A silly adventure set in the Valley of the Kings, this is entertaining but filled with a lot of nonsense, starting with Lesley Anne Downe's hair and continuing with her screaming every time she's in trouble even though she claims to be a tough Egyptologist. The film starts off in 1300 BC and then switches to the present day, the flashbacks to the past really inconsequential other than to show some of what happened during the days of the Pharaohs as far as tomb invasion was concerned. The poor young man trying to get Invaders out of the tomb is drawn and quartered for his trouble and puts a curse on anyone in the future who will invade the pyramids, and somehow we're supposed to believe that the people fighting over tomb treasure are somehow connected to this curse. It starts with Downe visiting antique shopkeeper John Gielgud (fine in his acting but ridiculously cast as an Arab), witnessing a brutal murder then all of a sudden being followed around everywhere she goes and finally under the protection of local law enforcer Frank Langella. He's a little bit more believable as an Arab, but not by much. For fans of the same year's "Raiders of the Lost Ark", John Rhys-Davies is present, although here he's definitely a bad guy, although every character at one point or another in this film seems to be pretty evil.
Certainly loaded with a lot of realistic looking Egyptian treasures, it's easy to watch yet just as easy to forget once it's done because there's nothing new about it, very similar to the previous year's "The Awakening" as far as budget and artistic merit is concerned. There's a lot of comic relief too, starting with someone slapping Downe when she screams, allowing for her to slap him back, only to get that slap minutes later to her declaration of "I don't like being slapped even when I'm frantic." If she got slapped every time she was frantic in this movie, there would be a line of people waiting to do so, just like the hysterical woman in the previous year's "Airplane!"
I've seen more annoying females intruding where they shouldn't be in other films, but the situations that she gets herself involved in arr ridiculous, starting with her trapped in a cave overnight then all of a sudden finding herself in the midst of Seti's tomb. Langella plays the most complex of all the characters, and you're never quite sure which side that he is on oh, eventually revealed to be related to tomb raiders from his childhood. His magnetism on-screen is undeniable, and he is quite stunning to look at. But the film overall is preposterous and clunky, reminding me of the type of adventures that Hollywood used to put out in the 1950's, a great popcorn flick but filled with more holes than all the grooves in the stones of all the pyramids put together.
Certainly loaded with a lot of realistic looking Egyptian treasures, it's easy to watch yet just as easy to forget once it's done because there's nothing new about it, very similar to the previous year's "The Awakening" as far as budget and artistic merit is concerned. There's a lot of comic relief too, starting with someone slapping Downe when she screams, allowing for her to slap him back, only to get that slap minutes later to her declaration of "I don't like being slapped even when I'm frantic." If she got slapped every time she was frantic in this movie, there would be a line of people waiting to do so, just like the hysterical woman in the previous year's "Airplane!"
I've seen more annoying females intruding where they shouldn't be in other films, but the situations that she gets herself involved in arr ridiculous, starting with her trapped in a cave overnight then all of a sudden finding herself in the midst of Seti's tomb. Langella plays the most complex of all the characters, and you're never quite sure which side that he is on oh, eventually revealed to be related to tomb raiders from his childhood. His magnetism on-screen is undeniable, and he is quite stunning to look at. But the film overall is preposterous and clunky, reminding me of the type of adventures that Hollywood used to put out in the 1950's, a great popcorn flick but filled with more holes than all the grooves in the stones of all the pyramids put together.