Tag: treasure

The Serpent’s Fang, by Ryan Mullaney

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Literary rating: ★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆½

“Cara Loft, Room Trader…”

This book comes with a fairly lengthy note at the end, in which the author explains how he came to the idea here. Five words are all that were necessary: “I ripped off Lara Croft.” Because this is the closest I’ve yet seen to the literary version of an Asylum mockbuster movie, such as Tomb Invader. Globe-trotting locator of lost artifacts? Check. Remarkable gymnastic abilities? Check. Orphan? Check. I think it was when I read “Simone started to tie her hair into two braids”, that the eye-rolling began in earnest.

The story begins with her discovery of a lost city in Cambodia. While Simone Cassidy is recovering from that, she is recruited by a secretive quasi-governmental organization, to help them recover the titular blade. This ancient Aztec dagger is laden with legendary mystical energy, and the government want to stop it from falling into the wrong hands, those who would misuse its powers [not something a government would ever do, of course…] Initially reluctant, our heroine is lured into joining up with the promise of information about her parents – who, wouldn’t you know it, were also treasure hunters, before their untimely death. Cue more eye-rolling.

Naturally, they’re not the only ones after it. There is also Heather Severn and her colleagues at SWANN. Do not ask me what that stands for, because we are never told. We don’t learn much about their aims and motivations either, other than that they are “A private organization skilled in tactical combat.” They work for Felix Enderhoff, a private collector of artifacts who wants the Fang… because for him, it appears to be like Pokemon, and you gotta catch ’em all. When word seeps out that a clue to the location of the blade has been found in Mexico, he dispatches Heather and her team, aiming to beat Simone and her quasi-governmental colleague, Lincoln and April, to the punch.

From there, it’s a race through Mexico City to the clue, some gratuitous library-fu, then off into the jungle, and on towards the goal. The main thing we discover is that SWANN are actually more than a bit crap at tactical combat, failing on numerous occasions to take out Simone and her team, despite heavily out-numbering them, and Simone having virtually no fighting experience. Though her psychological qualms about using violence are actually one of the book’s few redeeming merits, and certainly fit in better than her pathological fear of… automobiles? While a result of the car crash which killed her parents 25 years earlier, all I could think of was an Indiana Jones-like line: “Cars. Why did it have to be cars…”

It’s all not very interesting, with little here you won’t have read or seen before. You don’t get much insight into either Simone’s character or the world which Mullaney wants to build. The Fang is no more than a McGuffin, and even when its powers are revealed [Felix, like all megavillains, simply has to be there at the denouement], they’ll provoke little more than “is that it?”. The book itself will probably do the same.

Author: Ryan Mullaney
Publisher: Sunbird Books, available through Amazon, only as an e-book.
Book 1 of 3 in the Treasure Huntress series.

Tomb Invader

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★½
“Deserves to be buried.”

Anyone can review Tomb Raider. Here, we go the extra mile and review the third-rate knock-off version. For despite being someone whose fondness for maverick studio The Asylum is already on the record, even I have to admit this one is not at all good. It’s one of their “mockbusters”, clearly designed to cash in on the Tomb Raider reboot, and I can see some potential ways how this could have worked. For example, hire a real athlete – ideally Jessie Graff, but probably someone cheaper from the parkour field – and make a no-frills but CGI-free version, with a heroine actually doing impressive things in the running, jumping and climbing department. [Call me, David Michael Latt! Let’s talk…] Instead, we get a cast of four, walking around a forest for 80 minutes and bickering at each other, book-ended by five minutes of somewhat interesting action.

This is, however, as much a rip-off of Indiana Jones as Tomb Raider, right from a heroine called Ally (Vitori), as in short for “Alabama”, who lectures in archaeology at a university. There’s an early scene involving escape while being chased by a rolling stone, differentiated largely by the presence of spikes on it. Hmm. The main plot concerns the search for an artifact called the Heart of the Dragon, which Ally’s mother died looking for in China, twenty years previously. When the late mother’s journal resurfaces, Ally is drawn back to China – or, at least, stock footage thereof, before cutting to the non-Chinese forest – by billionaire Tim Parker (Sloan). He has hired Ally’s rival, Nathan (Katers), and the difference in tomb raiding, sorry, invading philosophy is what leads to the bickering mentioned above.

