November 23, 2023

This starts off with "Lee" trying to get the funeral of his wife - and it involves the star - Charlton Heston, no less - running! He's clearly not at his "Ben Hur" best and those few opening scenes rather set the tone for this rather weak and feeble take on the "Quatermain" jungle adventure. His son "Rick" (John Savage) is the product of their broken marriage and has a limited degree of respect for his dad. That isn't much helped by their shared … read the rest.

This starts off with "Lee" trying to get the funeral of his wife - and it involves the star - Charlton Heston, no less - running! He's clearly not at his "Ben Hur" best and those few opening scenes rather set the tone for this rather weak and feeble take on the "Quatermain" jungle adventure. His son "Rick" (John Savage) is the product of their broken marriage and has a limited degree of respect for his dad. That isn't much helped by their shared affection for "Anne" (Maud Adams). The former man is a veteran tour guide working on safaris, the latter man an erstwhile British soldier who is employed by the Kenyan government to thwart the antics of poachers who are decimating at will. There's some lively verbiage from the always reliable John Rhys-Davies, but the rest of this is astonishingly formulaic with Adams showing none of her "Octopussy" (1983) charisma. There's loads of on-location wild animal photography that shows off the beauty and perils of the environment but the clunky story and the wooden acting leave a great deal to be desired as the action all-too-frequently finds itself subsumed in a rather dull, and unlikely, love-triangle. The star is beginning to lose his lustre here, and perhaps the more genteel "Colby's" that was beckoning was a more suitable vehicle now. It's watchable, but nobody's finest work - unless you were an hungry lion.

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