ROMANCING THE STONE
RATING: 7.5 / 10 --> Re-watchable
Review Date:
August 30, 1998
Director:
Robert Zemeckis
Writer:
Diane Thomas
Producer:
Michael Douglas
Actors:
Kathleen Turner as Joan Wilder
Michael Douglas as
Jack T. Colton
Danny DeVito as Ralph
Genre:
Adventure
Year of Release: 1984
The man behind FORREST
GUMP (7.5/10) and CONTACT (6.5/10), Robert Zemeckis, spent his
formative years in "smaller" movie directions, as his
eighties ventures rumbled him through BACK TO THE FUTURE (8/10),
WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? (7/10) and the dismal sequel to this
film, JEWEL OF THE NILE (6/10).
PLOT:
Hopeless romantic and novelist Joan Wilder must deliver a map to
Columbia in order to save her sister's life from the hands of
kidnappers. Joan is a total urbanite, and falls prey to some
misinformation once in South America, and must survive the
jungles alongside her deputized guide, Jack Colton, who is only
in it for the money. Many other evil people want the treasure
map, and inspire several adventures.
CRITIQUE:
Entertaining, adventurous, short, and somewhat dated adventure
movie that stood out from the RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (8.5/10)
copycats through the mid-eighties. Good chemistry between stars
Douglas and Turner render this film bearable through many of its
predictably romantic liaisons, while the well-spaced spurts of
action give the film enough punch to designate a fun time. I
veered from the nachos on this one occasion (forgive me father),
and tossed over some bills for a thin-crusted pizza and
breadsticks, but now recognize the error of my ways, and
apologize for my misguidedness.
This movie also balances many funny and light moments on one
hand, and suspense and action in the other. In the same vein,
ROMANCING THE STONE can be considered an all-family movie,
because it does not contain any scenes of extreme violence, sex
or sailor-like swearing. It does contain some nasty bad guys,
despite their one-dimensionality, and manages to skewer adventure
through its entire meandering plot line. Another great thing
about this movie is the smoldering sexuality and come-hither
quality of the "young" and beautiful Kathleen Turner.
This film reminded me of the many reasons behind my puppy crush
on her back in the Duran Duran eighties (see wet nipple scene),
and saddened me in regards to her more recent acting work (see
her latest TV movie of the week.)
The one extremely bad aspect of this movie (and perhaps of most
eighties films, now that we look back on them) is the cheezy,
uninspired and ultimately annoying soundtrack and score from this
movie. The synchronized noises through most of the film did
nothing but harass my attention while I was enjoying the suspense
and action, and did very little in the way of enhancing any
actual scenes. But I digress on my small point, since for the
most part, the film did manage to generate great entertainment,
some light and romantic moments, and many scenes sprinkled with
action and adventure.
Little Known Facts about this film and its stars:
Kathleen
Turner spoke the
uncredited voice of sexy Jessica Rabbit in the toon-noir
Zemeckis-helmed flick WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? (7/10).
Danny
DeVito stands 5 feet
tall.
Michael
Douglas' smaller
brother Joel, was also a co-producer on this film, as well as
being the 1st assistant director.
The phrase "Romancing the Stone" is a piece of
jewellers' jargon, referring to a step in preparing a gem for use
in jewellery.
Eddy
Grant recorded the
title song, but it was never used.
Alan
Silvestri was hired to
do a temporary score for the film, but director Robert Zemeckis like his work so much that he kept
him on as composer.
(c) 1998 Berge Garabedian
Movie Reviews by Berge Garabedian