Sands of Oblivion (2007 TV Movie) User Reviews (20)

Better than average for the Sci-Fi Channel

[JoeB131 · 5/10 · 9 April 2008]

Which is actually one of those "Leper with the most fingers" distinctions.

The plot is kind of straightforward. We discover that an ancient evil was entrapped in an artifact. That artifact was moved to the United States by Cecil B. Demille, who used it in his first version of the Ten Commandments, then inexplicably buried the sets in the middle of the desert.

Flash to the present day, where a married couple of archaeologists played by Firefly veterans Adam Baldwin and Morena Baccarin, uncover the city, with the help of an Iraq War vet and his grandfather. What follows are the typical made for TV kills of ancillary characters, a dune buggy chase and some bad CGI.

Still, I'm recommending this film on the basis of the characterizations by Baldwin and Baccarin.

Starts out promising then goes nowhere

[pandax · 3/10 · 4 August 2007]

Watching the first 30 minutes of Sands of Oblivion gave me high hopes. It seemed I was in for a cheaper version of the Mummy. The setup was promising, in the 1920's Cecil B. Demille makes his opus of the Ten Commandments. It seems in using real Egyptian artifacts for the movie set they unleashed an ancient and terrible evil (don't they always?). Aware of what had been unleashed DeMille orders the entire set buried instead of the usual practice of tearing it down. Hopefully the evil will be buried with it for all time. Then we switch to present day where a team is attempting to excavate the site (the movie's first mistake, but hey those period costumes are expensive and this is a Sci-Fi channel movie). The first sightings we get of the Anubis monster are well done and it's a costume that they put some effort into and not the usual cheesy CG effect. Then the body counts starts. This is were the movie went south for me. The reactions to the fact that people are dying in gruesome and strange ways gets a strangely subdued reaction. Once they realize that the ancient evil has again been unleashed and is on a killing spree what do the stock issue leading man and lady do? They make the usual stop to the "guy who knows the truth but never told anyone". After getting that vital information do they share it with the comrades at the dig site? No, they stop off at a hotel for a refreshing shower and some pleasant small talk. Really I'm not the most motivated person but if I knew a demon from ancient Egypt was on the loose and killing everyone in sight and would be coming after me I'd put a little hustle in my step to solve the problem. After this overlong and pointless middle section they get around to destroying the Anubis monster in the usual way, by racing around in dune buggies and shooting it with a rocket launcher while it's standing by a pile of phosphorous grenades. For a Sci-Fi movie it was above the usual crap they put out, which isn't saying much at all. What disappoints me is this could have been a lot more if someone had wrote a decent script for it.

Hardcore Browncoats Only!

[soulsacker · 4/10 · 26 December 2007]

While the idea is more original than most Sci-Fi movies, the execution is, as usual lacking. While the practical mummy effects are not bad, and the "Gun Nut" character is over the top giggle inducing, the only real draw is to see Morena Baccarin and Adam Baldwin reunited on the small screen. I suspect that was the idea all along. They do the best they can with what they have but the "must see" moments for me were in the first 40 minutes or so when Morena's character sported some Tomb Raider style shorts. Not high brow cinema I know but you can't deny true beauty when you see it!!! And Adam Baldwin once again hams it up as the guy you love to hate. If you just want to watch a couple of your favorite Firefly characters have a good time with some sub par material then this might be for you. If you want good acting and character development then be advised to look elsewhere.

B-movie genius

[leavesonline · 3/10 · 27 February 2011]

Like more than a few others, my main reason for watching this masterpiece was the presence of Firefly actors. However, it soon revealed itself as one of those wonderfully unintentionally bad movies that when watched with friends and alcohol provide more entertainment than most sit-coms. I gave this 3/10 for content but as a comedy this would be a solid 9!

The opening bad CGI sets the scene and from there things only disintegrate: weak, indecisive plot that seems cobbled together from every archaeologically themed movie of the past decade; the sort of wooden acting that dominates made for TV movies; surreal dialogue; unnecessary characters; a Police car/buggy chase for no apparent reason and special effects that appear to have suffered extreme budget cuts.

