Riddles of the Sphinx

The delectable Dina Meyer and the normally competent Lochlyn Munro co-star in this turkey made for The Sci-Fi Channel, about archaeologists unleashing an unkillable monster from an Egyptian tomb. Meyer looks great in black leather and shooting two guns at a time a la Tomb Raider Lara Croft while Munro simply looks like an idiot in an Indiana Jones hat about two sizes too big for his head. The movie goes nowhere once the monster is unleashed, which happens about five minutes in. At times, the creature looks like a poor man's griffin; at other times, it morphs into a bad copy of Inhotep from the first two THE MUMMY movies. The dialog is from hunger, as is the acting. Other than tuning in to get a look at the beautiful Meyer, this one is best skipped.

The Sci-Fi channel. Despite having some really good original TV series, I always think of the network first and foremost as the "Disaster/Monster B-movie network". Even its documentaries are blatantly science fiction. That may come as a shock to some people, but dude, you CAN'T find a crystal skull with a metal detector...

I only watched this movie because I was bored and I have a more than passing fascination with archaeology. I don't normally watch Sci-Fi Saturday.

Now, as a writer, I understand that ideas are a dime a dozen, but I also know that we've been out of ideas pretty much since we've had the ability to HAVE ideas. That said, I understand the similarities to The Librarian and Indiana Jones, but COME ON! Don't make the hero of this movie dress IDENTICALLY like Jones! That's just taking the similarity too far!

I applaud the idea of a female hero, but don't make her so gung-ho about guns that she admits they're her "security blanket" and continues using them after realizing time and time again the hard way that the monster's completely bulletproof.

I can also understand the need to draw in the young adult demographic, but having the tweenaged girl be a complete genius and outthink the adults in almost every scene smacks of badly written Mary Sue fanfiction, especially if the concerned father seriously makes such a stupid decision as to take the kid into the heart of the war in Iraq(wearing bright pink no less), let alone repeatedly exposing the kid to an invulnerable monster when there's a perfectly good hidden sanctuary where she'd be safe. There's a reason why we have satphones, people.

As for the writing, the movie was so completely predictable, it's hard to come up with a suitable adjective to describe it.

Take a guy dressed as Indiana Jones, a woman dressed up to look like Lara Croft, stick in a kid and wrap it up with some home made computer effects and you have this movie. Honestly, you can hear the lack of imagination that was shown in the pre-production meetings screaming at you through the screen. I mean why would you so blatantly copy two of cinemas iconic characters like this? It's bound to effect the entire film project. And I say 'film' very loosely as it looks like it was shot on tape. The sets aren't too bad but the green screens don't do the locations any favours. So what about the plot? Well this is one of these where you couldn't care less. The characters are writen so one dimesionaly and lines delivered so blandly you can't invest in them. It's terribly over written and the shots way too long, but the worst part is the choice of lead male actor. He is beyond bad. Even for tv. I can only assume he was chosen because hit fit the Indy jacket. It's worth watching to knock one off over Lara. She wears her outfit well. But it's all just badly put together rush at the end of the day. Oh and there's some bald guy hanging around them for some reason... like a Star Trek security guard... I think you know why 😊 One for 6 year olds to keep them busy while you do your tax returns.

A hacky pastiche of Indiana Jones, Lara Croft and a little of "The Librarian", with mediocre acting, a non-sensical script, and a shape-changing sphinx who is alternately mediocre CGI and laughable human. While not as truly vile as some of the SciFi channel offerings, there is little else to recommend this. You could find a worse way to waste two hours, but you would have to try. As usual, everywhere in the world (Greece, Iraq, etc.) look just like where the movie was shot, in this case Canada. The sets are either obviously something else (power plant standing in for secret underground base) or so minimal (burned out 50 gallon drums for Iraqi war zone, a few Styrofoam pillars for Greek ruins) as to be distractingly laughable. Everyone continues to shoot at the obviously bulletproof monster, and if you can't guess who the traitor is I hope your babysitter didn't ruin it for you.

I couldn't take this movie seriously from very early on in the movie. The CGI department, or whomever was giving them instructions, obviously didn't know what a sphinx looks like and decided to go with a strange looking griffin instead. Even I could tell the difference between the two creatures while I was still in grade school.

The acting was fairly poor. The make-up department should never be hired by anyone ever again. The bald guy looks like his head was shaved the day they stared filming and make-up never even tried to blend the skin tone.

The script was pathetic. I've seen some bad stuff on SciFi and this is one of the worst. The male lead just comes off as corny while the female lead is normally a much better actress. The little girl suffers from the Wesley Crusher syndrome. People don't like this so why do they keep using it as a plot device I will never understand.