Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Suman Roberson It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Chris Zim This under-appreciated movie deserves to be better known. The filming is beautiful and Frank Langella's performance is mesmerizing - reminding me of his soulful and darkly troubled Dracula. It starts off slowly, but the story quickly begins rolling as the mysteries pile up, and Erica is drawn into investigating them. I am a big fan of Ancient Egypt, Egyptology and Archeology. This is in no way a documentary, but it perfectly captures and evokes the mystery and beauty of Ancient Egypt and the excitement of hidden treasures - it's certainly more than entertaining enough and has some interesting twists. Definitely worth watching if you get the chance!

JohnHowardReid A great piece of skulduggery and high adventure, set against the authentic and fascinatingly exotic backgrounds of Cairo and Luxor, Sphinx also boasts some equally fabulous interior settings (filmed in Budapest) that make a perfect match. In fact, here's a movie that would seem to have all the vital escapist elements for a smash success, including its basis on a bestseller by an "in" novelist, its interesting cast, its award-winning director (even if he is a little too inclined to over-use close-ups that undermine the conviction of some of the performances), great camera-work, terrific music score, plus $14 million worth of dazzling production values. Yet Sphinx failed to top even the $1 million mark in worldwide rentals. Why did the critics hate it? Why did moviegoers give this flick the flick? Perhaps the heroine, although superbly played by Lesley-Ann Down, was seen as too eager, too liberated for either male or female picturegoer identification? Or perhaps the mass audiences just won't accept a girl – any girl – as an action lead in the cinema? On TV, no problem. People leave their critical faculties dormant if the show is ostensibly free. (Perhaps that's why TV's Wonder Woman chalked up such high ratings?) Maybe the movie's plot was regarded as too facile and contrived? Maybe what the critics said about the characters being both too enigmatic and too one-dimensional hit home (even though audiences don't usually care a damn what critics say – and it didn't stop people from buying and reading the novel)? Perhaps the background was too authentic, the recreation of the real Egypt too meticulous? Or maybe it was simply that by 1981, Egyptian curse pictures had had their day, so that even a superior story like this Sphinx could make no box office headway?

MARIO GAUCI Rather foolish attempt at a Hitchcock-type mystery-thriller, improbably exchanging espionage for archaeology and based on the Robin Cook novel; incidentally, I’ve recently acquired another adaptation of his work – COMA (1978) – in honor of the late Richard Widmark. For the record, director Schaffner had just made THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL (1978) – a similarly fanciful but much more engrossing suspenser and, unfortunately, SPHINX was a false step from which his so-far impressive career would not recover.Despite its scope and reasonably decent cast, however, this one proved a critical and commercial flop – mainly because the narrative just isn’t very thrilling: in fact, it’s quite dreary (feeble attempts at horror – the archaeologist heroine having to put up with entombment, rotting corpses galore, and even an attack by a flurry of bats – notwithstanding). Lesley Anne-Down is the lovely leading lady, stumbling upon a lost treasure – it’s actually been hidden away by a local sect to prevent it from falling into the hands of foreigners, who have appropriated much of the country’s heritage (under the pretext of culture) for far too long. Sir John Gielgud turns up in a thankless bit early on as the antique dealer who puts Down on the way of the loot, and pays for this ‘act of treason’ with his life.Typically, it transpires that some characters are the opposite of what they claim to be – so that apparent allies (such as Maurice Ronet) are eventually exposed as villains, while an ambiguous figure (Frank Langella, whom I saw at London in early 2007 in a West End performance of “Frost/Nixon”, which has now been turned into a film) goes from Down’s antagonist to her lover and back again, as he determines to keep the wealth belonging to Egyptian high priest Menephta a national treasure.

catpause Call me a drippy romantic but Frank Langella, dancing eyes and all, is great in this movie. He captures the ideal of a darkly romantic mystery man with intelligence and humor. My only complaint is Lesley-Anne Down's shrieks--for an avowed Egyptolgist you'd think she'd be used to dark, dusty & dirty places. The plot, which causes Down to question her pride, self-esteem and morality when tempted with revealing centuries-old secrets, is straight forward and uncomplicated. The scenery of the desert, Cairo, and the pyramids is lush and lovely and the "comic relief," even though it comes with an "I just knew that would happen," twist is fun and charming. If you'd just like to watch a picturesque, romantic adventure with no socially redeeming features getting in the way, watch this.