Entering a vast and unknown desert, Cuba Gooding Jnr. (Men of Honour) leads a group of elite soldiers into an underground laboratory; on a dangerous and covert mission; in The Devil’s Tomb; a supernatural action/thriller where nothing is as it seems.
Mac (Gooding Jnr.) leads his team into the underground lab, on the orders of a CIA hotshot who has pushed for the mission; which will not only retrieve a valuable missing scientist (played by Sons of Anarchy star Ron Perlman), but reunite her with her father (that same scientist), and take the soldiers into a dark realm of zombies, hallucinations, religious ferverment, and panic, as they begin to uncover something that has remained hidden for thousands of years.
The Devil’s Tomb itself is a film that should have stayed buried for a thousand years, and possibly then only uncovered so as to allow the future inhabitants of the world to gawp at how simple, messy, and and uninspired the filmmakers were when they created the movie; because while the sound of a group of elite soldiers investigating a seemingly normal event that transpires to be a hellish supernatural experience (fraught with all the dangers, claustrophobic corridors and cryptic clues to its origin) may sound like an interesting, engaging, and suspenseful idea for a film (and has bee so in numerous movies; the best example of which would be The Thing), The Devil’s Tomb is nothing more than a flacid 6pm kids-TV horror special with little plot, little point, and absolutely no payoff.
It’s both surprising and disappointing to see a film that boasts a cast of Cuba Gooding Jnr., Ray Winstone (the Sexy Beast star who appears in a series of useless flashbacks that add sweet F-all to the already convoluted and inconsequential storyline), and Ron Perlman, but offers nothing even remotely intriguing, suspenseful, or horrifying; as The Devil’s Tomb seems to combine a mismatch of action/horror titles (including Resident Evil, Doom, and Aliens) that don’t entirely gel, and blatantly steal a handful of well known scenes from solid action/horror movies that actually have got the suspense right (such as copying the ‘mowdown’ scene from Predator; where the elite squad fired an insane number of bullets at an unseen enemy in the jungle; but swapping the jungle for a grey corridor).
The Devil’s Tomb is therefore, a waste of a film which fails to capitalize on what could have potentially been a pretty intriguing and suspense-filled movie (the same formula has been used numerous times before to create a number of successful movies), and leaves viewers wishing they had simply re-watched a classic action/horror film, and not wasted their time watching a cheap film that wastes the talent of some truly fine actors, on a god-awful script.
Picture:
Despite the state of the film itself, The Devil’s Tomb actually looks pretty good on DVD; being relatively free of blemishes, scratches, or other defects, containing a fairly strong level of detail, naturalistic skintones, and decent black levels; ensuring that while The Devil’s Tomb may be an awful film, at least anyone brave enough to sit through its entire runtime won’t be put off by its strong visual presentation.
Audio:
Presented via a 5.1 Dolby Digital mix, The Devil’s Tomb’s audio presentation is similarly strong; it’s not up to the standard of a stellar high-definition mix such as The Pacific, but it’s well prioritized, contains crisp and clear dialogue, solid use of the surround channels during the action scenes, and some well placed effects; making for an easily to listen to mix that shouldn’t disappoint any fan of the genre.
Extras:
The Devil’s Tomb also comes to DVD without a single piece special feature or piece of bonus material, meaning anyone who craves this kind of cheap, nasty, unfulfilling action/horror car-wreck won’t be able to go behind the scenes, learn anything more about the production of the film, or even watch its theatrical trailer; a blessing in disguise.
The Bottom Line:
Like the secret in the movie, The Devil’s Tomb is a DVD that should have remained buried for at least another 1000 years, as it wastes a perfectly respectable cast on a half-baked, piss-poor, plot which is devoid of any tension, suspense, or horror, and blatantly rips off a number of truly excellent action/horrors that are actually worth watching.
Both the picture and audio quality are good, although there isn’t a single special feature included on the disc; making for an average at best presentation of a truly awful film; meaning anyone who watches it will at least only be disappointed by the quality of the movie, and not the disc itself.
In the end however, even solid picture and audio aren’t enough to save this DVD, or even put it in the ‘to rent’ pile, as it’s just awful; not so bad it’s good, just awful; a mess of a film that fails on just about every front it attempts to succeed on, won’t even impress fans of cheap horrors, and should be avoided at all costs. If you’re thinking of watching The Devil’s Tomb, do yourself a favor, and re-watch The Thing, you’ll have a much better night.
