Jack Hunter and the Lost Treasure of Ugarit (TV Mini Series) Jack Hunter and the Lost Treasure of Ugarit (2008) User Reviews

Best of the worst

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 9 August 2015]

JACK HUNTER: THE LOST TREASURE OF UGARIT is the first of three made-for-TV Indiana Jones rip-offs featuring uniformly poor production values and some appallingly wooden acting. It's the best of the trilogy, as the two other films somehow manage to be even worse; at least this has a slightly more detailed plot going for it.

In essence, everyone's least favourite Indiana Jones impersonator travels to Syria in order to research an ancient cuneiform tablet. Whilst there, however, he becomes drawn into a murderous conspiracy featuring various competing factions and international villains. Life soon becomes a life or death struggle for survival.

Everything about THE LOST TREASURE OF UGARIT screams Indiana Jones on a budget. Ivan Sergei is a rubbish shoe-in for Harrison Ford, and the supporting cast are no better. The script offers unending cheesy dialogue, the direction is either choppy or uses embarrassing slow motion and over emphasis, and there are some terrible CGI effects of scorpions and glowing orbs to boot. In all it's a hopeless mess, one that deserves to be quickly forgotten.

Poor Man's Jones

[HallmarkMovieBuff · 31 July 2010]

If you've seen the Indiana Jones series, you don't need to see this.

Handsome Ivan Sergei plays an Indiana Jones style archaeologist named Jack Hunter, right down to the requisite fedora.

Beautiful Joanne Kelly plays the American-educated, American-accented Syrian, Nadia Ramadan. She starts out tough, but becomes increasingly wimpy the more she gets to know Jack.

Rugged, blond Thure Riefenstein plays the ruthless Germanic, Russian-employed, villain, Albert Littmann.

Susan Ward plays Liz, assistant to Jack's professor-mentor who meets disaster early on. Liz turns out not to be what she seems. Her true identity should be revealed in part two of this three-part series. (Parts two and three are not immediately available for viewing as one writes.)

There are virtually no surprises in this Indiana Jones rip-off, save possibly one near the end. Most scenes attempt to deliver mystery and suspense, to little or no avail.

There is one tender scene between Jack and Nadia, but it's not enough to save the movie. The best scene, photographically, has Jack and Nadia riding horseback toward their goal.

If you want to see a much better Indiana Jones style TV series, check out The Librarian series, starring Noah Wyle.

Fun adventure romp

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 15 June 2022]

Brash and dashing young archeologist Jack Hunter (a solid and likeable performance by Ivan Sergei) embarks on a perilous quest to find a lost treasure. He's assisted by feisty colleague Nadia Ramadan (a lively and appealing portrayal by the extremely fetching Joanne Kelly).

Director Terry Cunningham relates the enjoyable story at a snappy pace, stages the exciting action with aplomb, maintains an engaging sincere tone throughout, and makes good use of the exotic Middle East locations. Moreover, it's acted with zest by an enthusiastic cast: Thure Riefenstein as evil jerk Albert Littman, Susan Ward as the spunky Liz, Sean Lawlor as ill-fated mentor Frederic Shaffer, Mario Naim Bassil as amiable goofball Tariq, Muhammed Cangoren as the shrewd Ali, and Hakan Silahsizoglu as the helpful Hakim. A cool flick.

A poor Indiana Jones copy!

[tord-1 · 15 June 2013]

Seldom have I seen a TV movie that is so uneven, with excellent cinematography, beautiful cast (yes really impressive - and not that badly acted, either), but so very badly directed: For instance, after having just barely survived walking through a desert, and over a mountain range, our heroes, and the comic relief, tell us that they are close to dying from heat and thirst, and yet not a drop of sweat, not even a hint of sweat on their shirts, and their hair is well brushed all the time, well manicured, and we see a perfect mascara on the leading lady's face, and their clothes are as pristine as if they just had been returned from the cleaners.

Later in the story the heroine almost slips into a crevasse, getting a grip on the edge at the very last moment. Depending on the camera angle, from above, or from below, her hair color varies - she's normally a brown-haired beauty, but the stand-in is totally black-haired (most likely a wig), and might well be a man! Again, bad directing is to blame! John P. Tarver partaking this fiasco is a sad waste of cinematographic talent, I hope he has found better scripts, and better directors, to tune his talent on!

The CGI stinks, ugh, really bad! The fuzzy scorpions we see crawling on the walls wouldn't scare a 5 year old! And the car chases are very mediocre, indeed!

So, while the basics isn't that bad (sound, & cinematography, acting & stunts), the scriptwriting, and the directing, are really as they were done by Ed Wood, on a bad day!

A very far cry from Indiana Jones, and yet this TV mini-series evidently use the exactly same typeface, as Indiana Jones, and it is colored in exactly the same way - is that really allowed?!