The Jewel of the Nile (1985)

Starring: Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito
Grade: B

Here we go again with the tagline! It says these characters are “Romancing a Brand New Stone”. First of all, I’m not sure why “brand new” is capitalized. Second of all, there’s no stone at all in this movie! This is a major plot point that is explained! Did they watch the fucking movie?

Summary

Taking place six months after Romancing the Stone, in the South of France, romance novelist Joan Wilder (Turner) and her now boyfriend Jack T. Colton (Douglas) are still sailing the world like they promised at the end of the first movie. Joan is in the middle of writing her next book, as we see the climax of it being acted out in the opening with Joan and Jack as the lead roles in some pirate-themed story. She tries to figure out the ending, but her concentration is broken by a sailing Jack. The problem is that she promised her editor Gloria (Holland Taylor) she was going to finish the book three months ago but never did. Jack tries to calm her down, but he’s focused on continuing their summer vacation and going to Greece, even though Joan was hoping to go back to New York for a bit to get back on track. As they talk on the boat, a mysterious Arabic man gives Joan some flowers from her “biggest fan”. Confused, the two head over to a book signing gig for Joan. However, Jack becomes bothered by her fans almost immediately, heading to the nearby casino right after. Once he leaves, Gloria starts telling her that Jack isn’t the marrying type and questions why Joan can’t finish her book. Just then, a wealthy Arab ruler named Omar Khalifa (Spiros Focás) shows up, revealing himself to be her “biggest fan” that sent the flowers. He loves her work and wants to take her to the Nile with him to write his biography because he’s becoming emperor in four days. They sit down and talk things out as a skeptical Jack joins them. Joan explains the details.

Apparently, Omar has been asked to unite the tribes of the Nile and carry on the work of “The Great Redeemer” who has disappeared. Jack is confused by the suddenness of this whole thing, as would anyone, and questions if Joan has her heart set on it. Since its new and exciting, she’s down to do it. Sadly, Jack has his heart still set on Greece.

Since neither one is budging, a disheartened Jack sees this as them “taking a break”, so he leaves, despite Joan saying the research will only take four to five weeks at most.

Since they are going on Omar’s private jet that night, Joan and Omar immediately go to Omar’s car. Once they get in, an attacker tries to assassinate Omar with a knife. Afterwards, he escapes. Omar calms Joan though, showing her that he had a protective vest on that saved him. A saddened Jack wanders that night, but he manages to run into Ralph (DeVito), the man that hunted for the jewel in the first film. Ralph has been stalking him for some time and pulls a gun on Jack, yelling how he’s been in a Colombian prison for six months with “rejects from the communicable disease ward”. The entire time he was in jail, he was thinking about Jack. He demands the stone, but Jack is saved by the man that tried to assassinate Omar. The guy’s name is Tarak (Paul David Magid). He explains that Omar has stolen his people’s jewel, Al-Julhara. Since Jack was technically invited by Omar to come with Joan, Tarak wants him to go in and get it for them. Jack refuses, promising to get back on his boat. However, immediately after he says this, his boat blows up. Tarak explains this is Omar’s doing, and Joan is at risk too, forcing Jack to come with. Since Ralph heard the world “jewel”, he includes himself on the trek as well.

Now, it’s off to Africa!

Omar and Joan show up to his castle, and it’s designed to look like one from one of her books. The same goes for the uniforms of his military. They ride through a protest he passes off as a parade for himself and then head to his home so Joan can get settled in. After Jack, Ralph, and Tarak arrive in the area, Joan goes around to take pictures. After a boy writing graffiti on a building is chased and shot at by government officials, she asks a stranger what the writing means. Apparently, it says “Al-Julhara; give back the jewel”. She tries to take a picture of the writing, but a soldier destroys the film from her camera. The other soldier shoots the wall that the message is on with a machine gun, though I’m not really sure what that accomplished. Later, Joan approaches Omar about all the things he’s not telling her, especially about “Al-Julhara”, but he passes it off as some legend. Unfortunately, he says she will stay at his palace until the book is done. She threatens to leave but he dares her, bringing up the fact that facing the desert alone would be a horrible decision. Meanwhile, Jack and Ralph are taken to Tarak’s camp of freedom fighters, with everyone going out of their way to explain how important and massive the jewel is and how the two will receive a huge reward if it’s returned to them. However, it is promised that if the two lie to them, they will die. As the camp has some celebration, Joan sees some British special effects guy arrive to the palace with his fancy equipment. Perplexed as to what’s going on, Joan sneaks around to look for clues.

