ORBzine - April 2006 Movie Reviews
Dead By Midnight
Timothy Hutton [
Iceman, The Dark Half, 5 Days to Midnight
] wakes up with amnesia.
Suzy Amis
is his wife - or is she?
Eevil scientist John Glover [ Brimstone, Smallville ] is after them.
This is a mediocre made-for-TV pseudo-thriller.
Lion of Oz
This is a cartoon musical,
written by a descendant of the author of the original Oz novels.
A sentient lion and his circus buddy [Dom Deluise - Stargate SG-1 ] take balloon ride, and end up in the land of oz. The wicked witch kidnaps the fat human, and forces the lion to go on a quest. On his way he meets assorted buddies, sings songs and so on.
Derivative crap, but child-friendly.
Curse of King Tut's Tomb (2005)
The film starts with a badly-phrased piece of exposition,
badly read out by Casper van Dien [
Beastmaster III, Starship Troopers
]. Apparently the boy pharoh, Tut-Ankh-Amun, had magic powers and fought demons. Like
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
. Now, in the period just after the First World War,
Casper must retrieve bis of a stone tablet that re-open the portal to Hell.
Casper's enemies are the Hellfire Council, led by Malcolm McDowell [ Clockwork Orange, Star Trek: Generations, Tank Girl ]. They are the richest and most powerful men in the world, who want to rule by Black Magic instead of economic power. Fools!
Casper prances around dressed as Indiana Jones . Luckily, the French Foreign Legion have a unit in British teritory, about a thousand miles from whre they should be. They play an important part in his plans.
Casper teams up with a beautiful Egyptologist, just like in The Mummy . She opposes the shipment of artefacts to the British Museum. Of course, Casper would rather claim them for the American Empire's Smithsonian. Or perhaps he would give priceless pre-Islamic relics to anti-American locals?
It turns out that the discovery of Tutenkamun's tomb, in reality performed by Howard Carter and Lord Caernarvon, was somehow achieved by a Yank and a gaggle of mercenaries in the pay of France.
This sad piece of crap was directed by Russell Mulcahy . My how the mighty have fallen - he started with Highlander , then fell to Blue Ice, but he must be desperate to pay the bills now!
Strangely, the writer was also responsible for the similar, yet far superior Librarian: Quest for the Spear . Seems he was a one-hit-wonder too. Poor bastard. It's downhill from here for him.
The second half is full of crap as well. Egypt was now somehow a Republic in the 1920s!
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