7 Guardians of the Tomb is a 2018 action adventure film about an innocent discovery of a well-preserved mummified Emperor from 200 BC China that unearths a 2000 year old nightmare.
The old adventure serials of the 1940s that were popular before the main feature have long been source for modern films, including the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises to name but a few. The movies are full of thrill seekers who explore the most dangerous of places, only to find the worst in the darkness, and now comes Kimble Rendall‘s latest in the genre, 7 Guardians of the Tomb, though the ‘7’ is being dropped in most markets. It’s another underground tomb crawler with loads of secrets and great horrors that does pretty much what it intends, making this an effective if unmemorable night at the movies.
Doctor Jia Lee (Bingbing Li) specializes in venoms, but right now her main concern is Luke (Chun Wu), her estranged brother who she has just learned has gone missing on an expedition into Western China, hired by Dr. Mason Kitteridge (Kelsey Grammer), head of a large biotech company, to search for a fabled emperor’s tomb that legend says holds a powerful secret. Mason, who knew the Lees now dead parents, assembles a ragtag team of highly-trained adventurers, archeologists, medical types and sidekicks, including Jack Ridley (Kellan Lutz) and Milly Piper (Stef Dawson), to take them into the tombs and rescue Luke. Problem is, there’s a lot more than a dead emperor in the shadows, as they come face-to-face with a horde of enormous spiders that are hellbent on keeping the secrets of the past out of the light of day.
Skipping about in time, beginning with the story of the emperor, Guardians of the Tomb is a film of absolutes, with most everything laid out in perfuctory fashion, with a mix of Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Mummy keeping this a predictable but well-made little thriller. Rendell, who co-wrote the screenplay, embraces the B-movie serial trappings, working hard to give the film plenty of over-the-top action and performances, though none that throw it off its rails too far. People speak in generalities full of exposition, keeping us up-to-date on what we’re watching as characters buckle through the clichés, most doing so with a wink and nod. Grammer is clearly having loads of fun, perfectly suited for the role, chewing up the set the deeper the crew get into the caverns.
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There’s nothing authentic about the film of course, especially as we go underground, the sets and backgrounds all feeling artificial, though the CGI spiders at least have some zip to them, icky enough to make those afraid of such jittery throughout. As expected, the team encounters plenty of them, along with the requistie boobytraps and pitfalls the genre demands. There’s no lack of trying from the cast, who all take to the story with gusto, even as parts of the film stutter and lose some momentum until we finally get to the tombs. It’s great to see Li top listed, she most western audiences might know from Transformers: Age of Extinction and Resident Evil: Retribution. She’s a terrific lead and a great action star who, along with Grammer’s inspired manial performance, make this far better than it should be. However, even at 90 minutes, it gets threadbare and while the stuff with the spiders helps a lot, this can’t quite be as fun as hoped.