Boogie Down the Nile

The Jewel of the Nile

Directed by Lewis Teague

At the USA Cheri

REMEMBER JACK COLTON and Joan Wilder? The sizzling duo who burned up the silver screen as they fumbled their way through South American jungles in search of an everelusive ostrich-sized emerald?

Well, they're not doing too badly for themselves these days. Somewhere along the way, they managed to cash in the stone, and invest the proceeds in a dreamy little sloop moored off some idyllic island paradise. And gosh darn, everything would be just fine if Joan (Kathleen Turner) just hadn't accepted that offer from Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome Omar-the-Arab (Spiros Focas) to write his biography. Now Jack (Michael Douglas) is all upset--jealous, just like a man--and their blissful little tryst comes to an end as Joan flies off to North Africa to observe Omar in his natural habitat and Jack huffs and puffs all the way back to the Carribean and his precious boat.

So begins The Jewel of the Nile, the latest installment in what is certain to be a long line of Romancing the Stone sequels. Succumbing to the xerox-machine method of screenwriting and directing which characterized the trend-setting originals of this genre, Raiders of the Lost Ark and its arklet, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, film executives Michael Douglas, Lewis Teague and chief xeroxers Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner have produced an entirely familiar if less satisfying version of the entertaining 1983 romantic, romancing, thriller.

THE BIGGEST STUMBLING block to enjoying this film is the difficulty that you will undoubtedly encounter in correctly understanding it. As far as I can remember, the film's plot involved the aforementioned good-looking Arab trying to garner the favour of his people by convincing them that he possesses bizarre mystical and religious powers. (Precisely why he wishes to establish himself as a figure of such supreme adulation is left unclear, but let's just assume that life, liberty, and the pursuit of an American Express Platinum Card have something to do with it.) Because he, of course, is not endowed with any such powers, sneaky Omar is forced to hire a cockney magician to entrance the unenlightened masses with an haute-rock-concert laser light show which will somehow convince them that he is none other than their prophet-saviour, Al-Jaharah--who, by the way, is being held under house arrest in one of Omar's unused palace attics.

If you've managed to follow all of this, you will no doubt be able to understand why Joan Wilder, romance author extraordinaire, would want to help our hapless holy man escape from Omar's clutches, and walk all the way across the desert and up several steep cliffs just so she, Al, Jack and Ralph (Danny DeVito), whom they've managed to pick up somewhere along the way, can crash Omar's laser show and present the real jewel to his adoring public.

Perhaps the only highlight of The Jewel of the Nile is that Kathleen Turner fans will have the opportunity to chart the progressive disintegration of Turner's Nino Cerrutti ensemble as she suffers through the rigor of desert living. For the rest of us, we'll just have to wait for the next dose of Romance, sure to arrive before we know it.