MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis (1994)

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

I've had my fair share of deliberately exposing myself to awful films with my film student friends in college in the nineties but this was RIDICULOUS! I can't even be bothered to say anything insulting about it, it was so befuddlingly bad. I mean - it was BAD. Not bad meaning good but bad meaning bad. All I can say is I'm glad I bittorrented it and didn't buy it or even waste time watching it on TV. I watched it in two sittings (the first one I fell asleep and I was sitting on a swivel chair). Gladly, spawnyjoe, zipper69, and JL have outlined the main aspects of awfulness so I needn't revisit them again. I suppose as an excuse it WAS made for an American audience, and indeed the performances weren't even up to the standard of bad UK TV, they were more like performances of westerners in an 80s HK film like Jackie chan (who usually seem to just be extreme sports guys or random English teachers or porn stars or something). I guess you can't blame the actors for this, the script sucked and the director was clearly out to lunch. The setpieces looked like they were made in the Blue Peter studio at the BBC. The explosions were OK though and the soundtrack was pretty good too - for that alone it gets two stars instead of one. It's a shame because I remember the series being pretty good - but then I was about twelve when I last watched it. Stay away from this at all costs and trust me, the time reading one of these reviews which save you from the time wasted watching the film is time well spent.

Anything that has to do with MacGyver is a perfect 10 in my opinion. RDA is an excellent actor with incredible range and a great sense of humor, and the pinnacle of his career was MacGyver! His other works that show his range include Through the Eyes of a Killer in which he plays a psychotic killer, Pandora's Clock where he plays a airline pilot who was in the Gulf War, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (TV series, not the movie) where he plays the oldest brother (And he sings too, not bad!), Past the Bleachers where he plays a grieving father, Beyond Betrayal where he plays a bad cop, In the Eyes of a Stranger where he plays a troubled cop, Legend where he plays a 19th century dime novelist who ends up impersonating the main character in his series of books (part comedy, part serious send up that is similar to The Wild Wild West TV series), and of course Stargate SG-1 where he plays at first an Air Force Colonel and then a Brigadier General. All of this from one man; so did I say MacGyver is a perfect 10? Well so is RDA!

This starts with Angus MacGyver and his old college professor Fat Shouting Actor Atticus going on a little jaunt to the Balkans to pick up some artifacts . You think being educated men Angus and Atticus would have picked up the artifacts before or after everyone in the region started killing one another but if they did that we wouldn't have a story . Strangely enough the first act is completely disposable and seems to exist only as a social conscience so we can hear MacGyver spouting lines like " mYou're committing ethnic cleansing , racial genocide " . Perhaps the worst thing about this is that you find yourself questioning if this is the right platform for people to be making these kind of speeches , I mean MACGYVER is supposed to be a fun show so should it be concerning itself with real life geo-political issues ? I mean in THE A TEAM no one came out with " The Republicans are obesessed with neo liberal market forces , so by helping ourselves we're not doing anything Reagan isn't doing " . You also can't help noticing that " The Balkans look suspiciously like Battersea Power Station in London . Guess where this sequence was filmed ? After being hit over the head as to why ethnic cleansing and racial genocide are bad things MacGyver and Atticus depart " The Balkans " and go to London ( Ha Ha Ha But they've been in London the whole time - I meant another part of London ) where the plot is explained and Angus and Atticus embark on an adventure to an exotic location - Actually a quarry . A lot of people describe this TVM as an Indiana Jones rip off but it's more in keeping with DOCTOR WHO since no matter where in the universe the characters go it always ends up looking like a few minutes drive from London Fans of MACGYVER might like this feature length adventure ( Most probably the 100 or so people who worked on it and gave 10/10 on this site ) but I didn't

I haven't watched many TV movies and don't care for them as a rule, but as a devoted MacGyver fan I was compelled to watch and tape this ABC special. I'm glad I did; this turned out to be one of the most enjoyable made-for-TV films I've encountered. I realize that this film (and TV movies in general) is one that isn't that easy to come across, and thus this comment won't be read by many, but after seeing the low rating that the film has now on IMDb, I wanted to offer my comment.The viewer will be struck by the engaging range of settings and the memorable action sequences, surprisingly diverse for a two hour film. We go to a pair of ancient catacombs, a buzzing military depot in the Balkan peninsula, a picturesque British university, Blessed's charming and messy office, a scenic mansion estate in Plymouth, and finally to Greece, where the finale takes place around an impressive underground lagoon. All of the British scenes were shot on location in England, and it's a pleasure to watch Mac crossing the streets of London. It gives the viewer a great sense of location. In fact, it's quite a glossy production for a TV-movie. Granted, the viewer must suspend their disbelief when we see some of the technology that the Atlanteans had at their disposal (including those metallic funnel things, complete with hinged handles, that Mac blasted out of the cave with the steam :-) ). Those stalactites in the caves of "Exeter" aren't very convincing, either. But after all, as one character said, "The most important thing an archaeologist needs is an open mind!" It's all in good fun, anyway. It's too bad one bitter IMDb user couldn't get over the fact that the Balkan scenes were actually filmed in England. Were we really to expect the producers to set up shop in war-torn Bosnia?Most important of all, there are plenty of memorable MacGyverisms. I especially enjoyed watching Mac figure out how to escape the military cell and then play around with the contents of a weapons shed. And with the familiar musical bits taken straight from the TV show and playing in the background, Mac fans will feel right at home. The tone is just like that of the show.Even though he didn't appear in the original TV series, Brian Blessed's character proved to be a welcome presence. His performance is bombastic but he keeps the character from slipping into triteness by evoking real intellectual interest and passion. Energetic, devoted to his history, blithe, and acting erudite when he really doesn't know what's going on, he's a guy who's easy to warm up to.Certainly, "Lost Treasure of Atlantis" owes some inspiration to the Indiana Jones series, but it's an engaging production nonetheless. And there have been many other such action-adventure flicks that have been less creative and more dull-witted than this one. If you're looking for globetrotting adventure and exciting action and entertainment, "MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis" will give you exactly that. Superior to the "Trail to Doomsday" MacGyver movie in every way. Check it out if it shows up on the Action channel.