This may or may not contain a spoiler. I never made it to the end of the movie but I'm really disappointed and may let slip something about the threadbare plot (such at is it) that those actually daring enough to watch a Sci-Fi original movie may not want to know about.
But then again this was a Sci-Fi original movie and by now we should probably know better. Alas the previews made this seem like it was going to be a fun knock-off of Army of Darkness with the shot-gun wielding hero fighting Harpies instead of Deadites, which sounds like a really fun B-movie premise. Especially since this is supposed to be about a security guard in a museum that gets transported into the past.
It's such a simple premise how could anyone go wrong with that, right? Alas what we get is an excruciating piece of drek that shouted "we're using Stargate SG-1 set rejects" almost from scene one and goes downhill from there.
Yes, this was a blatant attempt to make a cheap knock-off of Army of Darkness, and it fell, like Stephen Baldwin, flat on it's face in pig effluent. But that it appears sets were either recycled or copied the look of the "Ancient's Writing" for use in the artifact on display in the museum was mind boggling. Could it be this movie originated as a rejected Stargate SGF-1 script? I doubt it. But you never know.
What's worse is that Stephen Baldwin and a (unknown to me) woman playing a pig keeper seemed to be the most competent actors seen in the first 40 some odd minutes of this turgid will-o-the-wisp monstrosity. Actually poor Mr. Baldwin, who'll probably get a lot of the blame for this, all but carries most scenes on his over burdened shoulders. Problem is it's obvious this was intended to be a tongue-in-cheek comedy that fizzled, thus the problems seem all the worse.
I can forgive a lot in a B-movie be it bad acting, infantile dialogue, anachronisms, overacting (the guy playing the sorcerer actually takes this to a new level, he's actually rather hilarious at times), plot inconsistency, and even sequels that have no relationship to the original movie. However tedious dullness is an unforgivable cinematic sin. By the time the titular CGI monsters made an appearance I was already thinking about getting out the aforementioned Buck Roger's DVD set, which should give you an idea of just how boring this was.
The characters were flat and the actors, though they tried, never really made me care about them. Not because they were inept but because it didn't seem like the script gave these characters any depth. It was like they were there purely as character sketches without any thought given to their backgrounds. Now, to be fair, I should mention that I only made it about 40 minutes into the movie. But that seems like 35 minutes too long to wait for character development.
But to be perfectly honest I'm not sure which pushed me over the edge, the lack of character development or the the utterly rubbish CGI harpies. Granted the editors of this movie at least realized their CGI was ludicrous looking and they didn't show close-ups of them, at least none that I recall, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. The costuming and make-up effects for the harpies involve a lot of smeared mascara and a white shift. That's it. It was utterly uninspired.
I truly feel this was a cinematic abortion that never should have been made. I know, strong words, and yes there's far worse DTV "movies" out there. But, and this is important, none of those bear Stan Lee's name, which was the ONLY reason I tuned in. I really thought that, surely, if Stan Lee was putting his name on the movie it wouldn't be the usual lame CGI crapfest sciffy is known for. But I, apparently, was a fool for daring to hope as sciffy let me down yet again. Even so I am not angry so much as saddened and disappointed.
While I'm sure Stan Lee laughed all the way to bank to cash that sciffy check, and really kudos to him for getting some green, I just feel this movie was a let down. Very disappointing.
In short Harpies was deadly dull boring and actually had me popping in a DVD of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century to watch something with real acting talent and better SFX. I think that says it all.
