Review: The Devil’s Tomb

Special Forces soldier Cuba Gooding Jr., still troubled by the death of his superior (Ray Winstone, absolutely wasted), leads a crew of badarses to an underground facility somewhere in the Middle East to locate missing scientist (archaeologist, more accurately) Ron Perlman. Valerie Cruz is his somewhat secretive daughter, who is responsible for hiring Gooding and his crew, which includes lesbian medic Taryn Manning, wimpy hacker Brandon Fobbs, smart-arse communications guy Zack Ward, as well as Stephanie Jacobsen and standard action man Jason London. It’s not long before the team realises some freaky stuff is going on here, with Henry Rollins playing a babbling priest with a serious case of acne, and Bill Moseley turning up as a zombified nutter. Before you can say ‘Zombies!- Run!!!’, our team are splitting off, hallucinating and generally ending up dead. Gee, did Cruz forget to mention the zombies, the blood, and the dying? Oops. Funny that. Well, at least Ward gets to hallucinate a hot naked chick.

 

Cuba Gooding Jr. really did turn into his generation’s Lou Gossett Jr., a genuine but wasted talent with an Oscar win seemingly light years ago.  I guess that would make this 2009 horror/sci-fi hybrid from director Jason Connery (Sean’s kid), Cuba’s “Aces: Iron Eagle III”. Or maybe his “Firewalker”. You decide, either way it sucks and wastes a lot of talent beyond Cuba’s (Perlman, Jacobsen, Rollins, Moseley, and especially Ray Winstone).

 

I just don’t get what has happened to Cuba. He went from Oscar winner (“Jerry Maguire”) to being the next latter day Eddie Murphy (“Daddy Day Camp”), to direct-to-DVD junk like this and “Hardwired”. Is he happy making schlock? I like good schlock, but this is pitiful. I know a dude’s gotta make money and eat, but this is beneath Cuba. The plot and characters are dull and clichéd, and two of the film’s best actors (Winstone and Perlman) are shockingly wasted, with Winstone in particular relegated to largely irrelevant flashbacks. You do get to see Manning and mumble-mouthed Jacobsen lock lips briefly, though. Bill Moseley (Chop-Top from “Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2”), in addition to looking different in just about every movie, is usually a bright spot in genre schlock. Not here, and the electronically-altered voice is certainly no help. The casting of Henry Rollins as a babbling priest is probably the funniest thing in ages (at least since an hilarious Dolph Lundgren in “Johnny Mnemonic”, also starring Rollins). Rollins is fun in the role, but the least likely casting you’ll ever come across. Ward plays the exact same smart-arse he always does, and does it capably as always. Acting isn’t really the issue here, everything else is. It’s a tired and clichéd genre effort, you’re typical situation where characters wander off on their own tricked into investigating an hallucination and meet their deaths one by one. And making the characters heavily armed military-types just adds even more to the lack of originality, bringing to mind “Aliens”, “Resident Evil”, and a whole slew of other films. It’s pretty gory at times, but not amazingly so, and none of it is remotely interesting.

 

Overall a waste of time for all concerned. There’s nothing new or involving here, despite a lot of name actors. Scripted by Keith Kjornes, who previously scripted something called  “My Big Phat Hip Hop Family”. I have no idea what that is, nor do I wish to find out.

 

Rating: D

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