The lack of energy here is likely the most painful element. Our explorers go through the forest at approximately the speed you would escort an elderly relative around a botanical garden, and when they eventually reach the artifact site, and further booby-traps are unleashed, there no sense of urgency to escape. Even after one of the team is taken down, it’s entirely lacking in emotional impact, partly because the victim served little or no purpose to that point, and partly because they were painfully annoying whenever they opened their mouth. The “real” original movies, particularly the second entry, were no great shakes, yet they look like classics put next to this pale and weak imitation.

Vitori does occasionally look the part, and the minimal amount of action she gets to do is not poorly handled. I did like the sequence where a terracotta statue came to life and had to be fought: it’s exactly the kind of thing I expected to see from this. The film needs about sixty more minutes like it, rather than the jaw-jacking in the woods we actually get. Though considering this was likely made for less than the budget devoted to the care and nurture of Alicia Vikander’s eyebrows, I guess we should be grateful for whatever we get.

Dir: James Thomas
Star: Gina Vitori, Evan Sloan, Samantha Bowling, Andrew J Katers

Relic Hunter: season one

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★★★
“Sydney Fox and the Temple of Tomb.”

relichunterMore or less shamelessly ripping off Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider in equal measures, this Canadian TV series ran for three seasons and 66 episodes between 1999 and 2002. The heroine is Sydney Fox (Carrere), a Professor of history at “Trinity University,” who is renowned for her ability to track down historical artifacts lost for centuries – and, unlike some of her colleagues in the business, return them to their rightful owners. She is assisted on the road by Nigel (Anholt), her British assistant who is smart, but far happier in a library than taking part in the globe-trotting or fist-fighting, in which Sidney revels, and back at base by Claudia (Booth), her bubble-headed secretary who got the job largely because her father is a major donor to the college.

The episodes are almost completely standard, starting with a historical prologue, to show how the relic was lost. Someone goes to Trinity to ask for help finding it. Sydney and Nigel follow a series of clues bringing them closer to the relic. There’ll be another group hunting the same object, for mercenary or other reasons, often with an unexpected agent working for them. Expect secret passages and protective traps, some fisticuffs as Fox takes out the villain’s goons, light romantic tension, a mildly life-threatening situation and a happy ending as the treasure is found and something moral is done with it. The only things that change are the McGuffin and the country involved. The latter is generally as close as the Canadian shooting location can fake it, though the end of the season did appear to fund a trip for actual shooting: five of the last six episodes had a French setting.

It’s hardly challenging stuff, and the action is generally several level sub-Buffy, in part because Carrere lacks much physical presence. The history on view is particularly woeful too, with basic factual errors surrounding just about every “real” character. All told, after the first couple of episodes, which seemed particularly stilted, I contemplated quietly forgetting the entire idea. However, I persevered, and the series did slowly grow on me. Sydney and Nigel develop a nice chemistry, and there are occasional moments which suggest a more tongue-in-cheek approach than you might expect. For instance the line delivered on their entrance into an Amsterdam bar: “Why do I suddenly feel like I’m in a Kubrick film?”. Or, as shown below, there’s the muddy catfight between Sydney and a female adversary, which is almost as self-aware as the one between Denise Richards and Aunjanue Ellis in Undercover Brother.

Make no mistake: even by the low standards of network television, this is hardly great, being incredibly derivative, and unwilling to stray anywhere outside its comfort zone. And yet… Once I came to accept these limitations, I found myself increasingly entertained by the fluffy lack of envelope-pushing. This is the televisual equivalent of putting on a beloved bath-robe: well-worn, comfortable, and you know exactly what you’re going to get. If not something you probably want to wear all the time, there are occasions when it’s just what’s needed.

