The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Do you remember that mean teacher that marked your assignment with a big fat X, and asked for a complete rewrite? She was mean but, most of the time your assignment did deserve to be rewritten, and so does 7 Guardians of the Tomb. 

7 Guardians of the Tomb is about a venom expert, Jia (Li Bingbing), who sets out to find her brother Luke (Chun Wu) after he goes missing while looking for an elixir of life. Jia and her late father’s partner Maison (Kelsey Grammer) search for Luke, and find him in the desert. Their journey quickly turns from a rescue mission into an attempt at survival. As such, the film’s plot is a combination of several films, including but not limited to, Aliens, The Mummy, Eight Legged Freaks and others. This feature isn’t home to any originality, and it is very easy to spot the very precisely “inspired” parts.

What is truly this film’s own is its screenplay, and that is not a good thing; indeed, having one odd character say “well done Riddley,” whenever any of the other main characters does literally anything right, is unheard of. The film’s screenplay falls in every trap it could have fallen into, with burnt out cliché lines like “Playing God? This is about becoming God” being constantly repeated. Al in all, the script is sloppy, boring, and unoriginal. 

The acting is another disaster. Li Bingbing is a good actress with great potential. In this feature, however, she was a skilled actress doing the bare minimum, whilst still standing head and shoulders above the rest of the cast. Li was not helped by the screenplay’s sloppy nature, which is one of the reasons behind her non-existent and forced chemistry with Kellan Lutz.

Speaking of Lutz, watching him was almost funny; it felt like watching a child attempt to imitate his favourite action film star (Chris Hemsworth). Kellan Lutz’s plays a strong beef cake of a man, and the script attempts to give him a humorous side, but horribly fails. Lutz seemed out of place and he was much too “inspired” by Chris Hemsworth’s performance of similar roles. As per Kelsey Grammer’s performance, it was constantly fluctuating between overly dramatized acting and hollowly underdone acting. 

The other cast members were mostly mediocre and/or below mediocre, with the exception of Shane Jacobson who played the role of the group’s sarcastic driver. Jacobson is the only actor whose performance felt natural, heartfelt, and enjoyable. He was the highlight of the film.

Overall, the film is not really worth watching; you might as well watch the original films that have  “inspired” this one, since they are definitely home to better acting skills, and most definitely home to much less disastrous screenplays.