Despite these faults, there are a few excellent reasons that this movie is worth watching: 1) Adam Baldwin shamelessly not bothering to act for the duration. 2) The jackal monster with hair made from stripped VHS tape. 3) The romantic tension with cringe-worthy double entendres. 4) The incongruous way that the Ancient Egyptian spoken is almost flawless. 5) The monster was apparently the Egyptian god of chaos and infertility (the horror!). 6) The Sheriff's hair. 7) The moment when Morena Baccarin chokes back non-existent tears and delivers the line 'at least he's buried with ancient history, the only thing he ever truly loved' with all the sincerity of a Hallmark greeting card. 8) The scene where our hero bravely defeats the murals. 9) The way that nobody ever considers it odd that there's an archaeological dig aimed at uncovering a film set...

So while this warrants a 9/10 on the comedy scale, whatever happens, do not make the mistake of watching this film seriously...

Funny for all of the wrong reasons

[dbborroughs · 1/10 · 14 January 2010]

TV movie about an ancient Egyptian curse brought to the US in the 20's during the filming of DeMille's first version of the 10 Commandments and which is reawakened when DeMille's sets are unearthed in the desert.

One of the worst films I've seen in a long time.

The question is were the filmmakers serious or kidding when they made this film? If this is serious its a laughably bad movie and a great film to pick on for its badness. If its a comedy its less good but funny for all of the wrong reasons.You will laugh long and hard AT this film, probably more than many other Hollywood "comedies".

Squandered concept

[SeriousJest · 2/10 · 21 September 2011]

Ancient Egyptian mythology, archaeologists, Iraq War Veterans, various weapons, and dune buggies. Sounds like a recipe for a cool Indiana Jones movie, right? Negative. 15 minutes in, I was wondering how I was going to make it through the rest of this movie. First off, the monster was ridiculous, but not even in a campy, funny way. The script was unnatural, cliché, and generally awful. The story/plot, or what tried to pass for one, was terrible, with no real set up for the puzzle that ultimately needed to be solved to beat the monster. While this movie tried to be exciting by employing military weapons and characters, the stunts and fight scenes involving them were simple and fake-looking. Further, the movie tried to seem knowledgeable about the military by having Webster indignantly explain to Baccarin the difference between a "jarhead" and a "soldier," but in the same breath, the former logistics soldier referred to himself as a "grunt," which is not an Army-specific term, but instead refers to infantrymen, which he was not. The only bright spots in this film were the dune buggy stunts, the Ancient Egypt scene in the beginning, a small cameo by Richard Kind, and a funny- while-convincing performance by Charles Lister as weirdo Vet-turned-gun- runner Buford. You could watch this for free at IMDb through Hulu, but I think it's better suited for tying down your worst enemy Clockwork- Orange-style and making him/her watch it.

A wonderful idea that sadly fizzles out

[TheLittleSongbird · 4/10 · 6 May 2012]

Sands of Oblivion is not a bad movie, it's just that it is not a particularly good one either. It did have potential to be though, with one of the best ideas SyFy ever had. The acting while not great is pretty decent, the dune buggy chase is exciting, the film is photographed quite nicely in more places than not and there is some striking scenery. However, the special effects are uneven, none of them are as bad as the ones(for example) for Titanic II but while some are serviceable, others are on the cheap side. The script is rather lazy and never consistent in tone, the story lacks thrills, a genuine sense of adventure and suspense for a movie typical of this genre and is never sure of what it wants to be and the characters are underdeveloped and clichéd(not just genre clichés but SyFy clichés too). In conclusion, lacklustre, had a wonderful idea and started off promisingly but fizzled out. 4/10 Bethany Cox

This is what happens when you run out of ideas ...........

[merklekranz · 1/10 · 22 September 2009]

I'm at this very moment debating whether I should even finish watching this "poppycock" of a movie. They had a pretty interesting idea, with the buried movie set, and that was it. So far this incomprehensible mess has no real story. There is the buried set, some wolf headed monster running amok, an amulet, and a bunch of bad actors attacked by the wolf masked whatever it is. What I would have missed, had I had the good sense to eject this nonsense is a dune buggy chase, some really bad C.G.I., some incredibly stupid dialog, more bad C.G.I., and the hero fighting paper cut outs. Other than the original idea, this film has absolutely zero redeeming qualities. My mistake for continuing to watch. - MERK

Ugarahu

[kols · 1/10 · 6 December 2010]

Three and a half stars! Unbelievable.

I like and respect the cast, which is why I sat through it, but this is one of those films that should have been aborted at script level. Doesn't make any sense, excessively bloody (for no reason), very poor special effects, insulting mangulation of Egyptian religion and a monster that can't seem to decide if it's a mummy or a god and keeps repeating its one line (Uraghah) ad nausea-um.

