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Thanks to Count Norton (Mauro Parenti), the mask of Tutankamen is on
exhibition in France. But not only the mask is in France but also a host
of shady characters who want to get hold of the mask, not so much because
the mask is priceless, which in itself would be motive enough, but also
because it's said to feature a treasure map leading to the actual treasure
of Tutankamen. In a daring yet diligently planned coup, master criminal
Falkoff (Gordon Mitchell) manages to steal the mask, but that hasn't gone
unnoticed by mysterious superhero Fenomenal, who is always close by but
doesn't interfere - and yet the very next day, Count Norton (who is of
course Fenomenal's alter ego) is delivered the mask. At the museum though,
Egyptologist Micklewitz (John Karlsen) claims the mask exhibited is a
fake, and it soon turns out there are more than one fake masks, and before
long, nobody is sure anymore who has which mask. One thing's for sure
though, Micklewitz is by no means the unworldly, helpless and paralyzed
scientist he made the world believe but is in cahoots with Falkoff,
desperate to get his hands on Tutankamen's treasure, and he kills
everybody who gets in his way, including Falkoff. Eventually, the action
shifts from Paris to Tunisia for no real reason, where the Count/Fenomenal
still tries to figure out the whole case (that long got lost on the
audience) and get friendly with Micklewitz's pretty nurse Mike (Lucretia
Love) - which in the finale leads to her being held hostage by her
employer on his yacht while Fenomenal fights over the mask underwater. It
all ends happily though, everybody gets what he or she deserves, and the
Count gets Mike, who now turns out to be a CIA agent. One of
the first films by later Italian cult director Ruggero Deodato, this is by
no means a good film, more of an uninspired hodgepodge of heist movie,
travelogue and superhero flick (though the only thing superheroic about
Fenomenal is that he wears a mask). On top of that, the pülot seems to be
a tad overconvoluted and refuses to make too much sense, and the
characters are pretty much uniformly bland. Having said all that though,
isn't this pretty much what you come to expect from an Italian superhero
flick? Sure, there were stylish masterpieces like Diabolik,
but these were few and far between, and most films were much more like Fenomenal
e il Tesoro di Tutankamen, which might be by no means a good film, but
good fun to watch nevertheless.
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