There is precisely one redeeming moment in Kimble Rendall’s 7 Guardians of the Tomb, a sci-fi horror blockbuster touting itself as the largest Chinese-Australian co-production in history. The scene comes about two-thirds of the way in after a group of explorers find themselves trapped in an underground Han dynasty tomb for an emperor obsessed with achieving immortality. The group discovers a potion made by the emperor’s alchemist from the excretions of hyper-intelligent spiders imported from—where else?—Australia. Grabbing the bottle of life-giving elixir, American pharmaceutical tycoon Mason (Kelsey Grammer) pulls out a gun, traps the rest of the team in an locked chamber, and bangs on the walls, summoning the hordes of spiders to come and devour them. Shocked by one of the least surprising heel turns imaginable, one of the team members yells to Mason “You lied to us!” Mason turns back, snarls, and shouts, “Of course I did! I’m a BUSINESS MAAAAN!”
A little cheese can go a long way in such a stultifyingly dull and unoriginal movie. But unfortunately this awesomely over-the-top line delivery fails to salvage 7 Guardians of the Tomb from its own mediocrity. Imagine Neil Marshall’s The Descent (2005) where the subterranean cannibals were replaced by the spiders from Stephen Hopkins’ Lost in Space (1998). Only imagine said spiders were still as poorly animated as their 90s counterparts and the lead human roles as poorly cast. You now have a good idea of what to expect from this genre mishmash.
To read the rest of this review, click on the link!
Published on TheYoungFolks.com
