THE JEWEL OF THE NILE. Directed by Lewis Teague; written by Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner; produced by Michael Douglas for Twentieth Century Fox. Starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. Rated PG.
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Is it as good as Romancing the Stone? That is the question to be answered about this sequel. And the answer, happily, is yes!
There are differences which might lead some viewers to prefer one or the other of these movies. Jewel places more emphasis on the personal relationship between romance novelist Joan (Turner) and adventurer Jack (Douglas). Which is only right, since they've been together long enough to have the kind of problems common after the first excitement of falling in love dies down. And we don't mind pausing in the action a few times anyway for a quiet moment with them. They're interesting and attractive and we already care about them when the movie begins.
Jewel also, if anything, is funnier than its predecessor, with some slapstick comedy and lots of hilarious one-liners that poke fun at adventure movie conventions even while the plot is following them to the letter. Most of these good lines go to Danny De Vito, whose verbal and non-verbal humor is excellent as always.
Romancing had a few scenes near the end where the violence was out of keeping with the light-hearted tone of the rest of the movie. Jewel makes no such errors. There is plenty of mayhem on-screen in this movie, but it is very much comic book style and none is offensive.
There is one slightly disturbing intrusion of the real world into this delightful piece of froth. That is an uncomfortable resemblance between villain Omar's (Spiros Focas) psychotic behavior and that of a real-life northern African leader.
But my only real complaint about the movie concerns its score, which is too syrupy and overwhelms, rather than enhances, the action in a few scenes. Overall, though, Jewel is excellent escapist fare, with plenty of action, romance and excitement.
December 18, 1985