JEWEL OF THE NILE (1985)
Tagline : They're back again...and romancing a brand new
stone.
(Action, Adventure, Comedy) [PG]
…But tonight, I gotta kill Colton!
All the movies in this series we’re going to have different names,
but basically this is ROMANCING THE STONE 2. The next planned movie in the
series never got made. In this one Jack Colton (played by Michael Douglas) and
Joan Wilder (played by Kathleen Turner) are living it up and sailing around the
world, but end up getting board. At one point Joan even asks Jack how much “romance”
one woman can take. Bloody hell. Anyway Joan decides to go help a man named
Omar write his biography in the middle east. Omar is pestered by the followers
of a man that he’s imprisoned and the more Joan finds out about Omar, the less
excited she is about this freakin trip. At some point Jack gets involved
because Ralph (played by Danny DeVito) basically forces him to. Jack and Ralph
believe that this “jewel” must be worth a fortune, but Jack actually does love
Joan still. We all know…one great way to turn your love life around is to have
a full blown adventure with people trying to kill you.
Out of the 2 movies in this series I think I liked this one better than
ROMANCING THE STONE. I think because the production quality was high, I knew
the characters already and it has more action than its predecessor. This one is
less dialog driven and does dive a bit into faith and false faith in the region
all while maintaining a light hearted tone. There are a few scenes that seem a little
off the rails and cliché, especially the ones involving Ralph, but as a comedy
action adventure it comes together nicely.
We get strong performances throughout, and everyone settles
back into the characters pretty well. Apparently Kathleen Turner had to be
negotiated into doing the movie after some money issues with the studio, and
even sparing with Michael Douglas. She also hated the script for what it’s
worth. The fact that she nails this thing is a compliment to her ability to
push through in spite of the friction. She did make another movie called WAR OF
THE ROSES with DeVito and Douglas, so they must have just gotten over it. I
also really liked Avner Eisenberg in this movie. He seems to have abandoned
acting sometime after 1992.
I will say that this one is more INDIANA JONES than the last movie but I can
see why some might not have liked it. There is a huge section of the movie
where Jack and Joan are not even together. It did to pretty well at the box
office making 3 times what it cost to make worldwide, but that was nowhere near
the success “profit wise” of the first movie, since this one has a bigger
budget. Like in the first movie, I wasn’t crazy about the score, but a few of
the music choices were pretty decent. You can never go wrong when you find a
way to get “Freaks Come Out At Night” by Whodini into your movie. On the downside every poster for this freakin movie has aged really poorly.
Regarding the plot, I really liked it, but I can see how some might have viewed
this movie how I did IRON MAN 3. You go into this one expecting one thing, and
you end up with something completely different. That might have led to some
frustration for fans. I give this thing
a 5 out of 7. I did like it better than the first movie, but it didn’t deserve
a higher rating.
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PURPOSES ONLY.
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