Eventually, she overhears an argument between Omar and the special effects guy because they are practicing an illusion that Omar will pass off as a miracle for all of his citizens. In doing so, they will believe he has the same “powers” as the jewel. He argues that if he can’t convince his people he is a spiritual leader, they will never follow him into battle. Omar goes into a small room to attack his prisoner, asking how these tricks are performed, but the prisoner insists they are miracles. The prisoner is Al-Julhara…

…The “Jewel of the Nile” is a person!

Following Omar leaving the room in frustration, Joan falls into his room after climbing on the poorly made roof. Shortly after, she befriends him once she talks about her intentions to stop Omar. Al-Julhara tells her they only have two days before Omar goes to Kadir to proclaim himself emperor. Without Al-Julhara there to oppose him, Omar is going to take over, run through North Africa like a dictator, and rule with an iron fist. Just then, Omar busts in the room and tells Joan she’s going to write what he tells her to write for his biography and she will be stuck here in the meantime. He also tells her Jack is dead since he assumes the bomb from earlier in the movie worked. Elsewhere, since Tarak’s men are more in danger to be caught, Jack and Ralph enter the city by themselves. With Omar now gone from the room, Joan makes it her mission to get to Kadir to stop Omar. To do that, she realizes she can’t go without Al-Julhara. So, they break out and head in that direction to save the Nile. After Jack and Ralph are refused entry into Omar’s palace, they run into Joan and Al-Julhara anyway. A chase ensues with Omar’s guards coming after them and Ralph is left behind during it all, as the other three escape. Tarak’s group threatens to kill Ralph because Jack left with their “jewel”.

To save his own life, Ralph instead promises to lead them to him. Now, the race is on!

My Thoughts:

First of all, I am happy a sequel was made to Romancing the Stone because the formula for success is there.

You already have a great cast. All you need to do is develop the characters and their personalities a bit more as they go on different adventures together. Then, you plug them into a different exotic location with a new MacGuffin to chase. For the most part, they got this down with The Jewel of the Nile, but one part stood out to me that was inherently wrong. This was the characterization of Joan Wilder. By the time this adventure hits her lap, it’s six months after the events of the first film. I’m not saying she’s a tough action hero or something now because of what she’s been through, but she should be a much stronger, more mature woman now. However, if anything, it felt like she regressed as a character. I get that she’s having a bit of writer’s block, but I just don’t understand why she’s so quick to accept such an outrageously random offer from a Middle Eastern sheik without even hearing the money he’s willing to pay. Why is she so willing to accept an offer to do a biography? She explains to Jack that this is something she’s always wanted to do, but the first question that popped into my head was, “Since when?”. She’s never shown an inkling of wanting to do anything other than writing romance novels!

The only goal we were aware of beforehand was that she wanted to find someone to fill that void in her love life. Why is she suddenly interested in nonfiction work for some guy she met THAT DAY? She didn’t even go home to think about it either. As a character in a film, you at least need to ponder the decision or talk it over with someone. However, here, it’s explained to her in twenty minutes that she needs to fly to FUCKING AFRICA and stay there for a month to write about a guy she’s just met. Somehow, this is enough to convince her that this is the project she needs? Is this weird to anyone else? How is this not suspicious to her off the bat? I understand Omar is a bit of a smooth talker, but this is a bit ridiculous. You would think she’d get flashbacks to Colonel Zolo in Romancing the Stone, no?

