channel. I did enjoy seeing lots of familiar Egptian sights and sites, even if they were scrambled.

If not a fan of Egypt then just enjoy this yarn. If you are a visitor, or like me a very frequent visitor, enjoy the story and especially the locations. You can smell and taste the captivating this most beautiful of countries.

This isn't my movie but the movies of the kid because it's one of his DVDS. It's a pity that the disc doesn't include subtitles because I din't get the dialogs. Nevertheless, we had great time with this Indiana Jones / Tomb raider for kids.

The young cast is sympathetic (the boy looks like a young John Cena) and Stacy Keach depicts with talent a sophisticated bad guy.

But the real asset of this movie is that it has been shot live in Egypt and Cairo. Thus, you got amazing shots of the pyramids and you can feel the pulse of this great city and its inhabitants. For 2 hours you are gone in a exotic country with an ancestral culture and that's just fine.

Not bad for a mere TV movie with no amazing stars from Hollywood!