Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) has achieved her romantic dreams with Jack Colton (Michael Douglas) in this film's predecessor, Romancing the Stone. Or, wait, has she? The in-love twosome have been sailing around the world on Jack's boat, having many adventures. But, there is no ring on Joan's finger yet and she, as a successful romance novelist, is a bit bored with the life at sea. In addition, she has writer's block. Likewise, Jack has been taking Joan for granted. Therefore, when the two stop at an Arab port and Joan is charmed by a Middle East ruler, Omar, who wants her to write his autobiography, the lady writer says yes. Jack is not pleased. Then, too, Colton encounters an old nemesis, Ralph (Danny DeVito) who is interested in Jack helping him find a new treasure called "Jewel of the Nile". Soon, this awkward duo is trying to rescue Joan, who has actually been kidnapped by the evil Omar. Things go from bad to worse as Omar's cohorts blow up Jack's boat, with, thankfully, no one aboard. In desert country and being chased by bad dudes, Jack and Ralph decide to use a plane as a getaway vehicle and jet off, on the ground, across the Sahara. What fun! Can they rescue Joan and grab a treasure, too? This film doesn't have the charm of the first film, Romancing the Stone, as few sequels do. Nevertheless, it is cute, clever and funny, at times. The three stars, Turner, Douglas, and DeVito are a dynamite threesome while the unknown secondary cast is just fine. Yes, the scenery is lovely and does Turner and Douglas look young and attractive in their well-chosen costumes. With few offerings from Hollywood these days, in the romantic comedy genre, one has to "go back to the future" to find treasures, indeed.

Short review: Dumb fun; not as good as "Romancing The Stone".Longer review: It's not that this is a "bad" movie. It's a pretty average adventure film. But there lies the problem -- it's pretty average.First off, the script seemed hastily done. The general story line was easy enough to follow, but every once in a while I would find myself thinking -- now why was that being done. For example, I'm sure there was a reason for having a British rock & roll technician involved in the story...but the reason escaped me; totally irrelevant to the story line, a distraction.On the other hand, the acting was fine. Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito were a charming trio, as we had already learned in the first film. Douglas was just really coming to my attention in a series of 3 films, including this one. I thought he was very promising, and then "Fatal Attraction" sealed the deal. Kathleen Turner is one of those actresses where when I see her in an old film I remember just how good she was...and then wonder what happened to her (turned out her health sort of defeated her star career). Danny DeVito -- well, he has had his ups and downs in films; I don't feel this is one of his better roles, although I thought the script (or the director) let him down here. Spiros Focás as the Khadaffi-like dictator does nicely, though it's nothing memorable. And Avner Eisenberg as "the jewel" was good for some laughs in a very subtle way.What can I say? If you watched the first film, you'll want to watch this sequel, but you'll surely decide it isn't the quality of the first. But, it's not "okay".

"The Jewel of the Nile" is a follow-up to "Romancing the Stone". It lacks the greatness of the original but it keeps the same spirit. This one has lots of adventure and action (even more than the original, and is also far more violent).Robert Zemeckis didn't return to direct this one, but 4 of the same actors reprise their roles: Michael Douglas (who also produced it), Kathleen Turner, Danny DeVito and Holland Taylor. The rest of the cast is entirely different. There are plenty of new characters and new villains.As the title says, this movie takes us not to Colombia again, but to the Egyptian deserts (in Africa, close to the Nile river). Exotic like the original's but a completely different scenario than the original's.The main villain in this is Omar Khalifa (well portrayed by Spiros Focás). He is just as treacherous and dangerous as Zolo from the original film. Like Zolo, he fools Joan Wilder so that she falls in his entrapments. He pretends to be a good person, but he's a brutal dictator. But I do like Omar's Egyptian accent. He speaks with a charming accent. Funny that he plays an Egyptian when the actor is Greek, but then, Demis Roussos is a Greek who was born in Egypt.Avner Eisenberg does a nice portrayal of The Jewel but the character has a mix of charm and silliness and isn't always lovable.This film has some really funny and great sequences, but also has a large number of faults and does not possess the charm of the original. Therefore, it doesn't match the original's greatness.Apparently Michael and Kathleen only made this movie because their contract forced them to. Kathleen even attempted to back it out but was threatened by 20th Century Fox to be sued with a $25 million lawsuit. Geez, that is just so wrong! They shouldn't have been forced to do something they didn't want. I sort of can see why they didn't want to do it and why Robert Zemeckis refused to make the sequel.I used to like this movie almost as much as the original. But now it doesn't seem that great to me anymore. Looking at it now, many things about it don't make much sense. The original is a great blockbuster and a timeless classic.

Watching this, you get the feeling that half way through production, everyone decided that it just wasn't going to work, and best to wrap things up and put away dreams of an enduring franchise. It wouldn't shock me if somewhere down the line this turned out to be the real story of what happened. Not that it is horrible. It's one of those movies that's fun to watch on a cold winter night when there's nothing else to do. I like watching it usually sometime in December every year. And it's fun. But that's about it.The movie is basically formulaic, following the same gist of Romancing the Stone. But in each case, things are a little less where they should have been more, and more when they should have been less.While Romancing the Stone let the humor come from the story, the incidents, the characters, Jewel almost self-consciously feels the need to inject humor where it may or may not belong. While Romancing had fun encounters with people that never seemed entirely unrealistic, Jewel had a series of encounters where suspension of belief entered almost fantasy film levels. In Romancing, the scenery and the settings helped move the plot along. Here, they were usually just backdrops, the scenes could have been in the American West or in the Great Plains for all it mattered. There was a lack of attention to the little things.The actors, on the whole, were OK. In most cases, it was the support cast who maintained the drive. Both Turner and Douglas appeared, at times, to be biding their time, working through a project that they initially were excited about but eventually lost their enthusiasm.Movies usually are not filmed in order of the story. I would be interested to know if this was the exception. I would like to know this because, at least to me, it seems as if there are two movies: one set of scenes - in no particular order - where the mood, the film, the directing, the acting - are all of a higher quality, one that hearkens back to Romancing the Stone. The other, the directing, filming, acting, humor, dialogue - all seem sub-par. Even the final clip, that shows everyone coming together - no matter how illogical - seemed to be an afterthought, as if to say 'there, that's done! We're out of here and not coming back!' That is why I sometimes wonder if somewhere along the line something happened that took the wind out of everyone's sails, forcing them to just throw things together to make something coherent out of what they began. I dunno.In the end, Jewel of the Nile remains nothing more than mid-80s farcical romp, failing to be as good as its predecessor, and leaving the audience with the notion that it could have been better. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe from beginning to end, everyone threw their all into the movie. But if they did, it would take something other than the movie itself to prove the case.