Somewhere between the demands of her career, her ex’s wedding and her kids’ busy schedules, Dana James (Paige Turco, The Agency) is noticing her tight-knit family starting to unravel. An unexpected offer to purchase her family’s mountain property sets up a weekend road trip, which she hopes will bring her family back together. But when they arrive, they quickly learn that the mountain is much more than it seems. An ancient secret and a treacherous quest will test the family like never before. It’s an edge-of-the seat thriller that reminds us that when times are tough, families don’t run away from problems — they run back to each other.

This movie was advertised on the Walmart TVs in the electronics department for at least the last month. I had to watch it just to see how it was. I went in pretty much expecting it to be terrible. It was a made for TV movie and it was sponsored entirely by Walmart and Proctor and Gamble. The first thing I noticed was hilarious product placement. About 10 minutes in, there is a scene where the family is getting ready for dinner in the kitchen/dining room area. Every product seen is Great Value branded. I think I remember seeing coffee creamer and orange juice and one of those take and bake pizzas from the deli area. Then you can see a reusable Walmart shopping bag on the back counter. Later on, it is breakfast time the next day and the youngest girl gets out a box of great value cereal and holds it directly in front of the camera for about 30 seconds while talking. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such blatant product placement in a movie. However, thankfully, once they get away from the kitchen area, there is no more noticeable product placement.

The idea of this movie is that a woman inherits a plot of land from her supposed dead uncle. She doesn’t have time to do anything with it because she is a single mother with three kids. She gets a letter that someone is interested in buying the land. They go to the land to see the house that the woman hasn’t seen since her childhood. Turns out that her supposed dead uncle has been living there because he has been studying what is supposed to be in the mountain. He is a huge history buff and believes that there are Aztec ruins inside the mountain that they own.

A cut scene is shown of the woman’s childhood with her uncle where a man tries to run her uncle off the road and kill him to get to his land. We soon find out that this is the man trying to buy the land. The family then sets out on an adventure to see if there is, in fact, any Aztec treasures in their mountain.

I doubt anyone reading this will actually ever watch this movie, but if you do plan on it, you might not want to read any further. Spoiler alert. You have been warned.

The movie starts out with the older brother and sister always fighting. The mom is trying to figure out what happened between them but never has the time to sit down and have a conversation. This same brother and sister team miraculously stop fighting when they come together as a team to find the way to the entrance of the inside of the mountain where the treasure is. Later on, as the family is tip toeing around a cliff ledge, the mom sends the older brother and youngest sister on so she can have a conversation with her middle daughter to find out what actually happened. I thought it was really strange that she would send her children into what could be certain death so that she could have a chance to talk to one of her other children. Anyway, we find out through another cut scene that someone had texted the girl to come to basketball practice if she wanted to go to prom with him. She did and got totally embarrassed by the guy turning her down. Her brother is also on the basketball team and he just looked at her as she walked away. Later on in the movie, after the brother helps his sister up from a bridge that is falling into a bottomless pit, they finally make up. It kinda seems like they should have kissed and made up because they were acting more like a couple than brother and sister throughout the whole movie. Thats some of the bad acting that was seen.

In my opinion, all the characters were played well except for the brother and sister duo I mentioned above. The movie was mostly predictable from the very beginning. It’s a family movie so it has to have a happy ending and not much bad can happen. They start out with problems, they go through something that brings them closer together, they forgive each other for their problems, they move in with their uncle, and everyone lives happily ever after. The movie could have been better if it was rated PG-13 so that a little more action could have happened in the cave. However, if that would have been the case, it couldn’t have aired in prime time on NBC and walmart probably wouldn’t have sponsored it.

I’ve also read rumors that this could be a pilot for a TV show that will also be sponsored by Walmart and P&G to air on NBC. I really hope not. It went over well as a movie. The ratings were really good from what I read. But this was hyped for weeks on the Walmart TV network and was probably advertised on NBC for weeks as well. I don’t think people will come back week after week to watch content like this. In the busy world that we live in these days, families rarely actually watch TV together. Everyone has their own shows that they like to watch. I don’t think kids would watch a show based on this movie on their own, nor would adults.

So….my overall rating is…. 3/5. It was an alright movie. It was better than I expected. It had its weak and strong points. I found myself actually getting into it during the last 15 minutes or so. If the brother/sister duo wouldn’t have acted like they were flirting more than being bro/sis, I would probably give it a 4. However, the only (legal) way to obtain this right now is to pay $12 for the DVD at Walmart. I would not recommend doing that. If you can find it streaming somewhere online for free (legally of course) feel free to watch it. Its only about an hour and a half once all the commercials are taken out, and its a decent little family movie.

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