The film starts slow. Big static shots of awesome Egyptian treasures, landscapes, pyramids, and hieroglyphics -- all the things we expect to see. Again, these are all presented big clear and professionally, but lacking the wow factor the large format deserves. Further, the film lacks any hint of modern Egypt -- including all of Cairo. Cairo is fascinating -- to exclude it, is to misrepresent Egypt.

Eventually, the film begins to arouse curiosity with modern mummy chasers. Especially interesting, the mummification of a man's body circa 1994 during a scientific DNA experiment. Unfortuantely, the film never relates what was done with this new info about mummy DNA with the ancient mummies -- was it even useful?

There's a stint into the code of hieroglyphics, but beyond its mention, the film doesn't expand at all on how the discovery of the Rosetta stone cracked the code.

Instead the film spends far too much time unwrapping the tale of two brothers who robbed the tombs at the Valley of the Kings thereby tipping off Westerners to the existence of the first mummies ever found. Perhaps it's an engaging story in a book -- but not on the big screen.

Overall, I liked that the film (in spots) gives a healthier dose of science than other large format films and I greatly appreciated the long, slow, up-close shots of the unwrapped mummies -- they speak volumes. But on the whole, the film fails to wow and bogs down in the story of the two brothers and the list of names of the kings.

-- Book Contest --