The last scene says it all, with Loony-Toons Ancient Egyptian soldiers pealing off ruin walls like paper cut-outs and, apparently, equally durable.

The greatest bad movie sin: neither funny nor entertaining.

If the scale extended to negative stars, I'd have given it -10 with lots of exclamation points.

Clicked spoiler box to avoid being blacklisted and yes, mangulation is not a real word, yet.

Update, 9-7-13.

Just tripped over it again on SyFy and will revise my initial review: you should watch it at least once just to watch the cast doing a heroic job of trying to carry the show.

Otherwise, it's worse than I remember. Absolutely nothing, from plot to dialog, makes any sense. Just one scene, George Kennedy standing on a sandy sand dune at a beach, using a walker, says it all. Except for the next scene, where a hole opens up beneath him and he winds up hanging upside down looking at a statue of Anubis wiggling its ears. In a 'chamber' with no visible source of light. A walker on an excessively sandy, like Sahara sandy, beach (and where's the ocean?) And watching Anubis wiggling it's ears in a totally darker than midnight room? No wonder Kennedy's character drops dead immediately thereafter (who do I have to F... to get out of this movie?)

My first time around I must of been spending so much time trying to keep my jaw from dropping that I missed how the performances verge just on the edge of camp.

Am example - the Primary (leader of the dig) is focusing on the day's finds (tight center frame) when she's attacked by that same Anubis, cutting to the silhouette of her tent as she's being strangled - an obvious reference to Boris Karloff's Mummy and reminiscent of a Betty Boop cartoon. (And how come monsters never seem to think of something else to do with sexy victims?)

Oddly, I'm finding those performances engaging, no matter how bad the dialog. Like watching people talking gibberish (or French) totally seriously.

Made for TV, good acting and story, bad effects

[mergatroid-1 · 3/10 · 4 August 2009]

When I saw this movie in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart I really didn't expect much. However, they did have a couple of actors from Firefly/Serenity and one from Supernatural. Of course George Kennedy is an excellent actor. So, there's no complaint about the acting.

The story is pretty good (a movie-set from early 1900s is being rediscovered for relocation before the area it is located in is flooded, however the artifacts are genuine Egyptian artifacts and one allows the release of an ancient Egyptian God. Let the blood flow.) My main beef with this movie is the same old beef people have had about low budget productions since they began filming them. The big monster is once again a guy in a cheesy suit. Of course, people like me who grew up on Dr Who and Star Trek are used to the actor in the cheesy suit syndrome, however I had thought that in the 21st century we would be seeing more cheesy computer effects than cheesy monster suits.

This monster suit is as bad as any I have seen. Complete with the stiff lower jaw that moves up and down like, well like a bad movie monster suit.

For producers who might per chance be reading this, please spend less money on hotels (you can get tents cheaper), food (I hear snake meat tastes like chicken) and bottled water (hey, just cause the water in the bucket is brown doesn't mean you can't drink it)and put the savings into making your monster look more real. A more realistic monster in this movie would have made the entire production better.

Hell, just making the monster headpiece more articulate would have vastly improved the movie.

So, if you're the type of person who can enjoy a play with bad effects, then maybe the monster suit won't bother you much and you can enjoy the rest of the movie. I got quite a laugh out of it myself, especially when the monster bit off George Kennedy's arm. It looked like someone had his arm in a stuffed crocodile's jaw, very funny stuff. Of course, I don't think it was MEANT to be funny. The rest of the movie was OK.

Once again, for people saying this is the worst movie, or second worse movie they've ever seen, I can only say they haven't seen very many movies. I can pull out 30 or 40 movies from my collection of over 500 that are WAY worse than this movie.

To put it into perspective, one day when I'm bored I might pull this DVD out and watch this movie again.

Not as bad as the rating suggests

[ArthurDental · 9/10 · 26 December 2008]

I'm rating this movie based on the average tripe that shows up on Scifi, often unfit for the name of the channel. Having said that, this is still an enjoyable escape for an afternoon or evening.

The plot is quite original, and it's a shame it wasn't used in a major feature production. Still, the plot was fast-moving and not too hole-y. And while it was a budget production, the effects were very serviceable and did not detract from the film. The second-to-final fight scene, in particular, sums that up. It has to be seen to be believed.

Having two leads from the Firefly cast didn't hurt, either. So it was a real surprise to find it getting 3.7 on IMDb. I think a bit of it has to do with a question posted on the message board here: what's an Egyptian God, "a false god", doing with the Ten Commandments?

