Jewel Of The Nile: Special Edition – DVD Review

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20th Century Fox presents Jewel Of The Nile: Special Edition. Written by Mark Rosenthal & Lawrence Konner. Based on characters by Diane Thomas. Running Time: 106 minutes. Rated PG. Originally released in 1985.

Director:

Lewis Teague

Cast:

Michael Douglas……….Jack Colton
Kathleen Turner……….Joan Wilder
Danny DeVito……….Ralph

The Movie:

Like all good romance stories, Romancing The Stone ends with a happily ever after, remember the boat riding of down the streets of New York? Jewel Of The Nile picks up six months later when things aren’t as happy as one might expect. Tension is brewing between Jack Colton and Joan Wilder and to top it all off Joan is having writers block on her next novel. At a press conference a mysterious man approaches Joan and offers her the chance of a lifetime to write his biography. Jack has other plans and they go their separate ways.

As Jack is about to go one his un-merry way, everyone’s favorite (or not) goofball villain Ralph (Danny DeVito) shows up wanting revenge. They are interrupted when a different mysterious man shows up saying that Joan has gone off with an evil man and they need to go to Africa to stop him, get back the Jewel of the Nile and save Joan. Jack has no intensions of joining him. That is until his boat blows up. And of coarse Ralph comes along to try and get the jewel for himself. (Too bad the jewel isn’t what he thinks it is). And with that everyone is off to Africa.

From here the formula kicks into high gear. Joan gets in trouble, Jack has to save her and Ralph makes snide smart-alecky comments the whole way through. They get into clichéd situation after clichéd situation all the while Joan and Jack fight and make up and fight and make up, until finally saving the day and once again everyone gets a happy ending. Even Ralph.

Note: There aren’t many PG movies out there with nudity, but I suppose since the nudity in question is “natives” then it’s okay, cause that’s the customs of those people, I guess.

Romancing The Stone was a fun, clever, entertaining movie. This sequel is seriously lacking in everything that made the first one enjoyable. The last line of the film explains it all when Ralph says “Sufi’s rule!” Seriously, that’s what he says. It’s terrible.

STORY: 6/10
ACTING: 7/10
LOOK/FEEL: 7/10
ORIGINALTY: 5/10
ENTERTAINMENT VALUE: 5/10
FINAL SCORE: 6/10

The untimely demise of Jack’s boat.

The DVD:

The Video:

This film is widescreen, 2.35:1. The film here looks pretty good, a little bit of aging, nothing terrible.

The Audio:

This film is presented in Dolby 5.1. The sound is fine as well. No real problems here, nothing to distract from the film.

Extras:

Commentary by director Lewis Teague: Lewis starts out by saying he is Michael Douglas and wants to tell us how great a director Lewis Teague is. Then he says he just joking. I’m pretty much stopped paying attention to anything this guy had to say after that. I’ve said this before, but it’s hard to sit and listen to someone talk about how great a movie is when know it’s not half as great as they think it is. This guy also spends way too much time talking about all the other films he’s made. Also, there are long chunks of the film where Lewis doesn’t talk at all. However, IF you do like this movie, you might get something out of it.

Romancing The Nile: A Winning Sequel: When the director asked, why we shooting this film in Africa? Michael Douglas, who also produced, said: Cause we shot Romancing The Stone in the rain forest and I want to be somewhere warm and dry. Yeah, that’s a great reason to make a movie! “Why make a sequel?” Douglas asks. Yes Michael, why? WHY!

Adventures Of a Romance Novelist: This one talks about the story within the story, the fact that Joan is a novelist. It focuses on the development of Jack and Joan’s characters as we come into the sequel. It’s not very interesting.

Deleted Scenes: These fall under the deleted for a reason category. But they do show us how much the print of the film has been improved, cause these look terrible. The film is all scratched up, like someone dug them out of a trashcan to put on this DVD.