No-holds-barred send-up of Indiana Jones with Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone
In the early 1900s a beautiful blonde, Jesse Huston (Sharon Stone), hires white hunter/adventurer Allan Quartermain (Richard Chamberlain) to find her father who went missing during his expedition to find the fabled King Solomon’s Mines in southeast Africa. Herbert Lom and John Rhys-Davies are on hand as heavies.
Many moons ago I saw clips of “King Solomon’s Mines” (1985) and wrote it off as a campy knockoff of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981), which of course was hugely successful and inspired several immediate imitations, like “Romancing the Stone” (1984) and “Firewalker” (1986). I thankfully finally decided to give it a chance because, while it IS a knockoff of “Raiders,” it’s the best I’ve seen so far. It’s at least as entertaining as “The Mummy” (1999), albeit not a blockbuster like that film.
Before you check it out, you have to be braced for a Grade B send-up with the corresponding preposterous frolics. Yes, it’s like Indiana Jones, but more over-the-top with a lower budget. If you can get on board, this is a wildly entertaining fun-adventure flick that’s colorful, cartoonish and thrilling with impressive African locations. It bends over backwards to amuse with Victoria Falls, jungle portages, market-place romps, steam-engine escapades, wild animals (lions, crocs, snakes and a colossal spider), threatening cannibals, a hideous witch-queen, deadly swamps, hellish caves and more. I should add that the spider is only a few notches above the ultra-cheese you’d see on Gilligan’s Island.
On the female front, Stone is stunning before she became famous and I’m not even a fan. The creators don’t fail to display her beauty in a tasteful way as her shorts get shorter and shorter. She has magnificent legs.
The film runs 1 hour, 40 minutes, and was shot in Zimbabwe.
GRADE: B+