Treasure Guards (2011)

Too much of everything

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

A Masterpiece!

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

Let me start by saying I love Anna Friel. I would watch her reading the phone book. But this movie is almost less interesting. The male romantic lead and his "brother" are a little hard to understand, and the concept of "treasure guards" is a notch below how the believable the Librarian is. And what-his-name Raoul the guy is hard to understand. But what makes it clear how bad the filmmakers are is the fight scenes (impossible to follow) and the montages. The concept of the seal of Solomon is no worse that most other movies, but the writer(s) do not know how to tell a story. The directing is okay as long as no one is moving too fast, but nothing special. But I love Anna Friel.

First, let me say that Anna Friel does a pretty good job here, but unfortunately she's clearly in a different league to anyone else involved in this film. Maybe some of the other actors are OK; it's hard to tell because the film is so badly made.Somehow, despite a reasonable premise for a treasure-hunting story, there is just no atmosphere. It's completely flat, with no sense of drama or, frankly, interest. The performances are wooden, the filming is crude and the pacing is woeful.Near the start there are a couple of scenes with three girls in (and out of) bikinis, on a yacht. The director seems comfortable here, which makes me wonder if the crew is more used to making cheap porn. Certainly the feel of the film is that no-one really cares about the story, the characters or for that matter the basic principles of film-making or storytelling.

"What could be more devout then protecting the relics that God himself has revealed to man?" While on a dig archaeologist Victoria Carter discovers an ancient parchment that tells the location of the lost Seal Of Solomon with God gave to King Solomon. When word of this gets out more then just Victoria begin to search for it. The search becomes a battle between good and evil. I am a huge fan of movies like this. Indiana Jones, National Treasure and the Da Vinci Code movies are so much fun to watch over and over so I was looking forward to this. The beginning started off OK and made me interested. The longer the movie went on though it started to drag and lose me a little, the end was OK but really this wasn't as exciting and interesting as I was hoping for. I would compare this movie more to the Libraian series then the other big budget ones like this, but seeing as they are both TV movies you can't fault it for that. Overall, an OK movie on it's own as long as you don't compare it to the big budget ones. I give it a C+.

Surprisingly watchable. Anna Friel (best thing to come out of Rochdale since Gracie Fields) is lovely as archaeologist Victoria Carter. Frankly if it hadn't been for her I wouldn't have stuck with it.Unfortunately she does eclipse her 'co-stars' Raoul Bova and Volker Bruch who are wooden and difficult to understand. Scenes with just the two of them are painful. And they do spoil the film.I actually thought David Sherwood was good as Professor Elgar but he doesn't pop up much, either in this film, or on film generally. Shame. Andre Jacobs, as her dad, does a good impersonation of Roger Moore. But we don't see much of him either. Until they all get together at the end.There's a bit of topless nudity early on (not Anna) and the whole thing sets off at a fair old pace as she discovers an ancient parchment that may reveal the location of the seal of Solomon.The plot wasn't easy to follow but the dialogue was believable, at least the bits I could understand. Not bad for a writer who cut her teeth on Eldorado! Anyone remember that? Anyway I'm going to be generous and give it a six.