Toutânkhamon: le pharaon maudit

Personally, and although I like to watch it, I have a lot of itchiness with films and TV series based on historical material. They usually end up having so little rigor in the way they show the past and the real historical characters that they become worthy of my hatred or my disdain, as a historian. This series is another one, with an aggravating tone: we don't know as much as we wanted about Tutankhamun's life. In fact, as far as we know, Tutankhamun is one of the most unlit pharaohs of the dynasty to which he belonged. The story of his father, Akhenaten, is much more interesting in that he led a serious religious conflict in the heart of Egypt, a country where Pharaoh was also head of the state religion. However, it is not possible to escape the fascination that this young king has on us. He is, with his funerary mask, the face of Ancient Egypt.

The real Pharaoh Tut was born out of an incestuous union and began to reign around the age of ten. He married a half sister, with whom he had two daughters who did not survive childhood. The series addresses the problem of succession, but refers very briefly to these births and treats them as simple abortions. The series also takes the opportunity to create around the Pharaoh a web of intrigues and conspiracies involving the vizier Ay, who was head of the government, and the general commander of the army, General Horemheb. Both characters existed and came to reign, successively. One of the most wrong points of the series, from the point of life of historical rigor, concerns the Mitanni. The series portrays this kingdom in a way that, despite never placing it on the world map, seems to place it in present-day Sudan, reasonably close to Egypt for the characters to travel in just a few days' journey. The reality is, however, very different: the Mitanni kingdom was one of the Hurrian kingdoms and was located more or less in today's Kurdistan, far enough from the Egyptian capital to never represent a threat! Even more striking is the wrong way in which Tutankhamun himself is portrayed. In addition to his reasonably European features and white complexion, the pharaoh is shown to be a healthy person, even athletic and able to fight. In fact, and based on the analysis of his mummy, we know that Tutankhamun was fragile and would have had difficulty walking because he suffered from a mild form of scoliosis and a deformed foot. So forget the warrior pharaoh!

Now that we have seen how this series was able to run over history, the question remains: was it worth it? In fact, the series entertains, works well as an entertainment piece despite deceiving people and giving the wrong idea to Pharaoh! Reasonably well done and with an excellent cast, the series is decent.

The cast is strongly based on the performances of two specific actors: Avan Jogia and veteran Ben Kingsley. Both were effective in their work and knew how to act effectively, especially Kingsley, who gave Ay a Machiavellian aura. We also have the good performance of Kylie Bunbury, who gave life to the most emotional character and able to reach the public. Also admirable and praiseworthy were the efforts of Nonso Anozie and Iddo Goldberg. Sibylla Deen gave us the most fragile interpretation, but it was still quite convincing, especially in the scenes with the most dramatic load.

Technically, it is a series of average quality. Cinematography is quite good considering the TV quality that the series exudes. Using and abusing CGI and the green screen that everything makes possible, it was possible to recreate Egypt without great costs, although losing that pleasant feeling of realism. The royal palace with those overlapping floors, for example, is too fanciful to be credible and there are more problems of logic and lack of credibility to arise everywhere. This is the case of Egyptian military armor, clearly invented without the support of archeology, and having as its objective only and only the aesthetic criterion of production. The soundtrack is good, but of TV quality.

Sometimes we forget how good modern production values are. The sets on this mini series were outstanding and showed ancient Eygpt in it's full glory. Avan Jogia who plays Tut did a great job, he looked and acted the part brilliantly and he even stole scenes he played opposite Ben Kingsley.

I thought Nonso Anozie was very good as the general, torn between his own desire for adulation and his allegiance to the young Pharoah.

Sibylla Deen, who plays Tut's wife/sister was gorgeous and I thought she played her part well. Kylie Bunbury, who plays the other love interest of Tut was also beautiful and clearly a brilliant actress.

Some of the sex scenes were unnecessarily graphic but that aside this was a good series well worth a watch.

I am sure this is not historically accurate but very few of this type of film is.

This show was a total and pleasant surprise. I would of loved to see it have a chance to developed more but all and all a very good show. People dogging this show lose sight that is TV show not a documentary full of facts and figures. The show served it's purpose of providing drama and a very good story. From a production stand point I thought it was outstanding. Actors and actresses who I've never heard of had a chance to shine and for the most part did a very respectable job. As with most TV drama there are going to parts that could of hit the editorial floor but for Spike TV to feature a show off this magnitude I thought it was well done and definitely worth watching!

The costumes were absolutely gorgeous. The deceit, treachery and politics all seemed very apropos to today's goings on in the world. The photography was good and the scenes were engrossing. Good casting using Ben Kingsley, and the young Pharaoh was also well-cast.

I understand that this is the first original production for Spike TV. Well congratulations to you, Spike, because it was a very good show. The only issue I had was that the volume of the dialogue was too low in proportion to the volume of the music and/or action scenes.

I look forward to more original productions by this up and coming channel.

Not sure if this is Spike TVs first attempt for a TV movie but if it is it was well done. Giving the network is considered a guy's version of Lifetime it definitely had all the elements you'd expect in a movie made for fuys while appealing to the women too. Action packed battle scenes betrayal love and destiny.

I got to admit the set designs even the CGI to form the background to show the glory of how Egypt may have looked in its prime was not that bad at all. Even the costumes were well done.

Story was well paced for me and I found myself concerned for Tut and was cheering for him to succeed. There obviously isn't a lot of story about Tuts reign but it to my knowledge covered the political and economical issues we do know may have happened in his time. Tension relations with outer tribes and economic distress. Though a lot of Historians believe he was mildly crippled and may have not fought his own battles he was buried with war armor so it's easy to assume maybe he did. Besides movie wouldn't be as interesting if he wasn't in the battles so why not.

Actors were pretty good in it. Ben Kingsley of course was great but a lot of the other actors ,except Nonzo Azonie from Game of Thrones season 2, were unknowns to me and did a good enough job to not make me cringe every time they opened their mouth.

If you're looking for a movie to fill your need for the disappointment of Exodus: Gods and Kings this will be a great one to watch. Sure not all the actors were Egyptian. Hard to find true Egyptians today like it is Mayans but at least the actors look like they would be. Not white actors with bad body paint like Exodus.