The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box

When their parents disappear from the British museum, Mariah and his brother Felix Mundy have to find them at all cost. They are captured and held by the workhouse (or a Victorian equivalent of a children’s prison) but Mariah escapes. He follows his still captured brother to an island hotel in order to rescue him. The Prince Regent a floating hotel and spa is more than expected as it houses the evil Otto Luger who is searching for the elusive Midas Box, which has the power to turn anything it touches into ash.

Kids action movies or adventure films have been around like this since the serials of the fifties and we are quite accustomed to them. It feels however as if the film wanted to be a mix of Spy Kids and Young Sherlock Holmes. Sadly this is not the finished product. This film didn't seem to want to go anywhere or more, go to any place alternative to that explored already by other more creative film makers.

The cast is also equally uninspired with a lead though initially very dull becomes unbelievably even more so. This seems to spread and the brothers as a pair have no chemistry. Sam Neill is also unexpectedly dire as a villain, something he would have done so much more effectively if he wasn’t bored by the whole thing. Hedley is a little better but she has a naughty thing going on currently and it is a copy of her prior work. Sheen is fun and lifts the film with a flamboyant and flash air.

The stars do come for the kids who will probably like the zapping and the animation sequence. They will also like the brothers as a pair. Though the fact they are posher than David Cameron did irk me, it might not irk them. The film would have been better if it stuck to one place and developed that or if it had gone its own way. As it does neither and instead bores the pants off me I will stop and get a beer…