For some reason, she becomes just as naive as she was in the first film and has to overcome this even earlier than before. After the hell she went through in the first movie, how is she so quick to jump into a such an unknown situation with an obviously shady character? Again, this is just a total regression in character development that exists just to keep the plot moving. I like that Jack Colton seems to have developed into a calmer, good-natured boyfriend in these six months. Though he’s lost the ready-to-fight edge that made him so cool in the first place, you have to take into consideration that he left the Colombian jungle to vacation with his girlfriend for half a year. In summation, it makes sense for his character to be where he’s at. This is logical writing we can appreciate when you consider the circumstances. What I don’t understand is that as soon as they’re faced with something strange like Omar’s proposition, he flips out, and he initiates a temporary break. Why? If everything hypothetically went smoothly, he would only have to wait a MONTH for her to be back in his arms. Can you not allot your girl that little bit of freedom? Greece will always be there! You can go when she gets back, or you could go for the month she’s gone (which he stated he planned on doing anyway)! It doesn’t really matter. Why did he feel the need to immediately take a break from her because she wants to take a job that makes her happy FOR A FUCKING MONTH? Why is he being so fucking dramatic over a relative non-issue?

Jack, you have a lot to learn my friend.

The first part of this movie is a bit different because it separates our two leads, and Jack has to team up reluctantly with Ralph. Now, Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito do make for a funny team. No one is denying that, especially in this movie. They are very entertaining playing off each other. Nevertheless, since we are walking into this movie with the idea that we’re going to have something similar to the first one, and considering the major thing they did correctly was the romantic angle between Joan and Jack, it’s a surprising move to deprive the audience of the romance in the beginning. Truthfully, if this was some standalone picture that starred Douglas and DeVito in a road movie similar to Ishtar or something, I wouldn’t think anything of it. It probably would’ve worked. However, there’s a certain expectation when going into a sequel because the selling point of this film is that it’s the sequel to Romancing the Stone. Because of this, it doesn’t make sense to take the best part away from us.

A good way of going about all of this would be for Jack to join Joan on her trip with Omar with the same suspicions he already has. Eventually, he could’ve been the guy to call him out on his corruption, forcing Omar to show his true colors earlier by locking up Jack and forcing Joan to write about him. This would then force Joan to finally do something heroic, and she could be the one to break Jack and Al-Julhara out. Then, they could follow the same story from there. I think that’s what was missing because as much as I enjoyed Jack and Ralph’s banter, Joan as a character isn’t nearly as interesting without Jack to play off of. Let’s be honest, another major issue of The Jewel of the Nile is that the romance isn’t as passionate or as fiery as it felt in the first film because it’s like we’re going back to square one here. This sequel, as I mentioned in the first film’s review, is more light-hearted in its humor and more action-focused. Though I enjoy it as an action movie fan, what made the first one so successful and so natural was the romance and comedy naturally coming from it. The action was icing on the cake either way because it’s fairly easy to throw in an action sequence. What’s hard to write is a good romantic storyline that doesn’t bore the audience. Here, they just threw it to the side or didn’t care about it nearly as much as they did in the first movie. It felt like a passionless marriage without the marriage.

Oddly enough, Jack even says a line that stuck out as an indirect tongue-in-cheek reference to the writing process of this movie:

“We’re the perfect couple when we got people shooting at us. It’s just the slow times I’m not too good at”.

Isn’t this wild when you think about it? It’s like the writer knew he was fucking up the script and let it be known through one of the main characters subconsciously. The thought process seems to be that now that we’re in sequel mode and the relationship isn’t the fast-paced love affair it was in the first film, we’re having trouble with how to keep it exciting. As a result, let’s throw in more action. You see what I’m saying? It’s weirdly obvious now, isn’t it?

