"The Lost Treasure of the Grand Canyon" - Zach's Take

Two words:Insufferably boring.

The Lost Treasure of the Grand Canyon is a new contender for the worst movie we've endured here at CFP. It's a plodding, confusing, humorless mess of a movie. There's no enjoyment to be derived from it. In fact, there's exactly two interesting things that happen in this film, and both last less than five seconds put together. One, a man's head is sliced in half by an Aztec booby-trap (which sounds way more awesome than it actually is) and two, an Aztec High Priest rips some guys heart out. But, you guessed it, Temple of Doom did it way better. So really, there's one interesting thing going on in this movie.

The real problem with the film is the script. The pacing is sub-glacial. The characters are completely and utterly undefined and stock. There's no witty banter, no clever exchanges, no attempt at characterization at all. The movie's script feels like the product of a machine that was fed dozens and dozens of crappy Sci-Fi channel movies and programmed to write its own. The plotting is contrived and the tone is all over the place. Moments when you would expect a lighthearted touch or a joke or two are played deadly serious. Other moments which you would expect to be suspenseful and tense are played for laughs (which of course means that those moments don't produce laughs at all). The premise of the film is dumb to be sure, but in better hands I'm certain a more entertaining film could have been made.

Lastly, the absolute worst thing about this movie is Shannon Doherty. I can't tell what's more uneven, her acting or her eyes. ZING!!! But seriously, while some of the other actors try and inject some life and over-the-top charm into their roles, Doherty just plays it completely bored and flat. That's partly the reason why the tone feels weird, because she's just a in totally different scene than everybody else, every scene.

Really, just do yourself a favor and skip this awful, terrible film. The only surprise to be found from it is that it is not a Sci-Fi Channel movie. This putrescent cinematic abortion was produced by Starz! and is all the reason anyone should need to cancel that channel from their cable service.

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