THE STORY: ROMANCING THE STONE: Though she can spin wild tales of passionate romance, novelist Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) has no life of her own. Then one day adventure comes her way in the form of a mysterious package. It turns out that the parcel is the ransom she’ll need to free her abducted sister, so Joan flies to South America to hand it over. But she gets on the wrong bus and winds up hopelessly stranded in the jungle–until she encounters Jack Colton (Michael Douglas), a man who could have stepped straight out of one of her novels.
Though his good looks and intrepid moves dazzle her, Joan quickly sees Jack for the cheap opportunist that he is. But he’s all she’s got, so together they journey out of the jungle, battling mudslides, druglords, crazed treasure-hunters–and each other. Along the way, Joan discovers she’s tougher than she ever thought, tough enough to rescue her sister, and tough enough to fall in love with the troublesome Jack.
JEWEL OF THE NILE: Plucky romance novelist Joan Wilder is thrust back into a world of murder, chases, foreign intrigue… and love. This time out she’s duped by a duplicitous Arab dignitary who brings her to the Middle East, ostensibly to write a book about his life. Of course he’s up to no good, and Joan is just another pawn in his wicked game. But Jack Colton and his sidekick Ralph, old friends from her previous adventures, show up to help our intrepid heroine save the day.
THE REVIEW: Romancing The Stone is a movie that I absolutely loved as a kid. I’ve seen this movie dozens of times both in the theater and on television growing up. It’s a movie my family loved and always found exciting and fun.
The story is funny and smart and the movie moves along so well—it has all the ingredients of a classic. The cast is brilliant; Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and most of all Danny DeVito. DeVito is brilliant as the little scoundrel that wants only one thing; the treasure. It’s fun to watch all of the characters doing anything they can to find the treasure while trying to navigate through the chaos of the jungle.
Jewel of the Nile is another story altogether. Nile picks up where Romancing The Stone left off—the problem is there’s a new director and the writers don’t come close to pulling off the same elements that made Romancing great. The bigger problem is that Nile takes far too long to get interesting. The premise shouldn’t have taken so long to get moving considering we have already been introduced to the cast. Instead, Nile mingles in neutral far to long. The only positive aspect of Nile is DeVito—who pulls off another brilliant piece of comedy.
THE EXTRAS:
ROMANCING THE STONE:
There are a handful of deleted scenes. The scenes are interesting for at least one viewing.
“Rekindling The Romance: A Look Back” – This featurette features the cast looking back at their time on the set and discussing what they remember about making Stone.
“A Hidden Treasure: The Screenwriter” – This is a tribute and nice featurette about Diane Thomas who wrote the original movie and was killed in a tragic accident.
“Michael Douglas Remembers” – A very short featurette with Michael Douglas discussing the film.
JEWEL OF THE NILE:
The commentary by Director Lewis Teague is very interesting. It would have been nice to have a similar commentary by Robert Zemeckis. Teague looks back at Jewel of the Nile as if it was a classic and honestly that makes the commentary even more entertaining.
As with Romancing The Stone, there are a handful of deleted scenes but they aren’t nearly as interesting.
“Romancing The Nile: A Winning Sequel” – The fact that Jewel of the Nile is far from being a winning sequel sets a bad precedent for the featurette. It’s funny to see how pessimistic individuals like Kathleen Turner were about making the movie—guess she knew it was a dud from the beginning.
“Adventures of a Romance Novelist” – Is a synopsis of the movie—and it’s a dull one at that. Guess it isn’t even possible to sum up a bad movie and make it sound good.
FRANKLY: Romancing The Stone is a blast. It’s a shame that Jewel Of The Nile comes nowhere close to the quality of the first. Save yourself the grief and buy Romancing The Stone alone.
+ Charlie Craine
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