Star: Tia Carrere, Christian Anholt, Lindy Booth, Tony Rosato

Undiscovered Tomb

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★★★
“Tomb service.”

Obviously inspired by a certain raider of tombs, this has Yuan as Georgia, who was rescued from an orphanage, along with her sister (Koinuma) and trained in… well, raiding tombs. When their foster father vanishes while on an expedition seeking the secret of immortality, the two siblings head off to look for him, only to come under attack from a range of locals, natives and the local fauna. Meanwhile, Professor Ivy Chan (Shimada) links up with billionaire art-collector Michael Lui (Wong), and discovers that shady forces are after a relic possessed by Ivy, and that they need to follow the girls into the remote jungle.

The best thing about the film is certainly Yuan, and it’s not surprising when you consider her pedigree – her mother is Cheng Pei-Pei, the Jade Fox herself. She has the necessary charisma and action chops to succeed, and it’s a shame her IMDB filmography included only half a dozen features after this one. The problems with the film are not just elsewhere, they’re almost everything else. Koinuma is profoundly irritating, whining perpetually about make-up, and the attacks serve no purpose beyond an apparent requirement for an action scene every 10 minutes – it’s painfully obvious the same guys are playing all the villains, and there’s only about four of them. Finally, if you’re going to write a script that requires a 20-foot snake, check with your special effects house they can deliver something at least slightly convincing. This step was clearly omitted entirely here.

Despite these painfully obvious flaws, I can’t say I was ever bored here. There’s no shortage of action, and it’s decently-staged, with Yuen proving a more than adequate Joliealike. I also enjoyed the majestic (Chinese?) landscapes which acted as a spectacular backdrop for the jungle sequences. Overall, it was certainly more entertaining than the over-blown Cradle of Life, and on a per-dollar of budget basis, probably comes out ahead of its original inspiration as well.

Dir: Douglas Kung
Star: Marsha Yuen, Miyuki Koinuma, Yoko Shimada, Ken Wong

Silverhawk

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★★½
“Comic-book stuff – unfortunately, in the bad sense of the phrase.”

There’s no doubt about the aesthetic they’re aiming for here; heroine with secret identity, sneering evil nemesis, gadgets, etc. Take a Marvel comic from the 60’s, transplant it to the modern Far East, and there you are. Indeed, this period is apparently where SilverHawk originated; unfortunately, the makers failed to learn from similar failures such as The Avengers, The Mod Squad and Wild Wild West, and the results are lacklustre.

The problem here is mostly a script with no idea how to fill the gaps between the fight scenes, succumbing to the nemesis of so many HK films: juvenile humour. Jen is the worst offender, playing a cop out to track down Lulu Wong (Yeoh), a.k.a. SilverHawk, who is so incompetent we’re given no credible reason to believe he’d be put in charge of tea-making, never mind a high-profile investigation. They were in the same orphanage as kids: yes, it’s that kind of script. Inevitably, they team up to go against bad guy Alexander Wolfe (Goss) who wants to control people’s minds using mobile phones – the satirical potential in this idea is, inevitably, never realised. The potential for product placement, on the other hand…Nokia and BMW are the big winners there.

That’d all be okay, if the action was above average. It’s not. While still the best thing here, we actually fell asleep during the climax, and had to rewind once we woke up. There’s little sense of escalation: once you’ve seen the opening battle, that’s pretty much all the movie has to offer, save various gimmicks. Silverhawk battles thugs on bungee cords! [The producers were clearly hoping we’d all forgotten Tomb Raider, which at least made a thin pretense at explaining itself there] Thugs on roller-blades! Wolfe is clearly not short of imagination – except when it comes to giving his henchmen firearms, naturally.

