Tad The Lost Explorer And The Curse Of The Mummy (U)

Construction worker turned treasure hunter Tad Jones is determined to be accepted by the archaeological community. During one expedition with globe-trotting explorer Sara Lavrof, Tad accidentally destroys a precious, rare sarcophagus and invokes a deadly enchantment on bandaged, decaying misfit Mummy. Time is of the essence as Tad, Sarah, Mummy, trusty pooch Jeff and pet parrot Belzoni travel around the world to break the curse.

LondonNet Film Review

Tad The Lost Explorer And The Curse Of The Mummy (U) Film Review from LondonNet

A decade after construction worker turned treasure seeker Tad Stones began his award-winning computer-animated escapades, the accident-prone hero faces creatures from the Egyptian underworld in a third big screen mission helmed by Spanish director Enrique Gato. A 10-year anniversary gift is traditionally made of tin or aluminium. Alas, some of the humour in Tad The Lost Explorer And The Curse Of The Mummy sinks like a lead balloon, particularly one freewheeling joke about a yellow jersey Tour de France cyclist who is denied his rightful place in sporting history by a runaway bathtub. The Mona Lisa also suffers an ignominious fate on the walls of the Louvre…

Screenwriter Neil Landau translates Manuel Burque and Josep Gatell’s original script, mining sporadic chuckles from a blundering CIA agent (voiced by Gary Martin) who believes you shoot first and ask uninformed questions later. The gag wears thin but is fresher than repeated uses of nervous mid-flight flatulence to punctuate changes of location from South America to Europe and Africa. Tiny imperfections in the animation are noticeable – an irritation rather than a distraction. Like its gung-ho predecessors, Tad The Lost Explorer And The Curse Of The Mummy is dubbed for family audiences on this side of the English Channel.

Tad Stones (voiced by Trevor White) wreaks havoc on a dig site in Mexico led by The University of Chicago’s archaeological department and his sweetheart Sara Lavrof (Alex Kelly). He impetuously pushes a stone relief inside an Aztec temple and activates a trapdoor mechanism that leads to a vast chamber and – curiously – an Egyptian sarcophagus. Booby traps reduce the temple to rubble, but not before Tad’s excitable pooch Jeff has swallowed a golden pendant. Tad leaves Mexico in disgrace, deemed “a danger to archaeology”, and returns crestfallen to Chicago where bandaged, decaying misfit Mummy (Joseph Balderrama) is secretly holed up in his apartment.

Soon after, crackpot TV supernatural investigator Victoria Moon (Elena Sanz) contacts Tad with an outlandish theory about the golden pendant from the temple. She believes the trinket can unlock the location of a fabled Emerald Tablet fashioned by Egyptian sage Hermes. Victoria persuades Tad to seek the tablet to restore his tattered reputation and the re-energised explorer embarks on a madcap odyssey with Mummy, Jeff and pet parrot Belzoni in tow. En route, the treasure hunters seek guidance from mummified Egyptian pharaoh Ra Amon Ah, which Tad mishears as Ramona (Pippa Bennett-Warner).

Tad The Lost Explorer And The Curse Of The Mummy unravels at a breathless pace, contriving conflict between Tad and his crew before a pithy distillation of life lessons about friendship and self-sacrifice. Gato’s picture doesn’t excavate any bravura action set pieces or heartfelt emotion from the globe-trotting buffoonery but it’s short and sweet at a blissfully breezy 89 minutes.

– Sarah Lee