The Seventh Scroll (1999)
In the year 3000 BC an illegitimate son is born to Queen Lostris and the brave warrior Tanus. Her devoted eunuch Taita, a loyal servant, takes the baby boy and places him in a basket on the Nile. Five thousand years later, during our time, famous archaeologist Duraid al Simma and his wife Royan discover Queen Lostris's grave at the same spot, with ten scrolls inside it resembling a form of diary. The seventh scroll, which contains directions to Mamose's magnificent tomb with the legendary treasure, disappears without trace. Soon afterwards the couple adopt an unusual boy who displays an almost magical urge to be close to the Nile, so they name him after the river god Hapi. It is only ten years later that Taita's secret is almost solved. Fanatical art thief Schiller is also very curious about the information, and tries to track down more with the aid of his sidekick Boris.
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How sad is this?
Don't Believe the Hype
It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
It takes a lot of hard work to make a movie good, but it might take even more work to make one bad - really bad. In this gem everyone succeeds.Let's not talk about plot holes here. Let's talk about craters instead. Ravines. And let's please talk about acting - and directing. The only halfway decent acting performance is by the colonel - or was it a general? And as for his name? It's not given here, so who knows? Credit for his piece de resistance is lost forever.Roy Scheider? Why does he always get these horrible parts? Either he just can't land the good roles or he has terrible taste, and in this turkey he lands another good one and unless he's absolutely desperate for work (which the poor guy might be) he has terrible taste. Playing a heavy named - Grant Schiller? Schiller is German; Grant is not. Who comes up with these stupid names? Oh that's right: the singularly lacklustre Kevin Connor who has not a single impressive credit to his CV and also commits the ultimate insult of directing - or actually refraining from directing.The absolute worst acting in the movie is by Katrina Gibson who shouldn't even be allowed on a sound stage to pluck litter. According to the IMDb, Gibson's been in an episode of Judging Amy. That must be the worst episode ever in that series.Rounding everything out: you can't really have a bad bad movie unless the music is really stupid and annoying, but fortunately Canadian McCauley comes through with flying colours.This one might work on slow kids in the five years of age range but hardly on anyone else. It will bore ten year olds and get them climbing the walls and screaming in protest.Strangely we watched this one all through to the end. We were perversely fascinated by it, mostly and primarily because it was so bad. But recommend it to anyone? Why?It takes a lot of work to make a bad movie, and this one succeeds in all possible ways. And it only makes you appreciate all the more how much work it takes to make a good movie.
After reading both _River_God_ and _The_Seventh_Scroll_, I can't begin to express how disappointed I was with this film. While I agree some poetic license may be admissible, this movie is at constant variance with the books, doing an incredible injustice to the exciting, plausible and wonderful stories written by Wilbur Smith. I can only believe that the writers, director and producers of the movie have never even heard of Mr. Smith, let alone read his work. Smith's vibrant characterizations are converted into wooden stick figures, all historicity is ignored or discounted, the realism of the books has been changed to include phantom monsters more appropriate to a cartoon. And why is an Egyptian henchman speaking Spanish? Geesh, no wonder the movie was made into a TV miniseries! Did Wilbur Smith have any input into the making of this movie? I can't believe that he did. Terrible, terrible movie. If you've read either or both of the books, don't waste your time or money watching this money. You will be sorely disappointed, I assure you.Only a moment of supreme generosity persuaded me to give this movie a ranking of '2', and that only because of the beautiful, sometimes spectacular, photography.
Well, I've read the book first and thought: wow would this be cool to see in a movie, than I started searching and found there was already a movie made of it... I bought the movie a week ago on DVD and watched it.. they did it awfully wrong! at first this kid Hapi,who isn't any character in the book, then the mix between the two books ('the river god' and 'the seventh scroll') than Nicolas needing funds while in the book he himself is actually the funder, the whole thing about the Hyksos is wrong also.. Taila is supposed to have invented the lightweight-chariot.. the whole thing about the tomb is also very wrong.. there is supposed to be a channel that has some kind of vacuum-suction around it.. the tomb itself was made in a maze with only a possibility to pass if one knows the rules of the ancient boa-game. There was nothing in the movie about Nicolas being English and Royan was a Coptic-Christian in the book, not a Muslim..This list is endless.. There were only a few things good about the movie, the actors which played Royan, Nahood, Taita, Boris, Mick and Tessay were well-chosen, the rest were just parodies of the characters in the book, Rasfer was the worst, it didn't get even close to the character that was in my head while I wrote the book.. It is such a shame that such a great book is mutilated in such a bad reproduction... I wonder why Wilbur Smith ever gave his permission for this..
Greatest and best movie I have seen for years. Excellent and exciting story, never for a second boring. Wonderful acting, Art Malik as Taita, as the scribe from ancient Egypt being the best. The film is full of emotions and happenings, the parallel way of plots in modern age plus in ancient times was done without disturbing the flow of events. Great credibility all through the film. When can I buy it on video?