Ms. Indiana Jones and The Party Pooper

First of all, Welcome Back Arielle Kebbel! I’m sorry that Hallmark didn’t rustle up something more worthy of your talents and appeal. She is as gorgeous as ever and was actually believable playing someone in her mid-20s (I think) even though she is 40. (The timeline was confusing and didn’t make sense.) Also, I have always liked her unaffected and somewhat gruff acting style and delivery.

This was very standard stuff made even more dull by the producers not wanting to detract attention from the beautiful scenery and the worthy lectures, uh, history lessons by including a plot that actually engages, or characters that have any personality or charm. The actors can only do so much with characters that are little more than cardboard cutouts on the page. That said, the photography was beautiful, and I feel it did justice to the Great Smoky Mountains, an area I have visited often. Unfortunately, any hope for an above-average Hallmark collapsed under the absurdity of the plot and the weirdly written and acted character of Arielle’s love interest, Rob, played by Zach Roerig.

The action part of the plot part revolves around archeologist, Dr. Haley (Arielle) discovering a cave, right on a well-traveled shortcut back to the dig she is working on with Rob, her ex. It is partially blocked by a boulder and Haley, without even entering the cave, by means of her cell phone flashlight and camera, discovers some ancient Cherokee pictographs that seem to be related to a Holy Grail-level legendary diamond-like sacred magic crystal that reveals the future among many other things. Need I point out that the cave would have been discovered long ago by looters, treasure hunters, other archaeologists, hikers, or curious kids fooling around in the woods? It’s on a trail in a freaking National Park, people! Anyway, the pictographs provide the clue that the legendary Cherokee crystal might be a real thing and might be near a waterfall. Haley and their colleague Troy are both gung-ho about finding the crystal, but again and again, Rob seems very bored with the idea and seemingly too lazy and cynical to do anything that requires any effort whatsoever. “But we’ve been to every waterfall in the park!”, he whines. “Have you been to Weeping Falls?”, asks Troy. “No, I would love to check it out!”, enthuses Haley. “That makes one of us.”, grumbles Rob. He displays such a lack of curiosity or enthusiasm for pursuing the clues to find the magical legendary crystal, that I seriously thought he was up to some scam. You could tell that even Haley was disgusted with his attitude (even though she’s back in love with him). It was very weird and annoying especially since I started out liking him pretty well. He had lied to Haley and deceived her in college but he took full ownership of his slimy behavior, apologized, and didn’t offer up any lame excuses or self-justifications. And the actor definitely had a certain appeal, looks-wise.

Anyway, Rob finally gets with the program at the last minute and follows Haley to find the crystal in the cave. She goes in alone because Rob sprains his ankle “rescuing” her unnecessarily (More lameness on his part!) and finds something wrapped in a cloth behind more pictographs. She brings it out but they decide to not even open it and put it back! Because it’s not “fun” to know the future. I can’t even. These two are supposed to be serious archaeologists. It’s like Howard Carter had peeked into King Tutankhamun’s tomb and decided to just forget about it. “The Legend Lives On”, they say. Yeah, sure, until the word gets out (the whole thing is not exactly a secret) and nasty exploiters get the sacred Cherokee crystal and it ends up in a tourist trap in Gatlinburg.

The whole thing was very cartoonish but in a dumb way, not a fun way. I hope Arielle will be back with Hallmark despite this disappointing effort. And sooner than another 4 years from now this time.