Talos the Mummy

I don't understand why this movie has such a low rating on IMDb. It has a stellar cast (with a bit of an annoying bait and switch), it has an interesting story, characters that are actually developed and it is a UK coproduction, so you know it is better than a normal US movie from the start. The film starts with an Egyptian dig (how else) where the likes of Christopher Lee are excavating the mysterious burial place of Talos, the cursed Greek who came to Egypt and learned forbidden magic. Then Lee dies. Several years later, his niece comes to check the dig out, accompanied by the likes of Gerard Butler and Sean Pertwee. Butler dies immediately and Pertwee continues to appear randomly as a slightly insane person. This is annoying if you started to watch the movie because of the cast, but I didn't so it didn't bother me. Present time, stuff happens and two detectives, played by none others than Jason Scott Lee and Jack Davenport, need to investigate. Add to this the two British hotties Louise Lombard and Lysette Anthony and the movie is interesting on that alone. The film lasts for almost two hours, which is a bit too long for the level of tension that the movie manages to maintain, but in no way is it a bad story. While the reasoning of the Talos mummy are not revealed until the end and seem stupid, they become believable at the end with the extra information. Bottom line: a TV movie that appeared a year before The Mummy. If you take the special effects (which were not bad, but certainly were cheap in Talos) out of the equation, the only possible reason why The Mummy would be better is Arnold Vosloo and a slightly more fleshed out (pardon the pun) character for the mummy. While not really a horror film, it is a good paranormal thriller, even with the silly twist at the end.

Well. The reason that I saw this was I like the director's previous work, and the movie sounded cool on the box. Plus I was renting it from my library for free so I wouldn't lose anything. The movie wasn't that bad. I wouldn't say that it was a waste of time. The movie had some good points; the story kept me interested and the movie as a whole was good until the end. The end made sense, but it didn't seem right. Now I think that many people didn't like the movie, because they have seen the US version. From what I see on this site is that there are two versions of this movie; the international version and the US version. the US version is 88 minutes while the international version is almost 120 minutes! That is a little over 30 minutes of movie that is gone. I am sure that the international version is much better, because it probably explains more. I would really like to see this version. Does anyone know how to get it? If so, e-mail me at Dvdmrp@aol.com. Anyway, if you are a fan of the director or if you like these kind of movies then go see it. Just don't pay too much or expect too much. It is not great, but it doesn't suck either. It is in between. 5/10

this is a pretty good movie,with good performances all around.it's not the most exciting movie,but it is mysterious and suspenseful.i like Loise Lombard(CSI:Vegas)and Jason Scott Lee,the two romantic leads,but i didn't feel much chemistry between them.the special effects were all right,nothing spectacular.but then again,this is a relatively small scale movie.it does have some exciting moments during the last 30 minutes.one thing that i really liked about this movie is that it is unpredictable.it didn't end at all like i thought it would,and i mean that in a good way.i thought the ending was great.all in all,i'd give Tale of the Mummy a 6/10

I've seen lots of mummy movies and this one has the distinction of not having a mummy but instead a self-propelled bunch of bandages. The movie has a great beginning with Christopher Lee but then never delivers. About halfway through it looses steam and then craps out. I don't know what disturbs me most: the fact that this movie was made or that the ending left open the possibility of a sequel.

The Tale of the mummy started out to be a good movie and then it had become more Science fiction than egyptian. All the actors in the flim were good i liked them all in a way. The movie was good in a sense it could have been better if the mummy had been an alien or something. But it is a classic mummy movie and like any other mummy movie. Mummy movie fans would love this movie.

"Tale of the Mummy" is a better than expected though somewhat problematic entry. **SPOILERS** Discovering a long-lost Egyptian tomb, Samantha Turkel, (Louise Lombard) and her team, Bradley Cortese, (Sean Pertwee) Burke, (Gerald Butler) and Claire Mulrooney, (Lysette Anthony) bring the contents back to the British Museum. Putting it on display, a strange series of deaths around London being in Detective Riley, (Jason Scott Lee) from the US Embassy to help solve the case, as each victim was found to have a specific organ removed after death. Discovering that it is the work of Prince Talos, (Enzo) claimed to be one of the most ravenous men in Egyptian history, trying to collect the body parts required to resurrect himself, they race to stop him and put an end to his plans. The Good News: this wasn't all that bad and had some good moments to it. One of the good things here is that the mummy is pretty interesting. Rather than being the slowly lumbering type, as this one can move about fairly quickly, it has two additional powers that are fun and really sets him apart. This one can fly about, which is a clever concept and visually impressive since it's something new. The other new factor is the ability to use it's bandages as tentacles, using them to ensnare it's victims and trap them like a cocoon. Even more impressive is the ability to unravel itself and reform using the tentacles to do that. It's a fun trick that looks impressive and is a real treat to watch. Another big plus is that there's a couple of rather well-done attacks in here, as the sequence at the police station is really nice, a pretty decent chase comes out of an encounter in the motel as the mummy really shows off some nice powers and there's a couple kills as well. Even the encounters in the subway and parking garage are really good and much better than expected. The best, though, is the film's opening, with there being a couple great things about it. The atmosphere is great, the setting is perfect and creepy with the usual business about a curse and the decorations used around the chamber. Once the curse is mentioned, it's all pretty fun watching the brutality emerge. Then, segueing into the recovery scenes of the later expedition being just as creepy is a big plus. The last positive here is the rather sizable body count. While there's only a few that are worthwhile, there's a lot that actually do get knocked off, and it does deliver the gore nicely on some of them. These here are what make the film somewhat entertaining and enjoyable. The Bad News: This one didn't have a whole lot of problems going for it. The main one here is that there's a decided lack of gore to many of the kills. Despite the big body count, not a whole lot of the kills are all that graphic, mainly by design since it oddly uses the off-screen method for a lot of the kills or just dragged the victim away and leaving the sounds as the only clue that something is happening. There's a few of them which are done on-screen, which is enough to get them over but it really could've had much more in here by simply using it's kills a little better. The other area that this doesn't work is the rather odd and confusing ending. There's hardly anything about it that makes any sense, between the twist that doesn't seem logical or even makes sense, to the actions of the ceremony and the specific guidelines which are required, the whole thing is just confusing and doesn't really have anything all that logical about it. These here are what lower the film and keep it down. The Final Verdict: Some good stuff in here and a couple of somewhat troubling flaws lower this one somewhat but not all that much. Give it a shot if you're into the genre or have an interest in the film, while those who aren't that big on the genre will probably find this one to be more problematic. Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and Brief Nudity

