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Jewel of the Nile (The)
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak (8th December 2008). |
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The Film
 "Romancing the Stone" (1984) was an incredible box office hit, making the Fox a lot of money, as with such things sequels tend to come into the picture relatively quickly and often are rushed into production and attempt to recapture the same magic as the first. If history has taught us anything it's that rushed sequels almost always fail. "Jewel of the Nile" comes just one year after "Romancing the Stone"... so yeah it was rushed, furthermore it was reported that star Kathleen Turner didn't want to take part in the sequel (but was contractually obligated, and Fox even threatened to sue the actress if she didn't stick to her contract). The sequel has a disgruntled star to start with who doesn't want to be apart of the film, the film's original director did not come back only to be replaced with Lewis Teague (who made a couple of B-grade horror films) and a weaker script than the first... so how do you think the sequel fared? Hint: it killed a potential franchise as the third film in the series entitled "The Crimson Eagle" was dropped during the development phase. "Jewel of the Nile" follows our two heroes; Jack (Michael Douglas) and Joan (Kathleen Turner) on another adventure, this time in North Africa. While on vacation/book tour Joan is commissioned by a Sheik, Omar (Spiros Focás) to write his autobiography. As it turns out the charismatic Omar is not just the leader of a country but a pretty nasty guy... and he's after total control that can be garner with the help of the Jewel of the Nile. Having discovered Omar's true side, Joan is abducted by the Sheik and finds herself involved with the Jewel (Avner Eisenberg), which as it turns out is a spiritual leader and not a stone. And throughout all of this, Jack decides to rescue his love and has partnered himself up with Ralph (Danny DeVito), who himself, cannot be trusted. Upon release the film was financially successful, making as much as it's predecessor, however critically the film received a lukewarm reception. The problems with the film is that although the chemistry between Douglas and Turner are what holds the film together (for whenever they share screen time), the plot, stereotypical characters and predicable turns hinder the film greatly. What made the first film so enjoyable is Douglas and Turner, their scenes featured some of Hollywood's best chemistry, they played off each other and it worked. Then why, if such a formula worked, would the filmmakers decide to split these two apart for a majority of the film? This is what happens in "Jewel of the Nile" as we see Joan cavorting with Omar and Jack wasting his time with Ralph! It's like the writers and director forgot about what made the first so successful. it's a lesson that Hollywood never seems to learn, don't fix what ain't broken. As for being a product of the 1980's the story takes a fairly stereotypical view of Arabs, in this day the material might be considered slightly offensive to some but as mentioned in the extra features it was a naive time and the tone is lighthearted and not meant to cause offense... The highlights if the film are it's action and adventure sense, there's more of it here and it's bigger in scale. The locations have changed to a more hot and dry climate but the grandness of the adventure is caught and executed well. I also really enjoyed the addition of Eisenberg as the Jewel, to think he was a clown and not an actor when Douglas saw his show in New York and cast the performer in this film, he brings a humor to the role that adds to the overall sense of fun the filmmakers were trying to achieve. Overall, "Jewel of the Nile" does have some incredibly enjoyable moments about it and it makes for fairly light entertainment but falls short of being a successful sequel.
Video
Presented in the film's original theatrical ratio of 2.35:1 this transfer is delivered on disc in high-definition 1080p 24/fps and has been mastered using AVC MPEG-4 compression. The film seems rather dated, the image is soft and features some specks through it, I was a little disappointed with the colors which seem flat, grain is heavy at times especially amid the black levels. Detail holds up well, notably in the wide shots, the optical effects look particularly bad (as was the technology in the 80's) and this transfer only highlights how bad they were (just look at the scene where the Jewel walks among the fire at the end for a good example of this). Overall it's probably the best the film has looked in years but is far from being a great HD transfer.
Audio
Four audio tracks are included in English DTS-HD Lossless Master Audio 5.1 presented in 48kHz/24-bit as well as an English Dolby Digital 4.0 surround track, a French Dolby Digital 2.0 surround and a Spanish Dolby Digital 1.0 mono track. For the purposes of this review I chose to view the film with its DTS-HD track, as with the previous film in the series the audio was up-mixed for this release, and the result is patchy at best. While dialogue is clean and the score seems to utilize the surrounds (only just) there's little activity and thus depth is limited. The action scenes are loud but that's about it, they lack punch and sound a bit on the tinny side. What this film needs is a good strong aggressive audio mix and what we get is a tame one. optional subtitles are included in English, French, Spanish, Chinese traditional, Chinese simplified and Korean.
Extras
Fox has released this film with an audio commentary, a series of deleted scenes, some featurettes, the theatrical trailer and a bonus trailer. Below is a closer look at these supplements. First up is a feature-length audio commentary by the film's director Lewis Teague. The track is mostly screen-specific as he comments on his involvement in the film, working with the cast and shooting on location in Morocco among other things. It was interesting to hear about how the film's production was 'rushed' and the various challenges that were posed, there are some quiet gaps but he seems to provide a fairly decent amount of information and the track could have also benefited from the inclusion of other participants. Next are a collection of six deleted scenes, these can be viewed with a 'Play All' option or individually and include: - "A Toast to Joan Wilder" runs for 1 minute 12 seconds, Joan is toasted and greats some fans. - "With the People" runs for 1 minute 1 second, Joan goes to a local cafe and is surprised that the people watch soap operas and then get angry when a message from Omar interrupts the broadcast. - "Need Water" runs for 42 seconds, Ralph complains to Jack that he is in desperate need of some water. - "This Ain’t Easy You Know" runs for 59 seconds, Ralph finds it difficult to control a camel. - "Jack, I Wish We'd Gone to Greece" runs for 23 seconds, Joan tells Jack, while they're hanging to their death, that they should have gone to Greece instead. - "The Ceremony" runs for 1 minute 29 seconds and is an extended wedding ceremony. The first featurette is “Romancing the Nile: A Winning Sequel” which runs for 20 minutes 59 seconds and is a retrospective look back with some key cast and crew. It covers the process of the studio fast tracking the sequel, the writing process and finding the right story as well as other topics including the rushed pace of the production and getting everyone on board. Next up is “Adventures of a Romance Novelist” featurette which runs for 8 minutes 2 seconds, this clip is another retrospective clip that takes a look at the story of the second film and the interest that Douglas took with it, there's more interviews here as the participants talk candidly and there's also some overlap from the first clip. The disc also included the film's original theatrical trailer which runs for 1 minute 34 seconds. Finally we also get a start-up bonus trailer for: - "Jumper" which runs for 2 minutes 30 seconds.
Overall
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