The Jewel of the Nile (1985)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Action	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1985
Running Time	101:35
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Lewis Teague
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Michael Douglas Kathleen Turner Danny DeVito
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$36.95	Music	Jack Nitzsche

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Czech Danish English for the Hearing Impaired Finnish Hebrew Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, minor
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    The Jewel Of The Nile (JOTN) is, of course, the sequel to a highly and deservedly successful 1984 film, Romancing The Stone (RTS). Rushed through production in response to that success and released the very next year, it lacks every (yes, every) worthwhile characteristic of its predecessor. I had the advantage of being able to sit down and view these two films over successive nights. I might as well have put on any other film at random, for all the similarities that exist between them. Most telling are the changes in characterizations that occur between the films. The success of RTS stems largely from the glow that emanates from the two leading characters, romance novelist Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) and fortune hunter Jack Colton (Michael Douglas). Each is a dreamer in their own way, seeking that spark of happiness that turns into love for each other. Their adventure together is essentially a fun romp.

    The first few moments of JOTN destroy any spark that ever existed in our heroes' characters. Rather, it turns out that six months of living together and sailing amongst all the beautiful places of the world has left each of them hardened and bitter. Gone is the warmth and innocence and, unfortunately, gone too is the fun.

    The story opens with Joan and Jack living aboard the "Angelina" (how many noticed that the pleasant-but-modest yacht featured at the end of RTS has now turned into a luscious Beneteau 45 footer?) anchored in some suitably magnificent Mediterranean harbour. Jack is clearly having fun in the sun, but Joan is fed up and regretting the whole thing. When she's offered the chance to leave Jack and write the biography of some two-bit warlord she accepts and flies off to North Africa to begin a new phase in her life. The small matter of a bomb left on board the "Angelina", intended to kill Jack, plus a story about "the Jewel of the Nile" proves too much temptation for him, and he and the resurfaced Ralph (Danny DeVito, who valiantly tries to maintain his high level of energy from before), head off to save Joan and get rich.

    We are quickly appraised of a couple of facts: firstly that Joan's new patron is not a freedom fighter but a power hungry nasty who expects to take over the world with half a dozen armoured personnel carriers and a single F16 jet fighter and, secondly, that the Jewel of the Nile is actually a weedy little religious/mystic man. The film rambles from scene to scene with the odd silly gimmick popping up from time to time. There are chases, as before, lots of gunshots and a set scene involving the F16 causing lots of havoc on the ground. All this leads fairly unimaginatively to the climax that features the war lord putting on a light and sound spectacular, trying his best to look like he's the "chosen one". Of course, Joan and Jack reconcile their differences just in time to save themselves and the Jewel.

    This film lacked the central creative team that made RTS what it was. Instead, we get childish direction, characterizations that lose the viewers' interest, and plot weaknesses that show through the rest of the film's inadequacies.

    By the way, I couldn't get over the number of jugglers that keep appearing all the way through the film. Someone must have made a huge mistake and ordered jugglers instead of tuna sandwiches, or something similar. Even in supposedly "serious" scenes we get these ridiculous guys juggling their flaming pins.

Video

    Picture clarity is acceptable throughout, although I felt that sharpness tended to vary. It is certainly not up to the same standard as that of its predecessor and at times is rather soft. Resolution of shadow detail is also of a lesser standard than before and becomes marginal in many darker scenes. Graininess seems to threaten on many occasions. Given that the two films are being released simultaneously with the same general specifications, I'd hazard a guess that the difference in picture quality goes back to the quality of the original film stock.

    Colours show through realistically without ever being vibrant. Skin tones are fine and natural.

    No compression artefacts are present at any stage. The slightly less sharp image would help in this regard. The source print was very clean and showed no scratches or other marks.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Dialogue is perfectly clear at all times (not that that helps much when there's nothing intelligent being said). The slight audio balancing problem that existed in RTS, resulting in sometimes too soft dialogue, is not present with this disc.

    The musical score consists predominantly of fairly unimaginative music prepared on a synthesizer. Having been a devoted fan of the film music genre for most of my life, and loving the grand works of everyone from Korngold to the wonderful John Williams, I generally find this type of "one man and his keyboard" approach a pitiful excuse for film music (there are exceptions, of course). Obviously, I didn't find anything of interest in the music for this film.

    Use of the rear speakers is very limited, even for the purpose of generating suitable atmospheric feel. In fact the overall effect of the sound design is often quite flat, being limited only to the front soundstage. As with its predecessor, the subwoofer is silent throughout.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Theatrical Trailer

   The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

• 16x9 Enhancement

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall