'Tut' miniseries is overstuffed melodrama

Tutty, we hardly knew ye.

Surprisingly enough, for the first two hours of Spike's Tut (Sunday, 9 ET/PT, ** stars out of four), a six-hour sand-and-sandal melodrama, our almost total lack of knowledge about the short-lived 18th dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun works in its favor. We know little about Tut's life beyond the famous items from his tomb — one of which, that glittering gold mask, shows up in the second of Tut's three parts, just to remind us who we're talking about. Free of an historical record they might otherwise be accused of trashing, writers Michael Vickerman, Bradley Bredeweg and Peter Paige are free to invent as they choose.

Unfortunately, by Monday's Part 2, invention fails them. What begins as an entertaining adventure devolves into a silly overstuffed Tut fest — part Mummy, part Moses, part The King and I. That still gives Tut a leg up on Reign and The Tudors, which substituted dull fiction for far more interesting fact — but that victory is likely to mean more to biographers than viewers.

On the plus side, give Spike some credit for trying something that seems to be wildly out of its wheelhouse, and for adding some fine actors to the effort — even if those actors aren't always particularly well-served. Still, whatever problems Tut has, casting isn't one of them — not when Tut's conniving adviser is played by Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley and his equally untrustworthy general is played by British Shakespearean actor Nonso Anozie, who can also be seen this summer in CBS's increasingly dreadful Zoo. (There's an actor with an agent who has some explaining to do.)

Leading the multicultural, multi-accented cast as Tut is Avan Jogia, who gives a fine account of himself as the misunderstood king. Best known for his work in the pre-teen series Twisted and Victorious, Jogia gives every indication here of being ready to handle bigger, better roles.

But my goodness, it's a struggle. As a man, Tut is torn between two lovers: his sister and queen Ankhe (Sibylla Deen), and his mistress Suhad (Kylie Bunbury), whose ludicrous soap-opera battles are Tut's nadir. As a ruler, he's battling a plague and the evil Mitanni Empire — though luckily for the Egyptians, Tut has an almost magical ability to slip in and out of palaces unseen. Egyptologists better check that tomb again: Perhaps Tut has escaped.

For a while, palace intrigue, Egyptian architecture and a few rousing battles are enough to keep Tut moving. But the farther it moves, the more it gets entangled in that demeaning queen-vs.-queen subplot, to the point where Tut vanishes from his own movie as thoroughly as he's vanished from history.

That's Tutty for you: Just can't catch a break.