Sands of Oblivion (2007)

Very best movie i ever watch

Simply A Masterpiece

Expected more

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Ancient Egyptian mythology, archaeologists, Iraq War Veterans, various weapons, and dune buggies. Sounds like a recipe for a cool Indiana Jones movie, right? Negative. 15 minutes in, I was wondering how I was going to make it through the rest of this movie. First off, the monster was ridiculous, but not even in a campy, funny way. The script was unnatural, cliché, and generally awful. The story/plot, or what tried to pass for one, was terrible, with no real set up for the puzzle that ultimately needed to be solved to beat the monster. While this movie tried to be exciting by employing military weapons and characters, the stunts and fight scenes involving them were simple and fake-looking. Further, the movie tried to seem knowledgeable about the military by having Webster indignantly explain to Baccarin the difference between a "jarhead" and a "soldier," but in the same breath, the former logistics soldier referred to himself as a "grunt," which is not an Army-specific term, but instead refers to infantrymen, which he was not. The only bright spots in this film were the dune buggy stunts, the Ancient Egypt scene in the beginning, a small cameo by Richard Kind, and a funny- while-convincing performance by Charles Lister as weirdo Vet-turned-gun- runner Buford. You could watch this for free at IMDb through Hulu, but I think it's better suited for tying down your worst enemy Clockwork- Orange-style and making him/her watch it.

When I saw this movie in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart I really didn't expect much. However, they did have a couple of actors from Firefly/Serenity and one from Supernatural. Of course George Kennedy is an excellent actor. So, there's no complaint about the acting.The story is pretty good (a movie-set from early 1900s is being rediscovered for relocation before the area it is located in is flooded, however the artifacts are genuine Egyptian artifacts and one allows the release of an ancient Egyptian God. Let the blood flow.) My main beef with this movie is the same old beef people have had about low budget productions since they began filming them. The big monster is once again a guy in a cheesy suit. Of course, people like me who grew up on Dr Who and Star Trek are used to the actor in the cheesy suit syndrome, however I had thought that in the 21st century we would be seeing more cheesy computer effects than cheesy monster suits.This monster suit is as bad as any I have seen. Complete with the stiff lower jaw that moves up and down like, well like a bad movie monster suit.For producers who might per chance be reading this, please spend less money on hotels (you can get tents cheaper), food (I hear snake meat tastes like chicken) and bottled water (hey, just cause the water in the bucket is brown doesn't mean you can't drink it)and put the savings into making your monster look more real. A more realistic monster in this movie would have made the entire production better.Hell, just making the monster headpiece more articulate would have vastly improved the movie.So, if you're the type of person who can enjoy a play with bad effects, then maybe the monster suit won't bother you much and you can enjoy the rest of the movie. I got quite a laugh out of it myself, especially when the monster bit off George Kennedy's arm. It looked like someone had his arm in a stuffed crocodile's jaw, very funny stuff. Of course, I don't think it was MEANT to be funny. The rest of the movie was OK.Once again, for people saying this is the worst movie, or second worse movie they've ever seen, I can only say they haven't seen very many movies. I can pull out 30 or 40 movies from my collection of over 500 that are WAY worse than this movie.To put it into perspective, one day when I'm bored I might pull this DVD out and watch this movie again.

Which is actually one of those "Leper with the most fingers" distinctions.The plot is kind of straightforward. We discover that an ancient evil was entrapped in an artifact. That artifact was moved to the United States by Cecil B. Demille, who used it in his first version of the Ten Commandments, then inexplicably buried the sets in the middle of the desert.Flash to the present day, where a married couple of archaeologists played by Firefly veterans Adam Baldwin and Morena Baccarin, uncover the city, with the help of an Iraq War vet and his grandfather. What follows are the typical made for TV kills of ancillary characters, a dune buggy chase and some bad CGI.Still, I'm recommending this film on the basis of the characterizations by Baldwin and Baccarin.

This must have been one of the worst movies I have ever seen.I have to disagree with another commenter, who said the special effects were okay. I found them pretty bad: it just wasn't realistic and they were so fake that it just distracted from the actual story.Maybe that distraction is the reason that I did not fully understand the story. The archaeologists are looking for "the set". They do not bother to tell what set, or what is so special about it. That also makes it unclear why they search for it in California, while the intro of the movie takes place in ancient Egypt.If you're shooting a movie that takes place in the desert, take the effort to actually go to the desert. The beginning - the ancient ceremony - looks like it was shot inside a studio instead of a desert.The action-level was constant throughout the movie, no ups and downs, no climax. It made the movie look short, and that's certainly a pro for this particular movie.