Peter Jackson's KING KONG hits the big screen and the same day The Asylum releases KING OF THE LOST WORLD. The big screen remake of WHEN A STRANGER CALLS prompts The Asylum to respond with WHEN A KILLER CALLS. Remake of THE HILLS HAVE EYES, I'd like you to meet your inbred mutant DTV counterpart HILLSIDE CANNIBALS. Next month will see the big screen remake of THE OMEN open on movie screens on 6/6/06. The very same day The Asylum will counter with 666: THE CHILD. This past Friday saw the worldwide release of the feature film version of THE DA VINCI CODE. Five days later, The Asylum releases THE DA VINCI TREASURE. A better title would have been THE DA VINCI CODE FOR DUMMIES.

I took my mom to see THE DA VINCI CODE movie the other day. She absolutely refused to go with me to see SEE NO EVIL. Hey, I tried. Anyway, my mom is Catholic, has worked for a Catholic diocese for most of my life, enjoyed Dan Brown's controversial novel, and thought the controversy surrounding the book and the movie to be absurd. I think she perfectly summed up the whole controversy in regards to both the people taking the book as literal fact and the religious protestors screaming heresy: "Its fiction! How stupid are all these people?" Well, clearly they're not nearly as stupid as anyone involved in making THE DA VINCI TREASURE.

I've never actually read Dan Brown's novel and never really understood what the big deal was about it either way. After seeing the movie, I still don't see the big deal. It's a modestly entertaining albeit needlessly drawn out bit of hooey that feels like it was concocted after Robert Ludlum, Clive Cussler, Chris Carter, and The Riddler all got together to bang out a quasi-religious piece of pulp fiction. The actual conspiracy at the heart of the book/film is a theory that's been bouncing about for a long time, and I can't see how the Catholic Church could really get so offended by having Opus Dei portrayed as the villains seeing as how the official face of Catholic villainy is a deranged French albino monk assassin into self-flagellation that believes he's an angel doing the Lord's work. I mean, honestly, how can anyone get this riled up over something so over-the-top ridiculous? But Dan Brown claims his book to be fact, enterprising companies are producing speculative documentaries and book tie-ins to cash in on its popularity, others are producing their own documentaries and books determined to debunk the novel, the Catholic Church is crying foul, the far right in America is crying "leftist propaganda," movie critics are crying "this movie is too long and dull," several countries have outright banned both the book and the film, and the box office, much like the book sales, are through the roof.

So why the hell shouldn't The Asylum decide to get in on the action? I wonder how all the people upset with THE DA VINCI CODE would feel about a movie where someone steals the Shroud of Turin by crumpling it up into a ball and stuffing it into a laundry sack? Or hearing it referred to as being nothing more than "a stinkin' rag"? Or that the Shroud of Turin is actually a treasure map Leonardo Da Vinci created as a cover for an invisible holographic cryptograph than can only be viewed with a set of crude 3-D decoder goggles that he also invented? Or seeing the protagonists somehow survive a fiery explosion at the film’s end by using the Shroud of Turin as a protective tarp? Actually, that last part would seemingly prove the Shroud's divinity considering there's no logical way in which they could have possibly survived an explosion of such magnitude that it reduces an underground treasure chamber into a half mile wide smoldering crater.

C. Thomas Howell is forensic anthropologist Michael Archer. He's got a tattoo of Leonardo Da Vinci on his arm and his lifelong obsession is solving the enigmatic riddle revolving around the secret hidden location of the vast fortune in treasure belonging to the wealthy family that served as benefactors for Mr. Da Vinci’s life’s work. Honestly, the whole plot to this film feels like somebody read THE DA VINCI CODE, watched the Nic Cage flick NATIONAL TREASURE, read up on the life of Leonardo Da Vinci, and quickly slapped the screenplay for this one together; tossing in a little BOURNE SUPREMACY car chasing and some RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK... No, make that ALLAN QUARTERMAIN & THE LOST CITY OF GOLD-esque booby-trapping for good measure. THE DA VINCI TREASURE clearly has more money behind it than your typical Asylum feature but what the hell do they have to show for it? I'll tell you what they have to show for it - a hodgepodge that when it isn't boring you, it's forcing you to put your head in your hands in disbelief at how idiotic it is.

How dumb is THE DA VINCI TREASURE? The opening scene has Howell and a cohort breaking into the estate of a wealthy collector of Da Vinci memorabilia by simply sneaking past the armed guards when they turn their backs for a moment. Later on, Howell will have to sneak back into the place to steal another item only to get there and find his rival has already stolen it and is currently downstairs beating the beejuzus out the homeowner.

That's how this whole thing works. Michael Archer steals the various Da Vinci treasure clues, then his rival and fellow archaeologist Dr. John Coven shows up with his armed goons to insult him, drop some f-bombs, rough him up a little, and steal the items from him that he just stole. As Archer says to Coven during one of these encounters, "I just find the clues. You just beat people up and take them." Despite having the item(s) taken from him, Archer still has enough evidence or photographs of the evidence to piece together the clues in order to move onto the next step in the treasure hunt, which is exactly what Coven is counting on since he's relying on Archer to do all the real legwork for him. Coven even refers to their little rivalry as a war in much the same manner that Dan Brown's novel referred to the goings-on.

