To me, this movie is perfection.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Blistering performances.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

For this baby boomer there will be only one Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, and that would be Irish McCalla from the 1955 TV series of the same name. But even though she wore a leopard print swimsuit, she never showed as much flesh as Tanya Roberts does here. As a jungle queen, Roberts pretty much proves she's no actress, but I don't think many movie goers of the Eighties gave it very much thought.Seeing that this movie was filmed in Kenya confirmed to me that those scenes involving immense flocks of flamingos had to be taken at Lake Manyara. I was there in 1974, and the scenes in the picture looked just like those I observed on a photographic safari. That was some time before Sheena arrived on the scene, so I didn't catch sight of her.A couple quick observations - how is it the expert tracker leading the Otwani/Jorgensen party never thought to look up when the trail he was following abruptly ended in the middle of the jungle? That's the first thing I would have done. And here's a kick, what's the odds of running across a few bottles of Coca Cola while in hot pursuit of Sheena and Vic Casey (Ted Wass)? Not to say it's impossible, but really.Well there's not much to recommend with this story unless you've got a thing for seeing a good looking woman in a skimpy outfit. That's definitely the case here, with Sheena approaching soft porn territory with virtually every step she takes and tree she climbs. I don't know how Vic Casey held it all together.

With slight modifications, Sheena is basically just a female version of Tarzan, my all-time favorite fictional character. Everyone pretty much knows going in that the plot, dialog and acting of a film like this will be of the "B" movie variety, and it is, sort of like Indiana Jones but a bit less compelling. What's magnificent, awe-inspiring and "A" level are the African locations (Kenya), the score and Tanya Roberts.Seriously, if you're bored with your every-day locale this movie is the perfect antidote. It's virtually a two-hour tour of some of the most gorgeous African scenery you'll ever feast your eyes upon. As for the score, it's pleasant and meditative; reminiscent of "Chariots of Fire." Regarding Tanya Roberts, what can I say? She's stunning.I never concern myself with ratings when watching films, but I couldn't help but be a little surprised by the PG rating here because Sheena (Roberts) is shown TOTALLY nude on a number of occasions and prances around throughout the flick in a ridiculously skimpy leather bikini; but then it struck me that it's portrayed in an inoffensive way like Eve in Eden before the fall and the consequent awareness of evil. In other words, there's an almost child-like innocence and purity to Sheena even though she's a quite skilled warrior. I commend the film-makers for successfully capturing this quality. For this reason I personally don't feel the movie is inappropriate for kids, despite the nudity.My rating of B- reflects the happy medium between the Grade C plot, dialog & acting and the Grade A African locations, score and Ms. Roberts.The film runs 117 minutes.GRADE: B-

Breath-taking African scenery and Tanya Roberts, one of the most beautiful women ever to appear on a movie screen, provide lots of lovely things to look at but don't QUITE distract one from the central truth of this movie, which is that it stinks. The plot is simplistic, predictable, paint-by-numbers 80s action junk about evil mercenaries doing something evil, the dialogue is so bad it almost works as camp or self-parody, and the primary musical theme is so annoying and unsuited to the milieu it needs muting. You almost want to extract images of Tanya running about in her Fredrick's of Zimbabwe bra top and thong, taking showers under waterfalls, riding her zebras, and bouncing, bouncing, always bouncing... and put them to better music, with the dialogue cut out. The movie itself is just jaw-droppingly awful, but Tanya is just so fabulous, no (hetero male) viewer cares, as the camera lingers on her glorious body and gazes into her empty blue eyes, so blank and uncluttered by comprehension or thought. TV D-lister Ted Wass is along as her erstwhile male lead, and is so amazingly bland on-screen he makes Tanya look charismatic by comparison, no small feat. As adventure fiction, it's pretty much garbage. Enjoy the eye candy.

In the early 20th century, Audrey Munson made her movie debut in Thanhouser's "Inspiration" (1915), essentially playing herself: an artist's model. A year later, she appeared in another film, "Purity" (1916). What is remarkable about these films is that in both, Miss Munson appears in the nude. This is in the nineteen-teens, remember. There were censorship boards then, run by the states rather than the film industry... and of course they always sought to keep the movie screens free of smut.And yet, both "Inspiration" and "Purity" were approved for public exhibition... because the nudity in them was artistic and non-erotic. I don't know if that standard has ever been applied, to any other film; or rather, I didn't know, until I chanced across "Sheena" (1984).Browsing through the channels one evening, I found this film, starring Tanya Roberts as Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. "I'll give it a chance," I figured. So my wife and I watched as Ms. Roberts, clad only in a leather bikini-like garment, went about her adventures in the jungles of darkest Africa.Then, out of nowhere, there's a scene where she stops by a lake to bathe. I figured she would just jump in, since she's already wearing practically nothing anyway, right? Wrong!Before we knew what was happening, Tanya Roberts slipped out of her garment and entered the lake nude, in all God's glory. I mean it when I say I didn't see it coming. Most of the time when you see nudity on the screen, you kinda know it's coming, but this was a real surprise.I checked the program guide for the MPAA rating. Gotta be an R, right? Wrong again! Sheena was given a PG rating -- not a PG-13, not an R, not an NC-17. It's a PG, meaning any youngster, of any age, can see the movie without an adult. And, come to think of it, the "Parental Guidance" suggested by PG is probably because of some battle scenes in the movie.Thinking back, I wonder: Is this the first time since the two Audrey Munson films in 1915 and 1916, that on-screen adult nudity has been allowed, with no restrictions whatsoever?I'm not a big fan of nude scenes, and I don't seek them out. But this one, in Sheena, has to be the most innocent one I've ever seen.Dan Navarro ([email protected])