The Seventh Scroll

It is a truism that it takes a lot of effort to make a bad movie - this one is no exception.

I am no lover of yanks but their amazingly simplistic view of the world and their ability to reduce everything to black and white as well as make events (even fictional ones in novels) fit an agenda that bears little or no relationship to complexity of any kind is irritating in the extreme.

Wilbur Smith is descriptively verbose but weaves intricate tales that deserve more than has been delivered by this awful mishmash of a movie.

Sad really for those who will never read Smith. They will be left with a less than decent portrayal of his Egyptian series, which has to be said is gigantic in its exposition.

The Indiana Jones movies were snappy. To attempt to replicate that by manipulating Smith's novels into this production misses out by a country mile.

Pathetic except for the photography and Art Malik.

It takes a lot of hard work to make a movie good, but it might take even more work to make one bad - really bad. In this gem everyone succeeds.

Let's not talk about plot holes here. Let's talk about craters instead. Ravines. And let's please talk about acting - and directing. The only halfway decent acting performance is by the colonel - or was it a general? And as for his name? It's not given here, so who knows? Credit for his piece de resistance is lost forever.

Roy Scheider? Why does he always get these horrible parts? Either he just can't land the good roles or he has terrible taste, and in this turkey he lands another good one and unless he's absolutely desperate for work (which the poor guy might be) he has terrible taste. Playing a heavy named - Grant Schiller? Schiller is German; Grant is not. Who comes up with these stupid names? Oh that's right: the singularly lacklustre Kevin Connor who has not a single impressive credit to his CV and also commits the ultimate insult of directing - or actually refraining from directing.

The absolute worst acting in the movie is by Katrina Gibson who shouldn't even be allowed on a sound stage to pluck litter. According to the IMDb, Gibson's been in an episode of Judging Amy. That must be the worst episode ever in that series.

Rounding everything out: you can't really have a bad bad movie unless the music is really stupid and annoying, but fortunately Canadian McCauley comes through with flying colours.

This one might work on slow kids in the five years of age range but hardly on anyone else. It will bore ten year olds and get them climbing the walls and screaming in protest.

Strangely we watched this one all through to the end. We were perversely fascinated by it, mostly and primarily because it was so bad. But recommend it to anyone? Why?

It takes a lot of work to make a bad movie, and this one succeeds in all possible ways. And it only makes you appreciate all the more how much work it takes to make a good movie.

I have copies of all of Wilbur Smiths books and have read and re-read them all. I decided to start finding and purchasing DVDs of movies that were made of his books to add to my library. After reading all the above critiques of the mini series on "The Seventh Scroll" and how everyone was upset with how 2 of Wilbur Smith's Egyptian series books were so horribly mangled in this mini-series. I'm going to save my money and re-read the books instead! This reminded me of how upset I was when I saw all of the James Bond movies and couldn't believe how the film industry could butcher and destroy the books written by Ian Flemming. And I certainly do not want to see any movie that mangles the GREAT works of Wilbur Smith the same way The movie and film industry did to Ian Flemming's James Bond books.

This one looks great! Great costumes, great photography, especially the Ancient Egypt shots are great. But that's it... The actors are really bad... The kid is maybe the worst. The criminals in the opening scenes with the car are from Police Academy or a Bud Spencer movie or something. They look like they don't fit this story at all. Or is it a comedy? And even if it was it is not a good one!

Roy Schneider (Blue Thunder!) is the only one here who can act and that tells everything. I bought the DVD without knowing what I would get, it just looked great on the cover. But this is not worth the money.

If you are a real Wilbur Smith fan, The Seventh Scroll TV mini series will probably be very hard to watch till the end. At least, for me it was. The script is way too simple; a lot of times the dialogs do not fit the character speaking, especially hapi's dialog. Besides that, the acting is unrealistic. For example, the "bad guys" at the beginning of the film look more like a caricatures then criminals. The only actor giving away some form of performance it the one playing Taita. He is probably also the one with a script closest to the text from the books.

If only a real movie director would have the courage to take on of Wilbur Smiths series and make it into one or more descent movies...