King Solomon's Mines

H. Rider Haggard's "She" and "King Solomon's Mines" novels have proved the inspiration for loads of action adventures over the years, but I doubt even he would appreciate this derivative effort. In a style that's more akin to "Carry on Quatermain", we meet "Jesse" (Sharon Stone) who is trying to track down her lost long father. He set off into the jungles of ancient Sheba trying to find the legendary mines full of jewels. She engages the help of the legendary hunter "Quatermain" (Richard Chamberlain) and off they set on their quest. Meantime, the megalomanic Bosch colonel "Bockner" (Herbert Lom) has engaged the services of the duplicitous "Dogati" (John Rhys-Davies) for exactly the same purpose - and so it's a race! To be fair to Chamberlain, though a hero in the style of Stewart Granger, Harrison Ford or Sir Cedric Hardwicke he isn't, he does look like he's enjoying himself here in this mess of film as he chucks his dynamite hither and tither. Lom is also hamming it up as if he were back in his full "Pink Panther" pomp, but it's Stone who really let's the side down. She just doesn't seem to enter into the spirit of this romp at all enthusiastically. She's not got the enthusiasm of a Karen Allen nor the slightly aloof dignity of a Deborah Kerr and really contributes very little. JR-D is always in hIs element with these kind of roles and takes to it like a croc to water; a considerably more animated one than the actual ones we see that mix archive ferociousness with real time valerian. It hits the ground running with loads of adventures, but the CGI is pretty obvious before a denouement that's just crying out for a song. It's entertaining, in a perverted sort of fashion, but could never be described as good.