Sands of Oblivion
“Sands of Oblivion” is a Sci-Fi channel production that although it’s ambitious and it has a wonderful cast, it lacks a good screenplay or production values. For me going into this film it didn’t really matter how awful the film was because for me just the chance to see Morena Baccarin and Adam Baldwin back together in a film was enough to entice me to purchase the DVD. For those of you that aren’t very familiar with those names they were Inara and Jayne respectively on the tv show Firefly and the movie Serenity. As for the story line its pretty convoluted. The film opens in ancient Egyptian times were a group of worriers defeat some sort of evil spirit with a medallion. Then the film jumps ahead to 1923, were filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille is finishing filming the epic The Ten Commandments.
After filming was completed, he bulldozed the sets into the Guadalupe Sand Dunes of the central California coast. It’s explained that somehow the medallion that was shown at the beginning of the film somehow got on set and was buried with the props to protect the world from the evil it could unleash. This takes us to modern day were Alice Carter (Morena Baccarin), a paleontologist that is digging up the remains of the set from 1923. Adam Baldwin plays her estranged husband Jesse Carter that decides to try and get things back on track by helping her at the site. Then there is the hero Mark, played by Victor Webster that comes to the site with his grandfather that was a boy at the time when the film was made and witnessed things on the set that still haunt him. Pretty soon the evil vengeance god, played by a man in what looks like a doberman pincher costume is freed and starts killing the group of workers one by one. The plot has a few twist and turns along the way so I won’t ruin the ending but a lot of the plot points that are revealed late in the film don’t make a lot of sense or are just plain confusing. That being said though it does manage to deliver a fairly satisfying ending, even if it was cliched.
The most frustrating part for when watching this film was the sense that this could have actually been a very original good movie. The problem was the writing. The script was co-written by Kevin VanHook who is quickly becoming a regular contributer to low budget trash that populates the Sci-Fi channel and in regards to his writing this film was no different. Although the general idea for the film was good and original nothing in the script was. The characters were one dimensional, the dialogue was cliched as was the motivations and poorly planned jump scares. The directing on the other hand was actually pretty good. Director David Flores delivers a fairly tight and well shot film that managed to move along quickly enough which was no easy task when your working with a script like this one had. Everything was lighted and set up well in the film and the camera angles worked. Aside from the script the other big draw back of this film was the CGI.
To put it bluntly, it was awful. Poor effects are to be expected in a film like this but the problem was that they were used way too much. Nearly every other scene had a big special effect, from creatures to even objects in the background that didn’t even need to be there. The bad computer effect were boundless. When there was actually any practical effect with the death scenes or the main monster they were pretty good, its just a shame that they were so rarely used. As for the acting it wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good either. Fans of Firefly will be disappointed especially with Morena Baccarin’s performance. It isn’t bad and she is a great actress but her role doesn’t offer any of the same sexual confidence that she had in Firefly and she is put in some truly stupid situations. That being said, one of the highlights of the film was her prancing around in a pair of short shorts for a good portion of the film. Adam Baldwin was also fairly good and has a role a lot closer to what he had on Firefly the only problem is he comes off as more of an asshole and less of just a funny prick. Overall this film wasn’t a complete waste of time and I enjoyed seeing some familiar faces in the cast but the film missed it’s mark. At best it can be enjoyed as a cheesy grade-b horror film which is a shame since it could have been a lot more.
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