The Adventurer - The Curse of Midas - Blu-ray

Content: 17-year-old Mariah Mundi's (Aneurin Barnard) world comes completely apart at the seams when his parents (Ioan Gruffudd & Keeley Hawes) disappear without a trace, and a short time later his little brother Felix (Xavier Atkins) is kidnapped as well. With the help of the mysterious Charity (Michael Sheen), a friend of his parents, Mariah will try to free his brother from the hands of the kidnappers and solve the mystery of the disappearance of his parents. All clues lead to the Prince Regent Hotel, located on a small island off the English coast, and its new owner Otto Luger (Sam Neill). He is looking for the legendary Midas Box, which is said to be buried somewhere on the island and which gives its owner immeasurable power. Using false names, Mariah gets herself a job at the hotel and gets closer and closer to solving the mystery. But even with the help of young seamstress Sacha (Mella Carron), he seems hopelessly outgunned by the powerful Luger and his henchmen...

The Adventurer - The Curse of Midas is based on an adventure novel by G.P. Taylor. With a budget of just under 25 million dollars, director Jonathan Newman has created an exciting fantasy adventure for the whole family from the original, which is quite convincing, especially on the visual level. It quickly becomes clear that the film is intended to appeal to the same target audience as the Harry Potter or Narnia adaptations. But unfortunately the first adventure of Mariah Mundi doesn't reach their quality. This is not only due to the much lower budget Newman had at his disposal. Rather, the story also lacks dramaturgical grandeur, the staging lacks pace and the lead actor lacks charisma.

Sure, the film has some very good moments, in which especially younger fans of exciting adventure films will have fun. But in many scenes, Newman just can't find the right timing, which then unfortunately reveals the script's weak points far too clearly. Especially the scene that culminates in the kidnapping of Mariah's brother is a very good example of how a good moment of suspense is completely destroyed by bad timing. Also, the coolness of Michael Sheen's character is underutilized by far, which is a real shame. Because as soon as Sheen enters the scene, the movie clearly gains in entertainment value. Against him, the young leading actor Aneurin Barnard unfortunately remains extremely pale, which is why it would have been all the more important to let Sheen come into play a little more often.

The potential that The Adventurer - The Curse of Midas possesses is thus only played out to a very limited extent. Therefore, expectations for this home theater premiere should be scaled back a bit. But if you just want to see a simple-minded fantasy adventure for a young target audience that offers some good show values and a few successful moments of suspense, you can safely take a look here. Worth seeing!

Image + Sound: The Blu-ray's image is absolutely clean and features a high level of image sharpness even in darker scenes. Along with the very powerfully mixed colors and the coherent contrasts, even smaller details of the good set come out very nicely. The audio is in a lively DTS-HD Master Audio mix. Dialogue is well-matched to the music and sound effects and sounds clearly intelligible from the speakers. Both smaller ambient sounds and larger sound effects consistently fill the multi-channel area with life. Good!

Extras: As a bonus, the Blu-ray has a decent, just under twenty-minute making of to offer in addition to the trailer.

Conclusion:The Adventurer - The Curse of Midas is a nice adventure film that has some very well done moments and a set up worth watching. However, the rather colorless lead actor Aneurin Barnard and some too superficially implemented plot elements do noticeably tarnish the enjoyment of this novel adaptation. However, Martin Sheen's lively performance, some good show values and family-friendly moments of suspense make the film, despite its weaknesses, a home cinema premiere worth seeing for all lovers of light fantasy adventures. The Blu-ray is technically very well implemented, the bonus offer is meager, but okay. Overall, there is still a: recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp