<sigh> Next Tuesday’s post at EntertainmentMicroscope.blogspot.com centers around constructive criticism rather than sarcastic rants, so it won’t look good if I can’t practice what I preach with this review of The Pyramid.
However, that proves a challenge. This movie wasted 89 minutes of my life.
I wanted to see the Wild, but theaters in my area decided not to play it. I saw that some movie, about which I knew nothing, called The Pyramid would start within the next twenty minutes, so I made a purchase and a mistake.
Let’s discuss the many things this movie held in common with Prometheus.
Scientists who curiously cannot demonstrate that they possess two brain cells to rub together? Check.
Characters who perform senseless actions for no apparent reason? Check.
Unresolved mysteries? Check.
Women who hyperventilate, panic, stumble, fall, and cry a lot? Check.
Men who must slap said women (at least verbally) until those women discontinue their hysterical behavior? Check.
A pathetic moral premise that science shouldn't intrude in God's territory, because knowledge proves dangerous and we ought to leave some secrets in the dark? Check.
The plot: scientists go somewhere and . . . um, monster? Check.
Grievous injuries that each ought to kill a character in fewer than two seconds but somehow only manage to hurt them and only when structurally convenient? Check (Best example: A monster literally rips out one character’s heart, and that characters lives and even speaks for another fifteen minutes or so).
(I often find myself guilt of this last one in my own writing.)
A group of characters in The Pyramid: two Egyptologists (who know suspiciously little about Egyptology and love to demonstrate their lack of knowledge via their actions and misinformation) a robot guy, and two reporters (whose shared role in the movie remains to inform the other characters and audience members that the situation feels unpleasant) venture into a never before explored, Egyptian pyramid.
The filmmakers made The Pyramid as a Found Footage movie, though it seems they never informed their script supervisor. Several scenes take place in such a fashion that no explanation exists as to who shot that footage or how.
No reason exists why anyone shot this movie as Found Footage, anyway. It feels like an ill-conceived, last minute gimmick.
Once these characters enter the pyramid, mayhem ensues. Booby-traps and monsters, but no plot beyond, “Boy. We should get out of here.”
Skeletal, cat-sized rats try to eat the characters, but the story offers little explanation for their existence (the rats or their meals).
My own fiction often basks under the glow of its own ridiculousness, so it felt only fair that I played along, but I couldn’t sense the slightest interest on the filmmakers’ parts to actually entertain anyone.
The Pyramid marks time, drags its feet, reiterates the information that its audience already knows. The goal of a 89-minute movie seems the only perceivable motive for this behavior.
The filmmakers realize, towards the end of their disaster, that they need some sort of actual plot, and they propose what follows.
I would offer a spoiler warning, but . . . would I spoil the war for you if I warned you about that landmine in your path?
The “plot” runs as follows—oh, and the characters figure this out because they read the literal writing on the walls and find a Freemason's diary in this pyramid that spent thousands of years sealed away and buried.
Anubis (yes, that Anubis, Egyptian god) demanded too many sacrifices, so everyone in ancient Egypt sealed Him away in a pyramid.
These ancient Egyptians built this pyramid with a trick wall to hide Anubis’s private room from all those people who would never set foot inside the pyramid, and then wrote explanations on the wall because . . . <shrug?>
Anubis exists as nothing more than a werewolf with slightly less body hair than Robin Williams. He spends thousands of years in his prison that contains bobby-traps and monster rat-cats.
Oh, and the secret path out of the pyramid build for the sole purpose of Anubis’s imprisonment?A vertical tunnel, with a rope ladder, that sits right in Anubis’s person chambers. We see Anubis climb it three times. Nice prison.
I suppose Anubis proves a creative choice. A mummy would prove the easiest route.
The Pyramid squeezes together a collection of ideas that fail to further the plot or develop the characters.
The pyramid contains toxic gasses (mold or something), but that adds nothing. Take away the gasses, and the movie remains the same.
I hate to say this (in light of next Tuesday’s post atEntertainmentMicroscope.blogspot.com) but I can’t offer much constructive criticism here. This entire movie stands a terrible mess. Don’t see it. Save your time and money.
Next week, something better (I hope).
I publish my blogs as follows:
A look at entertainment industries via feminist and queer theory, as well as other political filters on Tuesdays at Entertainmentmicroscope.blogspot.com
An inside look at my novel series, its creation, and the e-publishing process on Wednesdays at Darkwana.blogspot.com
Movie reviews on Sundays at moviesmartinwolt.blogspot.com
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