Sands of Oblivion (2007)

To me, this movie is perfection.

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Like more than a few others, my main reason for watching this masterpiece was the presence of Firefly actors. However, it soon revealed itself as one of those wonderfully unintentionally bad movies that when watched with friends and alcohol provide more entertainment than most sit-coms. I gave this 3/10 for content but as a comedy this would be a solid 9!The opening bad CGI sets the scene and from there things only disintegrate: weak, indecisive plot that seems cobbled together from every archaeologically themed movie of the past decade; the sort of wooden acting that dominates made for TV movies; surreal dialogue; unnecessary characters; a Police car/buggy chase for no apparent reason and special effects that appear to have suffered extreme budget cuts. Despite these faults, there are a few excellent reasons that this movie is worth watching: 1) Adam Baldwin shamelessly not bothering to act for the duration. 2) The jackal monster with hair made from stripped VHS tape. 3) The romantic tension with cringe-worthy double entendres. 4) The incongruous way that the Ancient Egyptian spoken is almost flawless. 5) The monster was apparently the Egyptian god of chaos and infertility (the horror!). 6) The Sheriff's hair. 7) The moment when Morena Baccarin chokes back non-existent tears and delivers the line 'at least he's buried with ancient history, the only thing he ever truly loved' with all the sincerity of a Hallmark greeting card. 8) The scene where our hero bravely defeats the murals. 9) The way that nobody ever considers it odd that there's an archaeological dig aimed at uncovering a film set...So while this warrants a 9/10 on the comedy scale, whatever happens, do not make the mistake of watching this film seriously...

Three and a half stars! Unbelievable.I like and respect the cast, which is why I sat through it, but this is one of those films that should have been aborted at script level. Doesn't make any sense, excessively bloody (for no reason), very poor special effects, insulting mangulation of Egyptian religion and a monster that can't seem to decide if it's a mummy or a god and keeps repeating its one line (Uraghah) ad nausea-um.The last scene says it all, with Loony-Toons Ancient Egyptian soldiers pealing off ruin walls like paper cut-outs and, apparently, equally durable.The greatest bad movie sin: neither funny nor entertaining.If the scale extended to negative stars, I'd have given it -10 with lots of exclamation points.Clicked spoiler box to avoid being blacklisted and yes, mangulation is not a real word, yet.Update, 9-7-13.Just tripped over it again on SyFy and will revise my initial review: you should watch it at least once just to watch the cast doing a heroic job of trying to carry the show.Otherwise, it's worse than I remember. Absolutely nothing, from plot to dialog, makes any sense. Just one scene, George Kennedy standing on a sandy sand dune at a beach, using a walker, says it all. Except for the next scene, where a hole opens up beneath him and he winds up hanging upside down looking at a statue of Anubis wiggling its ears. In a 'chamber' with no visible source of light. A walker on an excessively sandy, like Sahara sandy, beach (and where's the ocean?) And watching Anubis wiggling it's ears in a totally darker than midnight room? No wonder Kennedy's character drops dead immediately thereafter (who do I have to F... to get out of this movie?) My first time around I must of been spending so much time trying to keep my jaw from dropping that I missed how the performances verge just on the edge of camp.Am example - the Primary (leader of the dig) is focusing on the day's finds (tight center frame) when she's attacked by that same Anubis, cutting to the silhouette of her tent as she's being strangled - an obvious reference to Boris Karloff's Mummy and reminiscent of a Betty Boop cartoon. (And how come monsters never seem to think of something else to do with sexy victims?)Oddly, I'm finding those performances engaging, no matter how bad the dialog. Like watching people talking gibberish (or French) totally seriously.

Watching the first 30 minutes of Sands of Oblivion gave me high hopes. It seemed I was in for a cheaper version of the Mummy. The setup was promising, in the 1920's Cecil B. Demille makes his opus of the Ten Commandments. It seems in using real Egyptian artifacts for the movie set they unleashed an ancient and terrible evil (don't they always?). Aware of what had been unleashed DeMille orders the entire set buried instead of the usual practice of tearing it down. Hopefully the evil will be buried with it for all time. Then we switch to present day where a team is attempting to excavate the site (the movie's first mistake, but hey those period costumes are expensive and this is a Sci-Fi channel movie). The first sightings we get of the Anubis monster are well done and it's a costume that they put some effort into and not the usual cheesy CG effect. Then the body counts starts. This is were the movie went south for me. The reactions to the fact that people are dying in gruesome and strange ways gets a strangely subdued reaction. Once they realize that the ancient evil has again been unleashed and is on a killing spree what do the stock issue leading man and lady do? They make the usual stop to the "guy who knows the truth but never told anyone". After getting that vital information do they share it with the comrades at the dig site? No, they stop off at a hotel for a refreshing shower and some pleasant small talk. Really I'm not the most motivated person but if I knew a demon from ancient Egypt was on the loose and killing everyone in sight and would be coming after me I'd put a little hustle in my step to solve the problem. After this overlong and pointless middle section they get around to destroying the Anubis monster in the usual way, by racing around in dune buggies and shooting it with a rocket launcher while it's standing by a pile of phosphorous grenades. For a Sci-Fi movie it was above the usual crap they put out, which isn't saying much at all. What disappoints me is this could have been a lot more if someone had wrote a decent script for it.

I make a point out of watching bad movies frequently, and the sci-fi channel original movies tend to be one of the best sources for these movies you can find. As such, I'm sure you can imagine my disappointment when I saw Sands of oblivion. The acting was uncharacteristically sub-par, as opposed to the woefully disgraceful display sci-fi usually has in store for us. There are a few cameos made by people you'd most likely recognize, although you may not know their names by heart. The CGI special effects are minimal, and as such, one of the largest sources of comedy in a sci-fi feature is lacking. Sure, there are some funny moments like when a guy gets beheaded by a bulldozer, or when the main character leaves his friend to die in order to save a girl he's known for a couple of days, but overall, it ends up just not having you rolling on the floor with laughter, and I consider that a major disappointment.If I was rating it on a 10 star scale made specifically to judge made-for TV movies, I'd probably give it a 4, maybe even a 5. A real shame that I may have to wait 'till the next sci-fi original movie to get a good laugh, and I really hope that this movie isn't part of some overall quality increase in sci-fi original movies.