Movie Info
Movie Name: The Jewel of the Nile
Studio: SLM Production Group/Stone Group Pictures/20th Century Fox
Genre(s): Action/Adventure/Romance/Comedy
Release Date(s): December 4, 1985 (Premiere)/December 11, 1985 (US)
MPAA Rating: PG
I want you to explain to me again, why am I in this movie? I don’t understand!!!
Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) and Jack T. Colton (Michael Douglas) are back and there is trouble in paradise. Their whirlwind romance has left Joan wondering if Jack is right for her. When she is offered the chance to write the biography of a North African ruler named Omar (Spiro Focas), Joan jumps at the chance to further her career. As Joan travels to Africa with Omar, Colton’s forced to team with his old enemy Ralph to rescue the Joan and find the mysterious Jewel of the Nile for a faction rivaling Omar. Joan begins to uncover Omar’s true motives and befriends a man she names Joe (Avner Eisenberg) who knows the truth about the Jewel. Now Joan and Jack must stop Omar.
Hey, did you see Raiders of the Lost Ark? How did Indiana Jones get out of this situation?
Directed by Lewis Teague, The Jewel of the Nile was the follow-up to the surprise hit Romancing the Stone. The movie was not received as well as the original, and it was the last in the series.
The Jewel of the Nile just isn’t as fun as Romancing the Stone. It still has energy but doesn’t have a story that really keeps moving like the previous story. Nothing in this adventure really jumps out and says that it is something new and different, but instead it feels like a bit of a knockoff of the old material. It initially attempts to answer the question of what happens after the adventure is over, but it fails.
Yeah! The movie’s over!
The formula that worked in Romancing the Stone was kind of the Moonlighting style of relationship between Jack and Joan. They fought and fell in love. In this story they must break-up and fall in love again. This means them being separated for much of the movie and feuding, and it just doesn’t make for as interesting of a story. While the first movie was unfairly compared to Raiders of the Lost Ark, this feels more like a Raiders (or Indiana Jones) rip off to me.
The Jewel of the Nile feels like a generic ’80s movie. It is like the Alan Quartermain films that were not as inspiring. It never made sense why Danny DeVito was back in the mix for this film and his character is kind of obnoxious (ok, he tried to kill them the first time, why Jack is ok with him here I don’t know). Romancing the Stone is headed for a remake, but I can’t imagine that The Jewel of the Nile will follow it again.
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