Prisoners of the Sun (2013)

A Major Disappointment

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

In Egypt, Prof. Hayden Masterton (John Rhys-Davies) organizes an expedition to a pyramid to witness an event that takes place only once every 5000 years. But he needs to buy a key from a local dealer that will awaken aliens from outer space that are hidden inside the pyramid. However the treasure hunter Peter Levitz (Michael Higgs) kills the dealer with Masterton's walking stick and steals the key; then he blackmails Masterton to participate in the expedition. When the team breaks in the pyramid, they find deadly traps and only a few will survive and Masterton uses the blood of his own daughter to activate a system to awaken the aliens. Will Earth be doomed to an apocalypse?"Prisoners of the Sun" is a movie of action, adventure and horror with a lame and messy unoriginal story. It is funny to see Prof. Hayden Masterton preparing an expedition where a key is necessary but he will only buy it in the last minute. The plot and unpleasant characters are near ridiculous but the acting is reasonable despite the histrionic John Rhys-Davies performing the lead role. The special effects are decent but the disappointing conclusion is awful and this film deserves the IMDb User Rating. My vote is three. Title (Brazil): "O Despertar dos Deuses" ("The Awakening of the Gods")

"Prisoners of the Sun" starts out with an interesting premise--the idea that elements of Egyptian mythology actually represent extraterrestrial powers who may be brought back to Earth when the signs are right-- but unfortunately fails to develop this idea very well. Admittedly, some of the problems the film has are the result of a low budget, but there are dramatic weaknesses that go beyond that. First and foremost, the script is incredibly tepid, and not much of anything happens for long stretches of time. Even towards the end, when our cast of characters are on the brink of a historic discovery in the haunted catacombs of an ancient pyramid, there is little action or suspense. Naturally, since this is a film about ancient Egyptian mysticism and curses, there is an undead mummy, but despite the mummy's prominent disposition in the film's trailer it actually has only a tiny role in the story and disappears from the proceedings pretty quickly. The screenplay needed a healthy dose of adrenalin to bring the admittedly interesting plot to life, but instead there is simply a lot of unconvincing exposition from one scene to the next. As a result, even the film's relatively short running time seems to go on interminably. One the plus side, the cast is for the most part decent and capable, though regrettably the one exception is the actor playing the part of Dr. Adler, the film's hero, as he is badly miscast as a scholar and is totally unconvincing in the role. Overall, "Prisoners of the Sun" is just too uninvolving and lackluster to recommend. There was the potential to make a respectable movie, but the opportunity is never realized.

I don't think this movie is worth the time even on DVD! The movie brought us to an interesting concept where the undead can be commanded (not unusual) when there's some planetary alignment (not unusual either). It's an adventure, with a little action that I must say, gets me going to want to watch till the end. However so, the way the actors/actresses acted was not somehow convincing. To add matter worse, the way the story goes, especially towards the end, was nothing good too! I was very disappointed at this production, as this has the potential to make it quite interestingly-good. Unfortunately this movie is definitely-definitely not recommended.

Well this was a nice weekend afternoon sort of movie that was mostly well filmed, and written. The acting is all a bit over the top, but that would meet the style of the film. John Rhys-Davies is really the biggest surprise, I know he was in the Rings movies, but otherwise what we have seen of him in the last 10 years has mostly been images of him in rapid decline. However to my great surprise, the man looks as spry as he did in the long ago days of Sliders, and he is just as energetic in his acting as ever. I did Enjoy this movie over all, the plot had holes, and there was a bit to much of a rush to make the ending resolve that the lead up feels like it was almost wasted. The effects are mostly seamless, and for the fact that this does actually almost work is why I would recommend this movie to anyone who has an afternoon to kill. If you have not seen the Mummy movies though go watch them, or some old Allen Quartermain.