It’s great to see Yeoh, now in her forties, still do a motorcycle jump across the Great Wall. However, things like the clunky mix of languages cripple this, and the result definitely won’t help Yeoh’s career. After Tomorrow Never Dies and Crouching Tiger, the world was at her feet, but projects such as The Touch and this one have proved very disappointing. Her talent remains clear; her judgement, on the other hand, is clearly very questionable.

Dir: Jingle Ma
Star: Michelle Yeoh, Richie Jen, Luke Goss, Brandon Chang

Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life

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★★
“Tomb for two, please.”

tomb2aThe first problem with the film is its title, a clunky mess apparently lacking in any punctuation – I’ve taken my best guess at what it should be above, even if it doesn’t line up with the first movie. But hey, new director, new grammar… Interestingly, Steven E. De Souza gets a screenplay credit this time round – he was one of the people who wrote a rejected script before the original film was made, and I wonder how much has been recycled here.

Certainly, a lot of what was said about the first film applies equally to the sequel; despite much affirmation that, this time, they’d really got hold of the character, the potential remains largely unfulfilled. Instead, we get something that (ironically, in the light of previous comments) nicks large chunks from Indiana Jones, adds a flavour of Mission: Impossible 2 and loses most of the more interesting elements from first time round.

The plot here concerns the search for what is, effectively, Pandora’s Box, which turns out to be a genuine artefact containing a deadly plague. Evil overlor…sorry, industrialist Jonathan Reiss (Hinds) wants possession, in order to sell it to the highest bidder as a biological weapon, and use the antidote to control who’ll be allowed to populate the post-plague world.

Though most of the film is concerned more with the struggle for possession of an amber orb, which points to the location of Pandora’s Box. This contest takes the participants from Greece to England to Kazakhstan to China to Hong Kong to Taipei and finally Kenya, though there’s so little local flavour it feels more like an episode of Alias, quickly establishing itself with stock exterior footage, before switching to an obvious sound-stage.

While Barrie and Taylor return as Lara’s sidekicks, they get given very little to do, which is disappointing, since their characters were entertaining elements first time up. Instead, Lara gets a sidekick, Terry Sheridan (Butler), a dubious character who first needs to be taken from a central Asian jail, and who was romantically entangled with Croft in the past. His fate is obvious.

Indeed, so is much of the movie, save the opening sequence, which instead opts to be so ludicrous as to defy belief. Lara lures in a shark with her own blood, then turns it into a jet-ski, before being picked up by her own personal F-sized submarine. Even for a video game, this is stretching it, and the sound you hear, is most of the movie’s credibility, heading shame-faced for the exit as it mumbles something about another appointment. What little is left, gets swamped in an orgy of product placement that rivals recent Bond movies.

tomb2bIt does give you plenty of time to wonder about little things like the wisdom of instigating a shoot-out in a germ warfare laboratory, how many years have passed since someone parachuting off a tall building ceased to be exciting, and the failure to make Sheridan a credible opponent for a fist-fight with Lara Croft. The finale does feature some interesting CGI creatures, though any explanation of their presence, lust for human flesh, or ability to melt into solid rock is notable by its absence. Jolie still is Lara Croft, to an almost uncanny degree, but even her Oscar-winning talents can do little when faced with a script of such limited means.

Director De Bont can direct action, as was shown in Speed – since then it’s been downhill. Twister, Speed 2, The Haunting, and now this, which has almost nothing worth mentioning as far as thrills go. It’s nice to see Hong Kong veteran Simon Yam as a smuggler, and his fight with Croft in a cave full of terracotta warriors is kinda cool, but the rest is distinctly mediocre, relying too much on doubles or CGI. The film desperately needs a tent-pole sequence to make you go “Wow!”, like the training robot or bungee-ballet from part one.

Not the worst big-budget, girls-with-guns pic of the summer (that’d be Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle), but it’s significantly below the first film, which was flawed enough in itself. The harsh truth is, there is nothing here that justifies keeping the franchise going, and that’s really sad.

