Sands of Oblivion (2007)

This is another "Sci-Fi Original movie" as they are so called. Every so often the Sci-Fi channel gets a small budget and creates a straight to Sci-Fi channel movie for us sci-fi lovers. As many of you have probably noticed, these movies are nothing to brag about. They are filled with cheap special effects and relatively unknown actors most of the time. But, every so often one of these movies turns into a hidden treasure, if I may call it that. Dog Soldiers immediately comes to mind from the past few years. I was really wishing that this movie would be a another hidden treasure. Unfortunately, my wish didn't come true.The story as a whole isn't too bad and it starts out pretty good. It kind of felt like The Mummy. The movie actually goes into some nice depth to explain what is going on. It's just too bad it stops at about half way through. The sci-fi aspect of the movie turns into an action movie for the second half. You have guns, a rocket launcher, and a dune buggy chase, which is pretty long. It really felt like the story was on a tangent of some sort.As far as the acting goes it is better than you would expect for a movie of this caliber. You have recognizable faces like Morena Baccarin and Adam Baldwin as the major characters. It was nice to see a small role for Dan Castellaneta who ended up playing a director. A perfect fit for him. I also enjoyed the role of Buford played by Charles Lister.The CG is exactly what you'd expect from this film. Cheap and fake looking. Although, there was a part when the murals on the wall came to life which ended up looking pretty neat. One positive thing that this movie did was to make the Egyptian werewolf looking God physical and not digital. This was the same thing that Dog Soldiers did with their dog soldiers. They used real puppetry instead of using cheap CG effects, which in both of these cases was a good idea.When it all comes down to it this felt like a really cheap version of The Mummy that takes place in California. If you're a fan of Morena Baccarin, like I am, or Adam Baldwin, then feel free to give this a watch. Everybody else should be satisfied with The Mummy.