For some reason I cannot seem to comprehend, truly great mummy-movies are extremely rare. The only really brilliant mummy film is the one from 1932 starring Boris Karloff, but all the others go from decent (Hammer's "The Mummy", dated 1959) over mediocre ("The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb", dated 1964) to downright lousy ("Dawn of the Mummy", dated 1981). The absolute low point was Stephen Sommers boisterous reworking of "The Mummy" in 1999, but that film regretfully became a huge success due to the irritating computer effects. "Talos the Mummy" is slightly better than Sommer's film, but that really isn't saying much. This surely isn't a terrible mummy-flick, but a little more coherence and logic would have been welcome! The story starts out promising enough, with a guest appearance from the almighty Christopher Lee who's up until his neck in filthy wrappings, ominous amulets and mysterious tombs again! He and some other greedy archaeologists open the grave of the ancient prince Talos and hereby unleash an unspeakable evil upon the world. This atmospheric intro is unquestionably the best part of the entire movie and the quality-level goes straight down right after the credits. Besides, don't consider watching it exclusively to see Christopher Lee, as his share is very limited... The story then moves to present day, England, where the relics of Talos are exhibited in the fancy British Museum. Pretty soon, his "wrapping" escape and go on a killing spree in the streets of London. Talos' goal is to collect organs and body parts from foreigners, so that he can resurrect on the meteorological day when four planets are on one line...or something like that. Jason Scott Lee is the badly cast copper who has to protect princes-by-bloodline Louise Lombard from the extremely mean mummy... The whole legend and history behind the Talos character is quite interesting well thought out. He's a relentless and very malicious mummy and the aggressive murders he commits are fairly amusing. Too bad the film's structure is all messy and completely without tension. The computer-engineered special effects aren't very impressive, neither. The ending is truly horrible and swipes away that last bit of sympathy you still had for cast and crew. I could hardly even finish watching the finale....this has got to be one of the worst endings in horror-history. You've been warned...

"Tale of the Mummy" is one wickedly bad movie. It starts off okay, with the always impressive Christopher Lee, but then it just tails off a bit, wanders around lost for a while and just goes to pot from there. It's poorly conceived and written, so poorly that I was wondering if the screenplay was written by someone who had never heard English, let alone spoke it. The incredible thing about this mess is that it actually got released, usually when a company makes a movie this bad they hide it on the shelf for a few years and then melt it down to make ash trays. I suppose that they figured that some idiot (Like me) would watch it because it has a Mummy in the title. He's not actually a mummy, per se, he's more of a bandage delivery system. I saw the box, read the title, it was a rent one, get one free situation, and I thought to myself, "How bad can it be?" Well, that question was answered alright, and I will never subject myself to this kind of deep, deep pain again. If you do watch this film and it does cause you to feel great discomfort in your head, don't worry, it's just your brain leaving in disgust.

It has been well publicized in specialty magazines that Russell Mulcahy had trouble finding a producer for this pet project of his, which would finally show on screen a startling effect that the classic Hammer film THE MUMMY (1959), due to technical limitations, could only show on its poster -- a walking mummy with a light beam going through a hole in his chest. Well, no wonder potential backers were not that much interested: no matter how interesting that effect could be, Mulcahy's plot idea is simply the most ridiculous notion ever proposed for a mummy flick. Here the BANDAGES that wrap the mummy are the monster! Those pieces of Egyptian gauze fly, kill people, extract selected organs from their victims (how?) and carry them along (how again?) to some arbitrarily defined spot in order to fulfill your standard prophetic destiny. A good cast is wasted in comic-book roles and situations that make no sense (Why would an American cop take charge of a Scotland Yard investigation? What's in it for the "surprise" villain for his/her commitment?) and the single most laughable closing shot in a genre movie. (Schrader's version of CAT PEOPLE at least justified having its main characters howl and growl, but would a reincarnated mummy behave the same way?) Worse of all is the incoherent script, which caps an elaborate (if unconvincing) buildup of situations, motives and circumstances with an idiotic, cheap-shot "shock" ending that contradicts and denies everything that happened so far. One usually is compelled to root for maverick filmmakers who are willing not to compromise their vision and push their projects over the stubborn narrow-mindedness of conservative producers. This time, however, the latter were right: TALOS THE MUMMY was a rotten idea and a complete waste of resources.

"Talos the Mummy" isn't a masterpiece but it's OK if you want a good entertainment. Of course I can't compare it with "Star Gate" or other similar movies but still "Talos" is for fans of Russell Mulcahy who directed it. Russell Mulcahy also directed "The Shadow" and "The Ricochet" and this movie isn't his best one (I think "The Shadow" is his best). But if you want to spend 2 hours of your free time with a good special effects, action and sometimes horror you should see "Talos the Mummy"