Tad, The Lost Explorer and The Curse Of The Mummy Review

Tad, the Lost Explorer and The Curse of the Mummy is a Spanish animated film that aims to be a kid-friendly adventure film.

Tad Stone (Trevor White) is an archaeologist who makes an extraordinary discovery in Mexico: an Egyptian sarcophagus. When Tad tries to examine the sarcophagus in Chicago, his friend, Mummy (Joseph Balderrama) accidentally gets cursed. This forces Tad and Mummy to go on an adventure to Paris and Egypt to find a legendary emerald tablet. However, the authorities are on their tail.

Tad, the Lost Explorer was heavily influenced by the Indiana Jones franchise. Tad was clearly modelled on the famous character because they were archaeologists that wear fedoras and go on globetrotting adventures. In the Spanish Language version of the film Tad’s surname was Jones, not Stone. There were homages to famous scenes from the original films, like the boulder chase, the hat grab, and a water-based chase in the middle of a historical city. The film had its own spin of the travel by map sequences.

The Curse of the Mummy was the third movie in a series. I have not seen the previous films but they weren’t required viewing. Events from the previous films were referenced yet newcomers can get up to speed really quickly. It was a standalone film.

The film opened promisingly enough. Tad was shown to be low down in the archaeological hierarchy, and he ends up in an exciting action sequence. It was a fun sequence. When Tad was looking for the office of Napoleon’s archaeologist in the Louvre it felt like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Dan Brown’s novels, and the recent Uncharted movie and it made for a fun if simple puzzle for the character to solve. The filmmakers were able to find the right balance of making Tad clumsy and competent. He wasn’t an idiot who lucked his way through life. If anything, Tad was unlucky because of his clumsiness and companions’ actions.

However, the film did suffer when Tad returned to Chicago. This was due to the character of Mummy. Mummy was a character that Tad befriended in the last movie and became Tad’s roommate. However, Mummy was an incredibly irritating character who made things worse for Tad, and Tad’s problems could have been solved if he had left the corpse to rot. Mummy spent all of Tad’s money, was a social media addict and ignored everything Tad told him. It was cringy to watch him floss and uses off-brand Instagram. It was like the filmmakers were trying to prove they were down with the kids. Mummy had an annoying voice which also made the character unbearable. Balderrama was on sextuple duty since he was voicing six characters.

The film’s dependence on slapstick, funny voices and the occasional fart joke meant that The Curse of the Mummy catered to young children. There was a manic energy when Tad and his companions were in the Chicago university and during the chase in Paris. There were some jokes that raised a chuckle, like the Egyptian mummy ‘Ra Amon Ah’ (Pippa Bennett-Warner), who everyone calls Ramona. Many jokes don’t land, like most of the jokes involving Mummy. Children who have grown up with this film will probably be embarrassed if they found Mummy funny in the first place when they’re older. A joke that wore out its welcome involved an American CIA agent and Mexican intelligence agent. The American was an arrogant idiot yet took control of the investigation. It didn’t help that the voice actor for Pickle sounded like he recorded his lines during lockdown.

On a final note, in some territories the film has the Tad, the Lost Explorer and the Emerald Tablet. This was a better title because it highlighted the main object of the film. Curse of the Mummy was the most generic title possible.

Tad, the Lost Explorer and the Curse of the Mummy was baby’s first adventure film. It works as a way to ease young children into the genre before introducing them to Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, and Uncharted. But young viewers will probably forget about the animated adventure when they get older.