Riddles of the Sphinx

Take a guy dressed as Indiana Jones, a woman dressed up to look like Lara Croft, stick in a kid and wrap it up with some home made computer effects and you have this movie. Honestly, you can hear the lack of imagination that was shown in the pre-production meetings screaming at you through the screen. I mean why would you so blatantly copy two of cinemas iconic characters like this? It's bound to effect the entire film project. And I say 'film' very loosely as it looks like it was shot on tape. The sets aren't too bad but the green screens don't do the locations any favours. So what about the plot? Well this is one of these where you couldn't care less. The characters are writen so one dimesionaly and lines delivered so blandly you can't invest in them. It's terribly over written and the shots way too long, but the worst part is the choice of lead male actor. He is beyond bad. Even for tv. I can only assume he was chosen because hit fit the Indy jacket. It's worth watching to knock one off over Lara. She wears her outfit well. But it's all just badly put together rush at the end of the day. Oh and there's some bald guy hanging around them for some reason... like a Star Trek security guard... I think you know why 😊 One for 6 year olds to keep them busy while you do your tax returns.

Riddles of the Sphinx (2008) which I saw on the UK Sci-Fi Channel Today out of boredom more than anything, is clearly a homage (Rip-off) of Indiana Jones, Right down to the Main Character's job as a College Professor and his choice of clothes complete with Indiana Jones style Hat..

The biggest problems with this is the dire acting and totally unconvincing performance by the lead actor

The budget is VERY low as most of the 'action' in filmed in front of not-very anonymous Backscreen...as The Filming ALL took place in Canada and There are only 4 characters in the entire Film...So the 'Double Agent' is obvious from the get go...

I'm a big fan of these types of Adventures, but this badly needed more money spent...and as a result my rating is low.

*1/2 out of *****

The movies that are made for the SyFy network are typically very bad, and usually a lot worse if they happen to be made by Canadian filmmakers. "Riddles of the Sphinx" is a Canadian production, and it's awful in almost every department you can think of. The story doesn't make much sense, for one thing, with the screenplay depending on the regular action sequences to grab the audience's attention. The direction is awful - there are several sequences where key linking footage is missing, leading to a number of "Huh?" moments. The movie is extremely cheap as well, trying to pass off the British Columbian landscape as - get this - Iraq and later Egypt! The only saving grace of the production is the CGI creature, which doesn't look that bad for what was a pitifully low budget. Were these filmmakers even TRYING to make a decent time waster?

The delectable Dina Meyer and the normally competent Lochlyn Munro co-star in this turkey made for The Sci-Fi Channel, about archaeologists unleashing an unkillable monster from an Egyptian tomb. Meyer looks great in black leather and shooting two guns at a time a la Tomb Raider Lara Croft while Munro simply looks like an idiot in an Indiana Jones hat about two sizes too big for his head. The movie goes nowhere once the monster is unleashed, which happens about five minutes in. At times, the creature looks like a poor man's griffin; at other times, it morphs into a bad copy of Inhotep from the first two THE MUMMY movies. The dialog is from hunger, as is the acting. Other than tuning in to get a look at the beautiful Meyer, this one is best skipped.

No surprise - about what you would expect from a third rate network. The budget was probably whatever the limit on the producer's credit card was. All of the typical clichés for a poorly written / directed / acted project that looks like it was done by a bunch of film students over a weekend in Vancouver. (Yeah, we noticed that Egypt, Greece, and Iraq all look a lot like British Columbia in the fall, cough, cough)

The only real surprise is that someone with the talent of Dina Meyer would agree to participate in this kind of garbage. Yeah she looked great, but come on, put any physically fit 40 year old actress in an outfit inspired by Laura Croft and they will too. Need the work that badly eh - what a shame.

A big waste of time and pretty sad considering how many other potentially decent projects didn't get bankrolled so this waste of film could.