If you're not a fundamentalist like that, I think you can enjoy this film.

What a Great Idea, But........

[bababear · 6/10 · 30 July 2007]

Over the years I've seen some pretty decent story ideas that the SciFi Channel has used as a basis for original films. They've usually gone to the bad because the money and/or skill needed to make them A quality entertainment just wasn't there.

THE SANDS OF OBLIVION gives them the chance to mess up not a good idea but a potentially awesome one that could have been as exciting as THE MUMMY or RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Unfortunately, the great idea just fizzles out.

The basis of the story is that when Cecil B. DeMille made the original, silent THE TEN COMMANDMENTS the studio bulldozed the elaborate sets in the California desert instead of recycling the lumber and other building materials. It seems that there had been genuine Egyptian artifacts used in the set and something Very Bad had been unleashed.

In the present day people are digging up the old desert location, and Something Bad is once again free to roam the Earth.

The cast is adequate to the job, and the special effects are really pretty decent. But the script and direction are uneven, and the film never finds a consistent tone. It veers into comedy and seems to disregard the numerous people killed by the newly unleashed monster. Near the end there's a dune buggy race that's professionally filmed but seems to have been cut in from another movie.

The original TEN COMMANDMENTS had a segment set in contemporary times (the 1920's) concerning the building of a cathedral with substandard material and the tragedy of putting cost and convenience in too high a position. A similar theme could have been developed with the lumber, which would be very well preserved in a desert climate.

THE SANDS OF OBLIVION is certainly worth watching, but the main thing I kept thinking was what might have been.

Wasn't as bad as I'd hoped...

[takeru51 · 3/10 · 29 July 2007]

I make a point out of watching bad movies frequently, and the sci-fi channel original movies tend to be one of the best sources for these movies you can find. As such, I'm sure you can imagine my disappointment when I saw Sands of oblivion. The acting was uncharacteristically sub-par, as opposed to the woefully disgraceful display sci-fi usually has in store for us. There are a few cameos made by people you'd most likely recognize, although you may not know their names by heart. The CGI special effects are minimal, and as such, one of the largest sources of comedy in a sci-fi feature is lacking. Sure, there are some funny moments like when a guy gets beheaded by a bulldozer, or when the main character leaves his friend to die in order to save a girl he's known for a couple of days, but overall, it ends up just not having you rolling on the floor with laughter, and I consider that a major disappointment.

If I was rating it on a 10 star scale made specifically to judge made-for TV movies, I'd probably give it a 4, maybe even a 5. A real shame that I may have to wait 'till the next sci-fi original movie to get a good laugh, and I really hope that this movie isn't part of some overall quality increase in sci-fi original movies.

Oblivious

[galahad58-1 · 3/10 · 10 March 2010]

Worse than the rating it has been given. This is a typical SciFi movie nowadays: bad to awful acting, a script that is poorly written, and shoddy direction. From the opening scene where DeMille is burying his set to the end, this movie is terrible. In the beginning scenes this movie has Moses (which was Charlton Heston in the DeMille film), Pharoah (Yul Brynner) and Nefretiri (Anne Baxtor) overlooking a boy burying a box in the sand. The characters that were to represent the three aforementioned icons were awful and had to resemblance to the people they were to "supposedly" be. The fact that this is in the desert away from civilization is hilarious when someone is hurt and they are all yelling for an ambulance. The screenwriter obviously is oblivious to the fact that there are no ambulances in the middle of the desert. I was sorely disappointed that Morena Baccarin decided to do a film of such low quality.

Second-worst movie ever

[mbaart · 2/10 · 5 April 2008]

This must have been one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

I have to disagree with another commenter, who said the special effects were okay. I found them pretty bad: it just wasn't realistic and they were so fake that it just distracted from the actual story.

Maybe that distraction is the reason that I did not fully understand the story. The archaeologists are looking for "the set". They do not bother to tell what set, or what is so special about it. That also makes it unclear why they search for it in California, while the intro of the movie takes place in ancient Egypt.

If you're shooting a movie that takes place in the desert, take the effort to actually go to the desert. The beginning - the ancient ceremony - looks like it was shot inside a studio instead of a desert.

The action-level was constant throughout the movie, no ups and downs, no climax. It made the movie look short, and that's certainly a pro for this particular movie.

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of Our Lives.

