Crappy film

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

When i was much younger, still living at home, I was home sick from school one day and even though we owned many movies, I was hoping to catch something new. I had just landed on Super channel and the opening of Romancing the Stone came on. (Was sucked in by the shiny green). Totally enjoyed it, so when jewel came on after it, I watched that too and completely enjoyed it as well. The pair are awesome films.

A sequel to Romancing the Stone, one of Michael Douglas' more well- known films and a pretty decent romantic adventure film all-around. Jack (Douglas) and Joan (Kathleen Turner) have earned their happily ever after, but the cliché of it being pretty boring rears its familiar head and we're off to another adventure faster than you can say "80s synth soundtrack".The film has some good things going for it. Both of the main stars are really good actors. Although the script isn't the best, they have enough charisma to sell the cheesy lines. Well, most of the time anyway. The eponymous Jewel of the Nile is also a fun MacGuffin and not really at all what you'll likely initially expect.But... it's boring. It's so boring. It's every single bad cliché about North Africa and Arabic culture come to life, with stereotypical dictators, religious fanatics, turban-wearing locals and what have you. Half of the scenes are covered in tan dust and the other half definitely show the limitations of the budget. The script is very paint by numbers, not hitting any single solid note, except for the MacGuffin itself. But not even that is focused upon as much as I'd have preferred.All in all it's an okay film to check out if you liked the first film and just have to see more. Other than that... Pass.

Romancing the Stone was great, funny, original etc. etc. Yes. It was made in S. America. Picturesque, oddball, eccentric... Unfortunately Jewel of the Nile does not follow this. Not entirely its fault. For Americans esp. South America is a kind of picturesque Spanish Latino backwater for the US. A few drug barons, corrupt governments but otherwise exotic and enjoyable. The Middle East is another kettle of fish altogether. Ebert the critic wrote something about the charm of 'Romancing' missing from 'Jewel'. He's probably right. It does feel a bit as if the actors are struggling to recreate the chemistry and humour/quirkiness of 'Romancing', and not quite managing. Chemistry either is present or it isn't. Also it's the ME, the Arabs. US relations with and attitudes to the ME are entirely different from those with LA. So there is a kind of 'tenseness' about this film. It can't reproduce the enjoyable quirkiness of 'Romancing'. It's just too 'serious' being in the ME. Bad choice of culture for 'fun and quirky'. Anywhere else would have been better. This film was made in '85, with all the conflicts out there (Iran 79/80, Lebanon 82-2000, Iran/Iraq 80-90). Not an area for 'fun film making'. So they try to make fun of the Arabs and Islam. Doesn't really work. Americans tend to see the ME as a threat (Islam, Israel), or as a necessity, (Gulf oil, Iran oil, Iraq oil). Again not much fun... So bad choice of culture area for 'fun' 'quirky' etc. Now even less than then... Acting 'by numbers' for the cast who didn't really seem to be enjoying themselves as much as they were in 'Romancing'. While it can be said that the 2nd half is 'lighter and more amusing' than the 1st half, the fact that the viewer has to get through 40 mins of 'acting by numbers' to get to anything even vaguely amusing or entertaining says much about the sorry way the film was put together. I give it a 3 'for effort' but really a 2 for'enjoyability and chemistry'. Regretfully. There are unfortunately too few films then or now that have produced the 'innocent quirky fun' of Romancing. Maybe the Raiders trilogy came closest. Why do film makers and TV producer always start 'bright and breezy' then go down into 'dark'? (MD + KT + DdV in 'Wars of the Roses'...?). Great shame really...

Watching this, you get the feeling that half way through production, everyone decided that it just wasn't going to work, and best to wrap things up and put away dreams of an enduring franchise. It wouldn't shock me if somewhere down the line this turned out to be the real story of what happened. Not that it is horrible. It's one of those movies that's fun to watch on a cold winter night when there's nothing else to do. I like watching it usually sometime in December every year. And it's fun. But that's about it.The movie is basically formulaic, following the same gist of Romancing the Stone. But in each case, things are a little less where they should have been more, and more when they should have been less.While Romancing the Stone let the humor come from the story, the incidents, the characters, Jewel almost self-consciously feels the need to inject humor where it may or may not belong. While Romancing had fun encounters with people that never seemed entirely unrealistic, Jewel had a series of encounters where suspension of belief entered almost fantasy film levels. In Romancing, the scenery and the settings helped move the plot along. Here, they were usually just backdrops, the scenes could have been in the American West or in the Great Plains for all it mattered. There was a lack of attention to the little things.The actors, on the whole, were OK. In most cases, it was the support cast who maintained the drive. Both Turner and Douglas appeared, at times, to be biding their time, working through a project that they initially were excited about but eventually lost their enthusiasm.Movies usually are not filmed in order of the story. I would be interested to know if this was the exception. I would like to know this because, at least to me, it seems as if there are two movies: one set of scenes - in no particular order - where the mood, the film, the directing, the acting - are all of a higher quality, one that hearkens back to Romancing the Stone. The other, the directing, filming, acting, humor, dialogue - all seem sub-par. Even the final clip, that shows everyone coming together - no matter how illogical - seemed to be an afterthought, as if to say 'there, that's done! We're out of here and not coming back!' That is why I sometimes wonder if somewhere along the line something happened that took the wind out of everyone's sails, forcing them to just throw things together to make something coherent out of what they began. I dunno.In the end, Jewel of the Nile remains nothing more than mid-80s farcical romp, failing to be as good as its predecessor, and leaving the audience with the notion that it could have been better. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe from beginning to end, everyone threw their all into the movie. But if they did, it would take something other than the movie itself to prove the case.