Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Overlooked Movies: King Solomon's Mines

Any resemblance of this movie to H. Rider Haggard's novel or the 1950 movie of the same name is purely coincidental.  Okay, that's not true.  Some of the characters share names with characters from those sources.  But that's about it.  What we have here is a supposedly hilarious parody of the Indiana Jones movies, with Richard Chamberlain as Alan Quatermain standing in for Harrison Ford's Indy.  

If you watched the trailer embedded below, you might think, "Hey, that doesn't look too bad."  Maybe it depends on the mood you're in when you see the whole movie, but for me it just didn't work.  Some of the action scenes are okay, but the humor didn't work at all.  The low budget didn't help, either.  Sure, it was a Cannon film, and I should've known what I was getting into.  I have no one to blame but myself.  I know some people who like the movie.  Maybe I'm being too harsh.  After all, Sharon Stone's nice to look at, and Richard Chamberlin tries hard to crack his jokes with a straight face.  John Rhys-Davies tries not to look as if he wishes he was working on the Indy franchise instead of being stuck here.  Herbert Lom's okay.  Watch it and see what you think.  Maybe you'll love it.

3 comments:

Todd Mason said...

And in part because it was Cannon fodder, there was a sequel...

Anonymous said...

When you covered the Stewart Granger classic I was waiting to see what you had to say about this tepid remake. Chamberlain looked the part but comedy is not his forte, I never watched the Patrick Swayze version. The only surprise is that it hasn't been remade with Brendan Fraser yet.

Or has it?


Jeff

pattinase (abbott) said...

I doubt it. Not being a Chamberlain fan for one thing.