Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.5

The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box Blu-ray Movie Review

Raiders of the National Treasure and the Sorcerer's Stone While the Sands of Time Are Stolen by Percy Jackson, Lara Croft and the Pirates of the Caribbean

Reviewed by Michael Reuben February 9, 2014

"Where can we get our next fantasy franchise?" You can imagine that question echoing through the corridors of media giants in New York and Hollywood on an almost daily basis. With Harry Potter ending, Pirates of the Caribbean petering out and various attempts at a successor DOA, studios will throw money at even the most obscure series of books or graphic novels—instantly inflated to iconic status by the marketing department—in the hope of scoring a dependable cash cow.

What's especially disheartening, though, is when smaller companies, which could be producing genuinely interesting work, pool resources which still can't touch the mega-budgets available to the majors and pour them into a would-be franchise that has no hope of gaining a foothold in today's crowded media market. Such is the case with The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box, a joint British/Belgian production based on the first of three fantasy novels by English author G.P. Taylor. With an estimated budget of $25 million, a mere fraction of what Disney or Warner would invest in marketing alone, The Adventurer is probably not a film you've ever heard of. According to Box Office Mojo, it played in just 82 U.S. theaters for seven days in January 2014, where it grossed $6,399. (International totals are not available.) The film's wide release is on video, courtesy of RLJ/Image Entertainment.

While I would like to be able to report that The Adventurer is a hidden gem ripe for discovery on Blu-ray, I cannot do so. Despite the presence of first-rate talent and decent production values, the entire enterprise feels like a Frankenstein monster built of recycled parts from other, better films—often from films that were themselves recycled from other, better films. It is never a good sign when one is constantly pulled out of a fantasy world by reminders of the Indiana Jones series, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider or the National Treasure films. It's an even worse sign when the film actually makes you nostalgic for some of the weakest entries in the genre.

The Adventurer is based on a novel entitled Mariah Mundi and the Midas Box, which is set in Victorian England. The hero, teenage Mariah Mundi (Aneurin Barnard, The White Queen), is the son of distinguished archaeologists Charles and Catherine Mundi (Ioan Gruffudd and Keeley Hawes). He also has a younger brother named Felix (Xavier Atkins). Mariah's peaceful world is smashed one day when he discovers that his parents lead a double life as members of the top secret Bureau of Antiquities, which is charged with safeguarding the British Empire from all manner of supernatural objects.

At the moment, the greatest threat to England and the world is one Otto Luger (Sam Neill, in his best villain mode), a fanatical collector of antiquities who is believed to be close to finding the fabled box of King Midas that turns any object into gold. If Luger acquires the box, he could threaten the world economy with collapse and hold all nations in his thrall.

Ah, but an old friend and colleague of Mariah Mundi's father, Will Charity (Michael Sheen), a flamboyant soldier of fortune who also happens to work for the Bureau of Antiquities, has managed to penetrate Luger's operation just as he unearthed a map pointing to the location of the Midas Box. In the process, Charity stole a pair of amulets that, when joined, form a key without which the Midas Box cannot be opened. After a public lecture by Charles Mundi, Charity appears to deliver the amulets to Charles and his wife, and Catherine Mundi splits them between her two sons for safekeeping. (Now that makes sense, right?)

If all this sounds complicated, be warned that we're barely into the story. A few beats later, and Mariah Mundi is all alone and heading toward the forbidding Prince Regent Hotel on a mysterious island in the middle of nowhere. Luger's headquarters is there, and apparently so is the Midas Box. So, also, is a love interest named Sacha (Mella Carron), who works as a seamstress at the hotel and brings home her meager wages to an abusive father (Rory Mullen). Everyone on the island cowers in their houses after dark since Luger arrived, terrified of a mysterious beast and other strange events in the night. Only the hotel guests are content, guaranteed a peaceful stay (as long their bill is current) by the Prince Regent's harpy of a manager, Monica (Lena Headey).

Luger is digging for the Midas Box and looking for Mariah Mundi (for the amulet he's carrying), Mariah is searching for his family and Luger (who probably has them), and Will Charity keeps popping up when everyone thinks he's dead, looking for pretty much everyone. Early on, Will tells Mariah that he thinks there's a traitor in the Bureau of Antiquities. If you can manage to remember that plot point through the film, you can try to look for clues as to his or her identity, especially since the background is rife with shadowy Bureau agents, whose chatter supplies much-needed exposition.

The cast is better than the material, and they do what they can, but all the frantic action on screen can't disguise the hole at the center of the story. Mariah Mundi may be an interesting protagonist on the page (I haven't read the books), but as a film character, he's a dud. Neither an action hero nor a moral compass nor even an avid student of archaeology who rises to the occasion when his skills are needed, Mariah is just a placeholder where The Adventurer's heart and soul should be. I don't think it's a casting issue. Whatever the appeal of Taylor's novel, the screenwriters who adapted it (Christian Taylor—no relation—and Matthew Huffman) lost it in translation.

The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The film itself may disappoint, but the Blu-ray presentation by RLJ/Image Entertainment does not. The bulk of The Adventurer was shot with the Arri Alexa by Unax Mendía (No Rest for the Wicked). The credits suggest that some portions were also shot on film, but if so the film was scanned and blended with the digital footage via a digital intermediate, and the Blu-ray was presumably sourced from digital files, after major effects work. Image's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray offers a dark but detailed and richly stylized image to denote an earlier era. Blacks are deep and inky, enlivened by flashes of intense color, especially where flame or gold is concerned. Outdoor scenes are always grey and cold, never sunny or bright; whether this reflects England in the 19th Century or the weather in Cornwall and Bristol, where much of The Adventurer was shot, is unclear.

The image is free of noise or artifacts, except for some light banding in a few dissolves. The average bitrate of 19.99 Mbps is on the low side, but digital footage compresses well, and the compressionist has taken advantage of the letterbox bars and the many dark portions of the frame for maximum efficiency.

The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Adventurer has the kind of aggressive surround mix, presented here in lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1, that one would expect from a major fantasy film. It starts from the very opening, where the sound of London's rain envelops the listener, and continues through a host of situations, both real and fantastical. Discrete surround effects, pans and deep bass extension are common throughout, especially when the film reaches the Prince Regent Hotel with its massive steam engines, hidden chambers and subterranean excavations. The score by Fernando Velázquez (The Impossible) supplies the requisite sense of urgency, but it can't make up for the story's essential emptiness.

The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The disc's sole extra is "The Making of The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box" (1080p, 1.78:1; 20:43), a featurette that includes interviews with director Jonathan Newman, producer Peter Bevan, novelist G.P. Taylor, hair and make-up designer Pamela Haddock and most of the principal cast. To the extent one is interested in the nuts and bolts of making the film, there is worthwhile material here, including the technical challenges of shooting in Cornwall and the island of St. Michael's Mount. Of perhaps greater note is the nakedness of the filmmakers' ambition to create a Hollywood-style franchise feature, despite the fact that more of such efforts fail than succeed.

The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Too derivative for adults, too diffuse and confusing for kids, The Adventurer ultimately has little to offer for any age group. The Blu-ray is technically satisfying, but in the end it's what is on the disc that counts. Not recommended.