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The famous adventurer Allan Quartermain gets his name dragged through the mud as drags the audience to the Temple of the Skulls.

Wow.  In the middle of watching Allan Quartermain and the Temple of the Skulls, I actually uttered the phrase, “Watching this movie makes me want to die.”  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m a fan of bad/cheesy films of most genres because they at least have the fun factor of being mock-able.  This – I hesitate to use the word “film” – product was so awful, my mockery froze up and I was as helpless as a legless newborn kitten on an ice rink populated by cat-hating thugs wielding weed-wackers.

The DVD immediately pops into Asylum Entertainment trailers for such upcoming sure-fire hits (vomit) as: 100 Million B.C. (a Jurassic Park rip-off), War of the Worlds 2: The New Wave (sequel to Asylum’s War of the Worlds Spielberg rip-off), 2012 Doomsday (a Left Behind rip-off), and Monster (a Cloverfield rip-off).  Such B-List notables as Michael Gross and C. Thomas Howell show up through out the trailers, providing the highlight of the disc.  Temple of the Skulls itself (based on H. Rider Haggard’s book King Solomon’s Mines) is a title rip-off of the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Temple of the Skulls follows Allan Quartermain (played by Sean Michael of Home Alone 4 fame) on a quest through South Africa to find King Solomon’s hidden treasure.  Unlike most treasure-seekers, however, our hero embarks on this quest for the sole purpose of getting just enough money to pay his son’s tuition.  Along the way, he joins up with a well-to-do pair whom just so happen to be looking for the treasure, but only so they can find their wayward friend (who also went looking for the treasure).  And of course, they run afoul of a National Party member (played by Christopher Adamson whom we all don’t remember as Jimmy Legs in all three Pirates of the Caribbean movies) who is – you guessed it – looking for that stupid treasure.  At that point, I had the realization that coincidence was the sea that kept this plot afloat.

A train ride, a stop off at Quartermain’s house to retrieve his servant woman, and a long walk across the greenery of South Africa lead the good guys right into the middle of a Zulu tribe – in league with the National Party member – who guard the Temple of the Skulls (which is actually a cave with one skull in it [yeah, one skull]).  All this culminates in the most lackluster fight scene in movies ever throughout space and time.
The director/cinematographer/editor Mark Atkins suffers from delusions of Robert Rodriguez, though in the making-of special feature, he tries to pass his multiple jobs off as saving money on production.  To be fair, Asylum did actually shoot the majority of the movie in South Africa (Atkins idea, even though he was told that the budget for shooting in California or South Africa would be the same).  As Atkins mentions on the commentary track, the outdoor scenes he shot in the States look almost exactly like the scenes from South Africa.  If he had just stayed at home and not blown his budget on travel expenses and trying to make up for it by forcing the entire crew to perform double or triple duty…  Well actually the end product would have been the same but the audience would have more people to blame.

The CGI is terrible.  The stock footage is pretty good.  The music stings are ill timed and louder than the dialogue they surround.  The gunfire sound effects were sometimes audible.  The Zulu tribe performers (actual Zulus who perform ancient Zulu dances for tourists) were not horrible; they just made a bad decision to be in this movie.

The commentary track is nothing but self-congratulatory backslapping, ego stroking, and inside jokes that have to be explained to those of us not “lucky” enough to be on set.  There were a few shocking comments made about a few of the shots (some stuff I was sure was stock footage) was actually shot for the film by Atkins.  But with production value lower than The Gods Must Be Crazy, its not surprising it looked like bland stock footage. 

All in all, the only reason to watch this film is for self-flagellation.  The only reason to own it is because you have so much disposable income, you’ve already given to all the charities and bought yourself some happiness.

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