An Evil Entombed For 2000 Years… Until Now.
Starring: Cuba Gooding, Jr., Taryn Manning, Henry Rollins, Ray Winstone, Ron Perlman
Director: Jason Connery
2009 | 90 Minutes | Rated R
“This mission shouldn’t have been any different but it turns out some things can’t be killed with a bullet.” – Mack
Every great action star must do battle with the devil at some point. Chuck Norris had HellBound. Arnold Schwarzenegger had End of Days. Dolph Lundgren even had The Minion. The Devil’s Tomb is Cuba Gooding, Jr.’s turn at this genre. If he is going to continue his run of DTV action movies he had to get this one out of his system.
Mack (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) leads an elite squad of soldiers underground to save a scientist, Wesley (Ron Perlman). As the team descends deeper they discover that the facility they realize that this facility wasn’t really for the research they were originally told, rather it was meant to keep something very sinister in.
The Devil’s Tomb is a surprising role for Cuba Gooding, Jr. The guy won an Oscar and now is starring in this glorified B-Movie. It would have fit in well with all the grindhouse flicks of the ‘70s drive-ins.
Director Jason Connery just so happens to be the son of the legendary Sean Connery. I imagine this isn’t exactly his dream script here but he does an OK job. There is absolutely nothing ground breaking. It is exactly what you would expect from a B-Movie action-horror film.
The best piece of this clichéd action-horror puzzle is it’s star, Cuba Gooding, Jr. He plays it serious (as do all of the actors) throughout the completely ridiculous plot. I love the way he delivers his lines, it is almost an whisper that he uses in many of his roles when he is really serious. It’s awesome. This is how a movie like this should be approached. If the story, script and dialogue are stupid the actor must play it completely straight, as if what we are watching isn’t completely ridiculous. If they don’t and they ham it up then we are left with a movie that is hokey all the way around and usually will not hold people’s attentions.
The effects in The Devil’s Tomb are mostly impressive. Surprising really. The gore is ultra brutal and bloody and again surprisingly realistic looking. Many are so realistic that I couldn’t help but cringe. On top of that the demon occupied people spew an oily black liquid into the face and mouth of their victims to turn them into demon spawns themselves. The big downfall in the effects department is the demon, who is described as an angel cast from heaven by God. This fallen angel happens to look just like a greyman alien. It looks like the studio ran out of scary demon props and so they instead used an old alien one.
The Devil’s Tomb is fun, gory, decently acted, B-Movie action-horror cheese. Nothing more, nothing less. Enjoy it for what it is or you won’t enjoy it at all.
Action Movie Fanatix 