The Lost Treasure of the Grand Canyon DVD Review
The Lost Treasure of the Grand Canyon DVD Review
Some things should stay lost.
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The title of this movie sounds likes it's going to be a fun, spooky ride along the lines of tween-classics such as Wanda Nevada, Escape From Witch Mountain, The Watcher in the Woods, or even Stephen Sommers' Mummy movies. It is so not. (First clue: the DVD promo proudly announces the enclosed opus is "from the producers of Sands of Oblivion and The Fallen Ones"!)
A silly story which would be much better-served with young adults in the roles and a PG-style approach, The Lost Treasure of the Grand Canyon instead follows 30-something Susan (a haggard Shannen Doherty), a treasure-hunter on a quest to locate her missing dad, an elderly tomb-raider in the person of Dr. Samuel Jordon (Duncan Fraser, maybe making a mortgage payment).
I'm guessing it's the 1920s, maybe before, and spirited Susan is obviously a suffragette — while we simply suffer, as the lame plot limps along hindered even more by sluggish direction from television hack Farhad Mann. At least Clay Carmouche's script makes an effort to be tongue-in-cheek — there are some funny, if rimshot-worthy, lines — but the approach isn't at all humorous and the actors are so wooden they shouldn't have been directed so much as whittled.
We all know what Doherty is capable of in the performance arena, but some of the other names in the cast may not ring memory bells. Michael Shanks plays her would-be suitor, as does J. R. Bourne, rounding out a barely hinted-at love triangle. The former is a Smithsonian big wheel, while the latter is… I don't know. I never could quite figure out why he was there on the hunt for the missing doctor, but the addition of Heather Doerksen as Hildy Wainwright (another lady archeologist, also sporting a most unfortunate, but accurate, Gibson-Girl hair-don't) made enough sense. Shanks is good on Sci-Fi Channel's "Stargate", and so he is adequate here, as is the other "Stargate" actor, Bourne. Doerksen, also …wait for it… a "Stargate" alum, is probably the best thing in the film: Haughty Hildy has some of the choicest lines and Doerksen delivers them with winking relish. But those moments are all too brief.
As the search party wades through the blistering desert sands on their way to the secret mine in which they believe Dr. Jordan met his end, they encounter several subpar Indiana Jones style death traps (including kooky quicksand, human-sacrificing Aztecs, and obvious tripwires) not to mention nasty sunburns and a battle involving a mythological flying serpent-god that looks like something from a children's coloring book. No, really: the CGI is that bad.
Unless you have a soft spot for super-cheesy Sci-Fi Channel movies, a cracked sense of humor, or you are in Original "90210" rehab, think of The Lost Treasure of the Grand Canyon as cinematic Prohibition. (To be fair, if you are a fan of any of the actors, you might find the making-of featurette charming — after watching it, I liked them better and hence, had some pity. You should see the review I could have written.)
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson