ROMANCING THE STONE [1984] review
December 13, 2009 · Print This Article
A stroke of good luck (finding $40 cash on the ground) and potential job news put me in an unusually good mood today, so I did not want to risk that good vibe by watching a potentially depressing movie. For some reason ROMANCING THE STONE periodically pops into my head from time to time. Long ago I remembered seeing pieces of it, if not the whole movie. I could really only remember birds in cages and a giant mudhole. By the end, I was remembering a lot more and I guess no doubt I saw the whole movie before.
ROMANCING THE STONE is definitely a fun romp, no doubt greenlit because of the success of RAIDERS. The story is simple enough to not get in the way of the characters, so when Kathleen Turner goes down to Colombia to try and save her en-troubled sister, she soon crashes into an adventure with Michael Douglas.
There are not that many, if any, edge of your seat action sequences, but that just means most of the action scenes are fairly believable. The only thing I could not believe, besides how poor of a shot everyone in this movie is, was that Turner’s character had a passport when she was billed as getting motion sickness from only an escalator.
The movie dragged in the middle quite a bit when the characters took a night of respite in a jovial Colombian town, and the coincidences that get the characters out of jams are a bit too convenient. The bad guy could have been developed a bit more too, both of them.
Still, it’s enjoyable 80s movie entertainment , which I hear is going to be remade. I have no idea why you would need to remake this movie.
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Finding $40 on the ground–good deal! Worth keeping your head down when you’re walking
I loved this film, despite the need to suspend disbelief quite often, and it’s the best role Michael Douglas has had. But I agree, why remake a genuinely funny and fun film.
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Jason Collin Reply:
December 13th, 2009 at 2:39 PM
I think remaking this type of movie is really challenging, and only should be done if the the two leads did not have good chemistry, but of course they did. Not to mention can they find as great of locations as they did in the first one? And how fake will the bridge crossing scene and over the waterfall scene look with CGI, because you know they won’t be paying stunt people to do that.
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I love this movie! Michael Douglas does a wonderful job in the role of “Jack Colton”. It’s a great movie worth watching over and over! =)
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Jason Collin Reply:
January 24th, 2011 at 9:49 PM
I can see the moving having decent repeat watching value….though I think once every 2 decades is enough for me.
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And, knock on wood, Michael Douglas looks healthy and in good spirits! He and his father are the most tenacious guys in Hollywood! The writers of this film perfectly captured my imaginary view of what an American ex-pat in Columbia would be like…which I’m sure if far, far from what the reality must be! jeff
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Jason Collin Reply:
January 24th, 2011 at 9:50 PM
Yes, the movie did establish a certain atmosphere, which to me makes a movie, a movie.
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tom82kr@daum.net
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[...] certainly a product only the 80s could produce. While old memories of the first move in the series, ROMANCING THE STONE, lingered in my head for decades finally prompting me to revisit it in late 2009, I am fairly [...]