Dir: Jan De Bont
Star: Angelina Jolie, Gerard Butler, Ciaran Hinds, Noah Taylor

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

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★★★
“Tomb with a view.”

tomb12.jpgAfter a tortuous journey (about which, see elsewhere), Lady Croft finally made it. The end result is wholly satisfactory in some ways, yet severely deficient in others. First up, the good news: Angelina Jolie is Lara, so much so that you can’t imagine anyone else in the part. [Other suggestions included Elizabeth Hurley, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Peta Wilson and even – ick! – Anna-Nicole Smith. Paragraph break for shuddering, here.]

Helped by Jolie’s reported willingness to do pretty much any stunt, this is crucial, and allows the film to hit the ground running – as well as jumping, climbing, and swinging around, with a gun in each hand. The first half an hour is everything you could hope for, beginning with a sequence where Lara fights a robotic monster, looking more than slightly like ED-209 from Robocop. It turns out to be just a training device, but there’s an edge to it, and even an almost sexual element as the beast drives between Lara’s open legs. PG-13? Hmmm… Her sidekicks are only slightly less satisfying; tech wiz Bryce (surely a nod to the nerd of the same name in Max Headroom), and stuffy butler Hilary are exactly the sort of people you’d expect Lara to have around.

Unfortunately, the further you go from Croft, the lamer things get, with her chief opponent for much of the movie being mid-level henchmen Manfred Powell (Glen), rather than the Illuminati who are apparently running things. To draw a parallel, it’s as if Austin Powers was taking on Mini Me, rather than Dr. Evil, and Powell falls well short of being an adequate villain. Describing the overall plot as weak would be charitable. It’s the quest for various pieces which, when put together, will create a device allowing the holder to control time, rule the world, and presumably, get pizza delivered before they actually order it. There’s also a deadline, due to an imminent planetary alignment which only happens once every 5,000 years.

 This is more an excuse than anything coherent, almost as if the many writers operated on alternate pages, without being able to communicate with each other. It also suffers from an overdose of meaningless exotic locations, leaping from Venice to SE Asia to Siberia, without any real purpose or sense of location ever being present. The theme, according to director West, is time, but you need this pointed out to you, as it never goes beyond the painfully obvious, for example, time lost between Lara and her father. Ah, yes: Lara’s father. The stunt casting of Jolie’s real father, Jon Voight, deserves points for gall, but doesn’t come off as it should. You’re too busy trying to work out whether anyone in the film is actually using their real accent, what that hairy thing on Voight’s lip is, and whether you have enough time to hit the bathroom before the next action sequence.

tomb1.jpgOnly in motion do you sense what might have been. It’s highlighted by the ‘bungee ballet’, when Croft’s mansion is attacked by minions seeking an artefact in Lara’s hands. She starts, swinging from the ceiling on elastic ropes – contrived, yes, but such fun to watch that we easily forgive it – before moving to the garage and back to the main hall. Croft uses everything to hand, and it’s the closest the movie comes to the game’s inventiveness. Jolie even did the bungee-work herself, allowing West (and action director Simon Crane, who deserves his own movie some day) largely to avoid obvious stunt-doubles. [Red Dwarf fans will also appreciate Rimmer stalking around with a shotgun!]

The previously mentioned opening, and the sequence involving a massive rotating orrery replicating the solar system, also work very nicely. But if the final battle with Powell feels like a tacked-on late addition, that’ll be because it was a tacked-on late addition, according to West’s commentary on the DVD. One wonders if much else was changed on the fly, as this would go some way towards explaining the inadequacies in the film’s storyline and villains. Overall, it still ranks well-above average as a video-game adaptation – albeit largely because there have been so many inept ones. Standing alone, it succeeds to a smaller extent, with some truly great sequences, and an excellent lead performance. But there’s way too much padding in a very weak script, and it’s this which prevents it achieving Indiana Jones-like greatness.

Dir: Simon West
Stars: Angelina Jolie, Ian Glen, Noah Taylor, Daniel Craig

"Wholly satisfactory in some ways, yet severely deficient in others."