“And me — a guy with 90-proof courage!”

Justin’s rating: I actually fell asleep in the middle of this one

Justin’s review: In the ’80s, who wasn’t trying to rip off one of the early generation of summer blockbusters? If it wasn’t a low-rent Alien clone, it was a cheapie Jaws knock-off. If it wasn’t “Star Wars but more generic,” it ended up being “Raiders of the Lost Ark but far less fun.” And since Italy never met a hit American film that it didn’t immediately try to Sicily up, we got such classics like… um… Treasure of the Four Crowns.

I’m sorry, but that title is so painfully generic that I would’ve expected to see it on a parody. Or a Veggie Tales parody. Didn’t spend a lot of time workshopping that name, did you boys?

Yet maybe there’s something to be explored, here. This was one of the 3-D Class of 1983 graduates, after all, and even had a soundtrack done by the legendary Ennio Morricone (A Fistful of Dollars).

Our hero of the hour is JT Striker (Tony Anthony), a soldier of fortune who wears a bright red jacket, falls into any open hole on screen, and is visibly stressed out and terrified about 100% of the time. You can sense that tomb robbing isn’t for him, so maybe he got pressured into it by his parents’ legacy or an evil guidance counselor.

The first 20 minutes (!) of this movie is nothing more or less than an extended castle plundering sequence with no dialogue, an overwrought score, and every cliche stolen from Indiana Jones. It felt like it went on so long that when it was done, I honestly thought — for a couple seconds at least — that the end credits would roll.

Eventually, Striker gets sucked into a quest to recover two mystical crowns from a criminal cult leader in his armed mountain fortress. For this, he’ll need a team of people who are hopefully less skittish than he is and some fun gadgets from the James Bond discount depot. His crew includes:

• A soused drunk
• A blue circus strongman with a weak heart
• A trapeze artist
• A grumpy gadgeteer

While Treasure of the Four Crowns may begin like Indiana Jones, it goes out like a Mission Impossible heist. And the plot and stakes doesn’t matter, anyway, as it’s all an excuse to go all-in on 3D effects. If there’s an object that can be thrust, spat, gushed, shot, thrown, or blasted at the camera — it will be. It’s only these insane special effects sequences that provide any real entertainment here, because the rest is dullsville. The magic key the group has periodically sends its immediate environment into a tizzy of poltergeist chaos, probably just to keep everyone awake and on top of their game.

And not only are all of these 3D effects happening left and right, they’re usually done in slow-mo and repeated at least three times so that you won’t miss a single frame of any of it. I’ve never seen a movie commit to a novelty like this one does, and it makes me regret not being able to see this as the filmmakers intended.

It’s just too bad that all these FX weren’t attached to a movie with better pacing, characters, or even — yes, I’m going to say it — soundtrack. Morricone may be a legend, but this movie’s score was an assault on the ears and I cared not for it.

Treasure of the Four Crowns has some moments, but only moments — and those you can replicate by picking up a handful of stuff and flinging it into your face. In slow motion. Three times. Apart from that, it’s a plodding, shrill affair that wishes it had an eighth of the charisma of Doctor Jones.

Intermission!

• So many words on this Star Warsesque title crawl
• Smoking helps psyche you up for tomb robbing
• UNDERGROUND VULTURE!
• UNDERGROUND PTERODACTYLS!
• Aww that’s a cute boa
• Does our hero ever stop looking scared?
• There’s like a zoo’s worth of animals in this place
• His stunt double is quite good at those front flips
• And the skeleton and suit of armor are moving… how?
• I’d be concerned about 3D crossbow bolts coming at me out of thin air
• Every 3D effect is repeated three times, just in case you missed it
• Running from flaming boulders in slow-mo
• There are only three crowns, by the way
• This bad guy’s roped in 15,000 followers? That’s pretty impressive for a dork with a triangle painted on his forehead.
• “Let me ask you something: Why… do all of those people have Halloween masks on?”
• How dare you, a mercenary, be all about the money!
• Magic keys love to fly around and make stuff blow up
• That’s an adorable castle model
• His lungs aren’t working, that stinks