Ark of the Sun God (1983)

So the Italian film industry pretty much would rip off anything that was popular and make their own versions of it.  Of course with the popularity of Raiders of the Lost Ark you knew it was only a matter of time before they got their own versions out.  Here David Warbeck (The Beyond) plays Rick Spear, a skilled cat burglar.  He is recruited for his skills in avoiding traps and alarms to track down and recover an ancient scepter from it’s resting place.  To do that he has to figure out how to break into Gilgamesh’s tomb while avoiding any of the traps that will bring the whole structure down around them!  If that weren’t’ enough a sheik and his minions are also trying to get the scepter and will stop at nothing to get their first.  This makes for some “exciting” car chases and kidnap attempts on Spear’s lovely girlfriend. 

This is a silly Raiders of the Lost Ark rip off with a much smaller budget.  But that doesn’t stop it from being fun at times.  The random race thru the desert in Pontiac Firebirds (or could have been Chevy Camaros) is pretty freaking random and hilarious.  I also love how they introduce a 3rd interested group of defenders of the scepter that just basically aren’t heard from after a certain part.  The car chase in the desert, breaking into the tomb and the big shoot out at the end are fun.  But they are preceded by an extended bit tracking down a lone survivor of an earlier trip to the temple and a silly bit in the city with Spear’s girl being kidnapped and then not.  Like I said earlier it is fun at times, but also boring at others. 

The special effects are sometimes very good and at times not so much.  The set that they built for the temple looks sharp and when they knock the whole thing down in the big finale it works on screen nicely.  But while they do that good they then turn around and have an earlier car chase that involves some awful models.  And I don’t mean like when the cars crash and explode, I mean that you have model cards running around a miniature set!  I’m almost wondering if they didn’t pull this from another movie, because it doesn’t match the later work in the big desert car chase at all.  But then it wouldn’t surprise me if they had different stunt crews at each location. 

The DVD that I watched also had some issues.  The audio and picture are awful, but I’m thinking that it isn’t the movie that is at fault.  It appears that this is a direct rip from a beat up VHS tape.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that this kind of movie didn’t get any special treatment, but couldn’t you have at least found a better VHS to source?  Occasionally you can see the distortion at the bottom and top of the screen, which is an indication of the tracking being off.  Also the audio has a nasty buzz all the way thru.  Normally I don’t bother with this sort of thing, but it was noticeable enough that it bugged me, so I thought I would mention it. 

In the end there are some good parts to Ark of the Sun God, and when the movie is bad it gets bad enough that I took some enjoyment out of it.  I just wish the damn thing looked and sounded better than it does.  Still this one can be good for a few laughs.

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2010 John Shatzer