The Lost Treasure of the Grand Canyon (2008)

I was really hoping this would not be a spoiler, so I'll try to avoid the plot, as obviously the producers, directors and actors did. I can sum it up though the decades; 40's dialog, 50's special effects, 60's cinematography, 70's acting, 80's actors and 90's mystery writing. You will not fine another like this one, truly unique, and fun for the whole family.Since I need at least 10 lines for this review, I thought I would take a line or two to talk about something interesting. We rented this from Netflix and I had a Coke and popcorn, and then later we had a cookie. At one point I booted up my laptop and started writing this review. I would have given this a 1, but I really enjoyed writing this review.I hope I didn't spoil it for you!

The Lost Treasure of the Grand Canyon: 1 out of 10: Well I was two minutes into the film and my girlfriend jinxed us. “Hey you know this movie isn’t that bad”. I turned pale… real pale. You don’t tempt the Gods like that. Not with a made for Sci-fi Channel movie. Not when one where the lead is Shannen Doherty. The words barely left her mouth and a CGI puppet began sliming a Frat Boy in a diaper. The Horror…. The Horror. If I am going to start somewhere I have to start with the Frat Boys in diapers. The movie claims these are Aztecs still hidden in the Grand Canyon at the end of the 19th century. (I know I know) Apparently they have been hiding from the white man for many years. Not to mention the Havasupai and the Painte and the Pai and the tourists at the Upper Canyon Ranch and perhaps the boys in blue down at Ft. Mohave. Anyway this lost tribe of Aztecs, like some Japanese WW2 sniper still hiding in a palm tree in 1971, is hidden in the Grand Canyon. What seems stranger is that they consist almost entirely of a hereto thou undiscovered group of Aztecs whom look like white college football players wearing diapers (well more of a mawashi) and war paint. I am all in favor of multicultural casting but I can’t believe that it isn’t a little insensitive to portray Native Americans as well extras in a Fire Island movie. Hold on a second Fire Island Movie????… The men are all buff and practically naked. The two woman are wearing pants and done up in to look twice their age. The monster spews slime on the buff boys for no good reason. Oh God no it’s Jeepers Creepers 2 all over again. The homoerotic horror film strikes again. Now I’m not sure that the over the top homoeroticism is directors Farhad Mann’s doing (or even intentional), but Mann is responsible for both Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace as well as Return to Two Moon Junction so with a track record like I am prepared to blame him for a Swine Flu outbreak let alone this film. So what else went wrong? Well the Quetzalcoatl design is all wrong (he looks like a puppet) and his CGI is bad by even the very low Sci-fi Channel standards. The sets look like Kirk and Spock are going to beam down at any moment. Half the explorers are grossly overweight; an unlikely condition in the far west wilderness that far from a Wal-Mart. As noted above Shannen Doherty who isn’t even forty looks forty-five and Heather Doerksen who isn’t even thirty looks fifty. And they have a five minute flashback at the end that repeats the entire film. But let’s face it buff white frat boys in diapers getting slimed from off camera and pretending to be Indians. Yeah that is just all sorts of wrong.

I only give this movie two stars, one for poor Michael Shanks and 1 for poor Shannon Doherty, and none for JR Bourne. I've seen all of these actors in much better Films and TV. They can act, but in this movie, they apparently didn't bother.The acting is lame on all accounts, although Michael Shanks actually tries to bring the movie up at least until 2/3rds into it when he gives up. The natives mostly just stand around and run when told. Several characters sacrifice themselves, only to be allowed to live and then attempt to sacrifice themselves again.Characters get poisoned but recover with no medical attention, are captured but miraculously escape.This movie had a decent storyline and decent enough actors if they only used them to make a watchable movie, alas this is not one of them.In the 90s Sci-Fi made some fine B-Movies. Since then, none have compared to them. They'd be better off showing B Sci-Fi movies from 80s and 90s rather than spending money on this crap.

I'm not even sure if this was a SciFi Channel production or not; if not, it certainly had all the hallmarks of one. Silly storyline, poor CGI, large plot holes, etc, etc, etc.I won't reveal anything about the plot - not that it would matter really, the same story has been done many times. Lost scientist, searchers, treasure, ancient god, ignorant tribe of lost natives, et al. This time it takes place, miraculously enough, in the Grand Canyon, in some area that has never, ever been seen before by white men.If you would care to spend two hours staring blankly at your TV while marveling at stultifyingly bad acting, this is the movie for you. You may be entertained during commercial breaks though. Also, Shannen Doherty is still somewhat recognizable, in a puffy kind of way.