I wish this was a full review, but I got so angry that I turned it off twenty minutes in. 1) It's filmed in South Africa, not Egypt. Whether this was to save money, or to prevent anything Egyptian creeping in, it's hard to say. Even the rocks looked wrong. The Valley of the Kings is covered in white limestone chippings. Not the khaki coloured material shown here. The older BBC production 'Egypt' (2005) which covered the same material was filmed in Luxor, and in the largely deserted Western Valley and looked the part. From the opening scene this production looks wrong. 2) Then Carter, hopelessly miscast as a strapping young man, is introduced. He finds an empty tomb and angrily punches out an unnamed French Duke. This event can only be a misrepresentation of him throwing the French tourists (plural) out of the Serapeum at Sakkara in 1905. Hundreds of miles away from the Valley of the Kings. He didn't punch anyone at this incident. Also he was an Inspector at the time and not an Excavator, but all this would slow down the plot and lose the casual viewer. However the BBC version kept it all in and didn't insult the viewer. But then again, punching out a fictitious Duke saved on several French and Arab extras and a second unit setup at a fake Serapeum. 3) Then we are introduced to a synthetic character. A female American Archaeologist called Maggie Lewis. This is in itself unlikely the way women were treated by academia in the period. She is used to replace several male contemporaries of Carter's. Implying that she was his only friend. Saves on the casting I suppose and shipping lots of minor actors out to the expensive South African shoot. 4) Lord Carnarvon is shown arriving in 'Egypt'. He drives a silver sports model of a Rolls Royce which looks far too modern for 1905. Carter's diaries record that the first car in the valley, a Model T Ford, arrived in 1923, after Tut's tomb was discovered. Oh well, it saved on hiring all those pesky horse and carriage teams during the shoot. 5) Then we get some Time Travel. Davis is shown finding a cup. After Carnarvon and Carter are granted their licence to dig in the Valley. How? He had retired by this point. In reality Carter and Carnarvon were digging in several other places for 5 years before digging in the Valley. This would make sense. But the bungling writers had already said that they were in the Valley not somewhere else. It seems at this point the writers had already given up and were just writing anything and not checking the script. 6) Then the cup is taken by the wrong assistant archaeologist to Maggie (who didn't exist) to identify. Agh! It was at this point I wondered what a mess they would make of the major story elements. The discovery of Tut's Tomb, and the alleged romance between Carter and Lady Evelyn. This appalling start didn't bode well. Then I decided to stop beating myself up and turn over. The BBC version, despite several errors, was Shakespeare compared to this. They could have just put that on again and burnt all the money they wasted on this travesty. I believe that they knew this was rubbish before they finished it. Why else did it take so long to make? Then it was previewed, without a scheduled date, for several months. Finally appearing after the much superior 'Victoria' finished its eight week run. This only increased the massive feeling of anti-climax.
Review of Tutankhamun
