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A Legend Not Worth Uncovering

Mike Schorn | APO, AE United States | 05/15/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"In hopes of possibly securing a little-known gem, I picked up "Legend of the Lost Tomb": a film by Jonathan Winfrey ("Cousin Skeeter") and produced for TV by Hallmark. However, it quickly became apparent that the movie contained no legend worth knowing about, and that there was good reason for it remaining forgotten in most circles.

The plot goes like so: 15-year-old John Robie (Brock Pierce, First Kid) is joining his father Dr. Eric Leonhardt (Rick Rossovich, The Terminator) on an archaeological dig in Egypt; once there, he fails to find his father, but meets up with honour student Karen Lacy (Kimberlee Peterson, Last Man on Planet Earth [VHS]), and the two of them are swiftly pursued by the man who kidnapped John's father in hopes of stealing his discovery - the notorious Dr. Bent (Stacy Keach, "Mike Hammer"). It's eventually revealed that both Bent and Leonhardt were in pursuit of the sacred scarab of Pharaoh Ramses II - the object said to grant pharaohs access to the next world after death.

While it sounds like and tries to be "Indiana Jones" for kids, the film is a far cry from Spielberg; as a matter of fact, it's a far cry from any respectable director, because "Lost Tomb" seems to be devoid of any constant director altogether. The movie is a mishmash of shoddy photography, flip-flopping tones, bad editing, poorly-incorporated history lessons, and promising actors gone to waste. Stars Pierce and Peterson are generally the mules to bear the brunt of this film's mediocrity, and they do so painfully: switching tones of voice on the fly and muttering strange dialogue ("You said you came here to see your father, not meet him") as they pretend to climb the Great Pyramids - a feat accomplished by showing a wide shot of the actual structure before showing a close-up of the kids scaling a mound of bricks - and run from the villains in chase scenes that are either greatly sped up or shot on an unstable tripod.

Nothing about this film is great, but most maddening is the fact that it unexpectedly shifts between levels of badness: one moment, it's your run-of-the-mill silly adventure flick, and the next, it's knee-deep in Peterson's atrocious acting, poorly-animated laser beams shot from stone statues, and script snafus like Karen being introduced to Dr. Leonhardt twice. Worst of all, the film tries to teach you a lesson in Egyptian history while it goes along, but does so by not separating fact from mythology, and assuming that animated visages of Ramses' spirit breaking free of its resting place are a necessity for the film's climax - if this were the case, the movie shouldn't have been about archaeologists, but wizards.

The film was actually one of the last that Brock Pierce would act in before becoming a producer, a businessman, and getting caught up in a sexual abuse case, but his performance is no worse than that of any of the other actors. "Legend of the Lost Tomb" encompassed all of the weaknesses of film in a single package, and is generally only tolerable to younger viewers (the film is rated PG, and not PG-13 as listed). Really, there's no need to watch this movie; find something else."