Lance Henriksen plays the evil Dr. Coven and… Look, Lance Henriksen is a great actor but let's be honest for a second here. From a purely professional standpoint, the man is a whore. Pay him and he'll appear in your crummy movie and do the best he can to breath life into your crummy dialog; no questions asked. THE DA VINCI TREASURE will go down as one of the lower points in Lance Henriksen's career. Henriksen isn't King Midas; even he can't turn shit into gold.

This also presents a serious dilemma that cripples the film: just who the hell am I supposed to be rooting for? Michael Archer isn't a heroic Indiana Jones-type nor is he an unwitting participant thrust into this whole conspiracy like the lead character in THE DA VINCI CODE. Michael Archer is a greedy thief more than willing to break the law in order to find this treasure he covets. Dr. Coven just happens to be an even greedier thief more than willing to leave behind a body count in order to lay claim to the treasure. The hero of the film isn't really a hero; he's the lesser of two evils. Such a tale between two unscrupulous individuals competing against one another can be made into a compelling story in the right hands. Those right hands do not belong to anyone involved with this film.

Want more idiocy? According to one character, a fake Shroud of Turin is on display because it's too valuable to be left out in the open for the public to gawk at. This same character later explains that it makes perfect sense for the real one to be kept in an unguarded crate in a church basement where it’s easily stolen because, you know, it's so valuable and this is the last place anyone would look. Seriously now…

Or how about the scene where Michael breaks into where Da Vinci’s The Last Supper is on display after hours by getting his pretty European female sidekick to distract the only guard in the place by playing nice to him at the front door while Michael comes down from the ceiling on a rope cat burglar style?

And despite establishing shots and on-screen location graphics designed to try and fool you into thinking this film is happening everywhere from London to Italy to Afghanistan, the whole thing was filmed in California and it shows. A chase scene that’s supposed to be happening down the street of Italy has Howell and female companion running past a series of shops, all of which have English language signs in the window. My eyes may have deceived me, but I’d swear they ran past a couple of these shops more than once.

Some of this probably makes THE DA VINCI TREASURE sound like a great big "so bad it's good" cheeseball of a film, but I'm sad to report that despite some moments of mind-blowing stupidity, the movie is more of a bore than anything else. Despite being an hour shorter than THE DA VINCI CODE, The Asylum's DA VINCI TREASURE feels twice as long. I've heard people say THE DA VINCI CODE was too long and dull. Those people should take a gander at this thing. At least that film had a real pay-off. This one ends with a rip-off; you'll literally be sitting there saying, "That it?" when the film comes to an abrupt end.

Another thing that makes THE DA VINCI TREASURE a chore is Peter Mervis' direction. If you sat through his WHEN A KILLER CALLS then you already know he has a tendency to go overboard with certain editing techniques. Here Mervis goes completely ape shit with flash cuts, freeze frames, sped up film, and a variety of other annoying camera/editing gimmicks, all of which are accompanied by an irritating digital sound effect. This is the sort of thing you can get away with a few times to punch things up. You overdo it and it becomes annoying. Mervis does it to the point of being obnoxious. There's no rhyme or reason to any of it. He thinks it's cool and he keeps doing it over and over like an adolescent that has just learned a new swear word and is compelled to insert that vulgarity into every sentence. He wears out these gimmicks so much during the film's 15-minute pre-title sequence alone that I became aggravated throughout the rest of the film when he'd do it. I strongly suggest that the next time Peter Mervis edits one of his films there be somebody else in the editing bay carrying a rolled up newspaper. Mervis needs to learn some discipline.

The only thing that possibly could have saved THE DA VINCI TREASURE from being a total waste would have been if the cast had been composed of ex-Playboy Playmates and it have been directed by Andy Sidaris. All the hokey dialog, lame-brained plot devices, and low rent action scenes would have been perfectly suited for a film from the people that brought us PICASSO TRIGGER, HARD TICKET TO HAWAII, and FIT TO KILL. Sure, Dr. Coven has a busty blonde henchwoman with a thing for low cut tops, but that's just not enough. Half-naked, silicone-enhanced babes storming churches with machine guns, putting on silly looking x-ray specs that can decipher invisible holographic maps drawn on centuries old linens as well as see through people’s clothes, and waterlogged sex scenes of the swimming pool/shower/Jacuzzi variety are about the only things that could have made this film tolerable.

One last thing that pretty much pretty much put everything into perspective… There was a woman in the video store on the phone with (I assume) her husband telling him what was out as they tried to decide what to rent. She was standing right next to me when she spied THE DA VINCI TREASURE and began to tell him about it. I have no idea what he was said to her but the last thing I overheard her say before putting down it down and moving on was, "Anything starring C. Thomas Howell is going to be a bad movie." Ouch! Poor C. Thomas Howell, even the casual moviegoers have figured out that his name on a DVD case cinematic poison.