[Bernie4444 · 3/10 · 15 April 2024]

In 1923 Cecil B. DeMille filmed "The Ten Commandments". The filming location was Nipomo Dunes on the California coast, San Luis Obispo County. Near Pismo Beach the home of the Pismo clam.

There he buried the film set after making the picture. Some modern-day archaeologists dig it back up only to find that is not all they dug up.

Rats, no flame throwers but at lease White Phosphorus grenades will work just as well. I got a chance to use a couple of those critters during a military practice.

This film has a Hallmark feel to it and does not take too much time to make CGI look real.

With all the negatives it is still fun to pass the time with if you like all the sci-fi quickie movies where evil pops up mostly in desert scenes.

Much more entertaining than expected

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 8/10 · 20 July 2016]

When a crew accidentally unearths a long-lost film set from an Ancient Egyptian epic, they unleash a long-contained creature into the nearby desert and race to stop it before it completes it's mission of vengeance for being awakened.

This one manages to have some rather nice moments from it. A lot of what makes the film work is that there's some nice action scenes along the way here, which manage to give the film a really fantastic pace throughout here. The opening flashback showing the ancient Egyptians conjuring up the demon on the battlefield and battling the army of soldiers before finally burying it away in the sand-storm for the actual entertainment rite, the first encounter in the pit under the sand-dunes where it reawakens and attacks in fine form and the entry way into the crypt is highly enjoyable with the suspenseful crawl through the opening into the lavish main chamber before the the attack where it lurches out of the shadows to ambush them before being driven off in a flurry of action that's really enjoyable. Even later attacks, from the guard attacks on the transport route to the great beach scenes and even the longer, involved attacks as the encounter with the seductive demon-figure and the locust attack at the mote give this one some exciting and really thrilling action along with managing to give this a perfect base for the rousing, energetic finale. From the frantic dune-buggy chase through the woods out into the desert sand, a series of great brawls at the excavation site and finally the big battle at the end with the big creature and the reanimated sculptures on the wall all coming together with a couple rather suspenseful stalking scenes and even some gory deaths thrown in. As well, it's pretty nice to know it's possible to do a horror film on Egyptian culture without going for the mummy route, as there's a lot of fun here with the creature's appearance and supernatural powers that has some really fun times here. These here give this plenty to like against the few minor flaws to this one. Although there's a lot of fun to be had from this, it's Adventure-movie feel does leave the pace and tone a little disjointed here which makes this too upbeat here without really offering too many scary moments as it whisks itself off into another big action scene, which causes the pace to be a little thrown at times. That also causes this one to really gloss over the unleashed plagues part of the curse, which really should've been much more prominent here instead of how this one handles that kind of scene. The only other flaw here is the lack of clear-cut explanations for everything that are stated as fact, which is a big annoyance. Overall, though, it's not half bad.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Language.

Silly Tripe

[RickSkyboy · 6/10 · 29 July 2007]

I found "Sands of Oblivion" to be passable entertainment, which I kept watching for the joy of seeing Jayne and Inara together again. The evil entity was pretty lame....what was its goals? Take over the world, or just kill people because he/it was angry about something? The efforts of the hero and heroine were all aimed at saving themselves, which didn't seem to be worth documenting.

I liked the hero, Jayne and Inara did well, the special effects were OK, there was good comic relief with the Buford character, and a really good shock early on in the show. I didn't miss the two hours I spent on this show. For those reasons, I give it a six out of ten.

Nostalgic Film

[tenjor · 10/10 · 26 April 2022]

It's an endearing film, nostalgia is good, as long as Richar Kind is acting.

I congratulate the direction and the Script team with such an excellent job.

And that's where the excellent actress, Angel Princess, began to climb the acting ladder.

Another SyFy B movie gem

[funkyfresh91 · 7/10 · 25 July 2013]

I've been half-asssedly reviewing all the SyFy movies I've been watching, and every once in a while I find real gold- Sands of Oblivion had a great, cheesy story, some goofy characters (although not quite on scale with "Sand Sharks" band of loons), the occasional bit of inspired dialogue amidst plenty of throw-away material. But MORE importantly, the "action" was hilarious, and had some very surreal gore that unless you're giving the movie proper attention to, you're liable to miss. Yea, it's a stupid movie. One that you'll never see outside of the SyFy channel, and maybe never again afterwards. But for those "Wtf just happened" moments, some goofy violence, increasingly poor decisions and that B movie vibe, SandsofOblivion will kill 2 hours, AND give you some attractive people to root for.