The first two installments of the miniseries have followed Jack Hunter and an assortment of others, good, bad, small time, big time, on first the quest for the Iris of the Star of Heaven (that staff thing at the end of Lost Treasure of Ugarit) and then for the Eye of the Star of Heaven (we haven't seen this yet, as the search in Quest for Akhenaten's Tomb has been unsuccessful). Here, the search for the Eye of the Star continues, and so do everyone's troubles with the Russian Mafia, some of whom, as you may recall from last night, are members of Akhenaten's death cult. I hope by this point you've given up any believable portrayal of mobsters, Russian or otherwise, but if not, the first five minutes really put the nail in that coffin, at least in my view. The head mobster for this movie, someone named Petrovsky (how much more Russian can you sound?), is fifty percent sass and fifty percent needless killing, just in that opening few minutes. It's one of those moments where I actually pity Littmann (the bad guy who looks like Ian), because he has to put up with this shit, and if he protests, there go his brains, all over a fine Persian rug. It's a shame that later on I'm reminded of how much of an asshole he really is.
And that brings me to the rest of the opening. It's a very clunky opening sequence, starting with a shootout in the middle of Cairo I think. I had a very hard time piecing together what was happening until well into the fire fight, but I guess the government agents were trying to kidnap Littman and Hunter intervened because reasons. Then we had Littmann and his mob bosses, discussed above, and Hunter back at base dealing with his supremely catty ex-girlfriend. Seriously, this woman threatens to use her position to make Hunter's life hell because of Hunter's developing relationship with Nadia. A government position is not the proper venue for your personal issues. And that leads me to my other major issue with this character: Why is she so bitchy with Hunter in general? After it's revealed back at the end of Ugarit that she's a government agent, all she's does is be self-important, stuck-up, a know-it-all, jealous, possessive, catty, bitchy...you know what? Just watch this video:
That's my feelings for this woman summed up by the best. And what compounds the matter is that she holds a government position and is currently working on saving the world from a very dangerous magical force. We have no time for any of her bullshit, and yet she spews it anyway. I think it's really sad that by the third act of what is technically an incredibly long movie, I feel this strongly about one of your characters, in such a bad way.
But then we saw Tariq (the comic relief character, whose name I've apparently been misspelling in my notes the entire time) at the airport, and my spirits lifted. Which is another tremendously sad part about this movie, because for the first forty-five minutes, he carries it squarely on his shoulders. For the rest of it I have to put up with listening to the main characters avoid their emotional problems and try (at a snail's pace in spite of the constantly harped time limit) to track down the Eye of the Star. If you remove Tariq from the first half of Star of Heaven, there's a sure bet that eventually, you'll want to shoot yourself. That's what this movie will do to you without Tariq in it and right up until we get to the part where the bad guys take the good guys hostage.
Which brings me to this: throughout the entire series, Littmann has consistently reminded me of Ian Howe from National Treasure, except with almost no redeeming qualities whatsoever and an accent more Slavic than British. Other than that, he essentially fills the role of Ian: gets the good guy out of custody, for example, or is the rival treasure hunter (except he's backed by mobsters, and based on his reaction to one of their phone calls, spoiled, prissy mobsters at that). The two even look alike and fall for the same fake-clue gambit (Ian at the end of NT, Littmann at the end of Akhenaten's Tomb). I see Littmann and Ian instantly pops into my head. Except Littmann is, as I said, an asshole.
Of course, once we get to the part where Littmann kidnaps the heroes (for want of a better word, because one of them is highly suspect in my view, but I'll get to that later), it starts to feel more like a Jack Hunter installment than it did in the first half. However, if you're anything like me, your journey through the first half left you so scarred and battle-weary that the second half feels like a chore, as well. There's the generic treasure hunts, racing against time and each other, and for some reason everyone's having a freakout because Littmann has both pieces of the Star of Heaven.
The Iris of the Star, as demonstrated in Ugarit, is basically a gigantic solar-powered laser. With the Eye and the Iris together, it's a gigantic solar-powered laser. I am extremely disappointed by this, because they built up all this hype that the Star of Heaven was this extremely powerful artifact that made the wielder a god on Earth. Instead it makes the wielder...the wielder of a gigantic solar-powered laser. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but a one-note weapon, whole or otherwise, certainly wasn't it. But everyone had to fight to keep it out of the bad guys' hands regardless.
Which brings me to the good guys. As usual, we have our compliment trio who have carried us through the first two installments of Jack Hunter, but we bring in someone from Nadia's past this time, some guy named Fuad. He's the son of an antiques dealer, and both of them are Christians living in Istanbul, Turkey. The father objected to him marrying a Muslim, and he just ended it right there in spite of past and present declarations and (remarkably stupid) acts of love. This guy I just didn't get. He was fully willing to hand over the good guys into Littmann's hands just to save the life of the woman he loved, especially when he had a gun and a clear shot. Why didn't he just shoot Littmann? Why did he have to take Jack hostage? I know love makes you do stupid shit, but this is beyond any believable level, especially when he clearly knows he ain't got a shot with this woman. I wasn't sure if this guy was a good guy or a bad guy during the first and last ends of his appearance, either, so I literally have no idea how to feel about his dying, even though it's heartbreaking at the time.
The good news is these people didn't finagle much with history or mythology, so there are few things to fault when it comes to mistakes they may or may not have made. The only notable incident is when Hunter is explaining to his bitch of an ex-girlfriend what the coins mean. Here I thought they were just left behind on accident, but apparently (this movie would have us believe) two were placed in the eyes of the dead. Now, I'm not sure about that detail, but I am well aware that Romans buried their dead with coins to serve as passage to the Underworld (not Heaven; if, as you say, Octavius (NATM!!!!) raided the tomb, then Christianity wasn't a major religion yet, and the Romans didn't hold chiefly to the idea of Heaven, but rather to the idea of the Underworld, where all souls were bound, good or bad). There was a ferryman on the river Styx who wouldn't let anyone pass without the proper fare, though what you can buy with the proceeds in the Underworld is beyond me. Then there was the decoration of the box in which the Eye was found (Egyptian, Ugaritic, and Christian symbols, oh my!), but I almost couldn't get past the instant link I made in my head to the idea of the Ark of the Covenant. This box is considerably less ornate, and I can't imagine why there would be Christian symbols on an Egyptian holy box unless they were added later, but nevertheless, as soon as I heard mention of it in the first half, I thought, Ark of the Covenant, and immediately went into holy-shit-they're-doing-it-again mode, fully expecting another Western-based morality tale.
I didn't get that, thank God, but what was delivered was exactly what you'd expect. Good guys win, bad guys die (that bitch I ranted about above included), world changing artifact kept from humanity forever, happiness all around.
Final Verdict: The first two held such promise and were such fun! Why did this one have to be absolute torture? The only good thing about it was Tariq (there's a shocker in his plot line, too, if you can sit through this long enough to get to it), and without him, there would probably be no more me at this point. Or no more computer. Therefore, Tariq shall henceforth be credited not only with my life, but that of my device and the continuation of this blog.
If you make the attempt to watch Star of Heaven, let me know so I can pray for you.
Next on "For the Love of Night at the Museum": I'm going to post a lot of random pictures of Ahkmenrah and Kahmunrah just to take the edge off this hell.
Countdown: 275 Days to NATM 3
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