Omar Khalifa was a decent villain and though he had more personality than Colonel Zolo from the first film, I can’t help but think that the “religious zealot leader that spews lies for ulterior motives” is a villain I’ve seen too much. It didn’t have the big impact they were trying to convey, but I give props to the film for trying to go bigger with the narrative this time around to set itself apart from its predecessor. I’m not entirely sure if I liked the “jewel” being a person though. Al-Julhara was actually a fun character, with a goofy performance by Avner Eisenberg, but I still wanted an actual jewel or treasure to be involved in some capacity. Yes, I’m partial to treasure hunting movies. Though technically Al-Julhara is a treasure to his people, this isn’t what I meant. That jewel-encrusted dagger we see in the final minutes of the movie should’ve been involved as another object of desire somehow. It just didn’t feel right without some kind of actual object being involved for the characters to want. I know I stated in my review for Romancing the Stone that the treasure wasn’t that important to the film, but it has to be at least part of the film in some capacity. If you’re going to make the romance less important in this sequel, the treasure needs to be greater to make up for it. This “switcheroo” involving a real person instead yielded mixed results. Also, weirdly enough, Al-Julhara being this mystical “Messiah” didn’t seem out of place in a movie like this. It still fit the tone of this adventure and location, though the climax where he appears in the middle of that fire looked fake as hell. They definitely could’ve set that scene up better.

The tribal scenes were great, the stealing of the jet was a lot of fun, the costuming was underrated (I need to raid Michael Douglas’s closet), and the dance sequence where Jack and Joan’s love gets rekindled was just as good as the dance sequence in the first film. The climax is nowhere near as good as the first movie, but it’s still a very solid payoff as well. All in all, there is still a lot of fun being had in this sequel, and I don’t think it gets enough credit. Danny DeVito getting an increased role was a great decision too. Ira was dead weight in Romancing the Stone anyway. Ralph didn’t need him to be entertaining or an important character. If you didn’t realize how important he was to this franchise, imagine this sequel without him.

Yeah, they would’ve been in trouble.

Here, he proves he’s just as important as our two leads. I loved the outcome of Ralph’s character too. The man is just too likable, even though he’s a backstabber at heart. It also leaves the door open for him to rejoin in a third film. For the record, I would’ve enjoyed a third movie. If you’ve looked into it, there was a possibility of this happening at one point. In the 1990s, there was a draft referred to as The Crimson Eagle. In the 2000s, there was one called Racing the Monsoon. Sadly, neither happened due to a myriad of reasons. It’s actually surprising how this one got made considering Kathleen Turner had to be threatened with a $25 million lawsuit to do it. Even then, as a fan of these characters, I’m okay with how this film ended because it did end on a definitive note for our beloved main characters (SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS), with Jack and Joan getting married. It was a bit odd to think about though. So, you’re telling me that Jack and Joan never got married going into the second film? They just went on a six-month vacation? It didn’t hit me until the end. I sat there dumbfounded thinking, “They weren’t married this whole time?”. I was for sure they were implying marriage at the end of the first film but whatever.

If that’s the last memory we get of Joan Wilder, Jack T. Colton, and Ralph, I can live with it.

The Jewel of the Nile isn’t as good as its predecessor and has its own problems that stop it from achieving the heights it should’ve reached. However, as a fan of these characters, I still had fun watching them getting another go around with each other. In my opinion, the success of the film was deterred by the fact that it came out a year after the first. They pushed this thing way too quick into production since the first one did so well. If they took their time, especially with the script, all three stars would’ve been even bigger, and it would’ve commanded a bigger audience. If they took their time developing the script and combined this with an even more experienced and successful Michael Douglas producing again and inputting any necessary changes to ensure profitability, I guarantee this sequel would’ve done much better. Unfortunately, they rushed it and killed the franchise because of it.

I still thought it was a fun movie all-around, but it was riddled with careless story problems that could’ve been fixed in a pair of hands that actually gave a damn about the franchise.