[J m HofMarN]

(the site editor's down, so here's a forum exclusive review)

So, as some of you might know, I’m a pretty big fan of Victorian literature. I’ve read most everything Dickens wrote, and even some of the less hyped stuff like Wylde or Kingsley or Wells. The latter could be argued to be post Victorian, but his stories kept the themes and feeling of Victorian literature, so there. Now then, one of the most obscure authors from that time, and oddly the best selling one in his times, is H. Ryder Haggard. Most people have never heard of him but he wrote a lot of adventure and suspense literature.

His magnum opus is King Solomon’s Mines. You might remember its main character Alan Quatermain from such films as the original eighties film adaptation and The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen. He’s also in this film, and they managed not to screw him up except that he ends up whining about “don’t die on me” every few minutes. However, everything else in the novel they pretty well ruined. Here’s a short synopses of the book, since I don’t expect any of you guys to read the full text which is located here:

http://www.gutenberg...t00/7kslm10.txt

The book is set in Africa, and describes the difficult trek across desserts, jungles, swamps and mountains that Quatermain and his friends must make it across. Along the way he’s joined by many noble people who help him, including two African natives; the deposed king of the tribe near the mines and a beautiful maiden who he shares sort of a love affair with. They eventually uncover the mystery of how to reach the mines and then through a bit of cleverness they outsmart the tribesmen and return the rightful king to power. They get into the mines and are then attacked by Cagool, the ancient and evil witch doctor of the Kakuani. They’re only saved by the maiden who sacrifices herself to kill Cagool. Quatermain and his friends then track the airflow in the cavern to find their way out.

That being said, let’s go to my questions for the people who wrote the script for this piece of shit:

1: Why were there RUSSIANS? Do you think it’s still the cold war or something? This book, and, I assume, your film were set during Victorian times. Russia was not looking to conquer fugging Africa. Did you ass hats just point to a random place on the globe and decide that nation was the bad guy because there originally weren’t enough screw-ball antics going on over who got the treasure? And why in the name of God did you get a Kenneth Brannaugh impersonator to play the lead Russian? I kept expecting him to start a lament for Eurech at every moment.

2: Why did you take out the native woman who falls for Quatermain and replace her with a plucky white girl from London? Is the viewing public not ready for an interracial relationship yet? Did you feel that it would be too horrible if she got crushed along with Cagool like in the book? Did you just want the idiot males in the audience to have a hot white chick to wank to? Oh and by the way, if you’re going to go on about how plucky and willfull she is you’d better damned well make her plucky and willfull. All this bitch does is scream whenever danger is obvious and get fucking kidnapped, which I could never ever have expected.

3: Cagool. Why? Why did you decide that instead of a conniving and ultimately evil and ancient witch doctor you would make her a sweet, good looking and helpful geisha wannabe? Now, I know that it might have been bad to portray the heroes striving against a very elderly woman, but come on she’s a witch. Look at Lord of the Rings. Fellowship had two old men kicking the shit out of each other for ten minutes and the gray panthers didn’t boycott it. Stick to the book, dipshits. Changing her character ruined a good plot point.

4: The stupid relic that your silly asses made up. What the fuck? Was the lure of King Solomon’s treasure not good enough motivation? “Well there is an infinite treasure trove, but we want this stone that lets us rule a continent which, at this stage in history, is COMPLETELY UNEXPLORED!” Seriously, throughout the entire film everyone is bad mouthing King Solomon’s treasure. NO ONE wants it to be perfectly honest. It makes me wander why they bothered getting the rights to the book at all and didn’t just go off to make their own film, “Quest for the ancestor stone”

5: The Scottish guy. Oh wow, that was cool. He was kind of reprising Gimli’s role in LOTR, but rather than offer any opportunity for comic relief or acting like a real character, he just mumbles in completely incomprehensible Scots. I’ve watched Braveheart and have Scottish friends, and I’ve never heard anyone talk with such a ridiculous accent. It’s like someone took all the vowels in his words and replaced them with “AUCH” and then took all the consonants in his words and replaced them with “AUCH” Then he dies. I guess he was supposed to be endearing or something, but that didn’t happen.

6: The perils of Africa: Africa is presented as, at worst, a mildly dangerous location. They get somewhat tired when they go through the dessert. A man who got shot in the stomach sort of dies in the dessert. So, I suppose the message is that if you plan to trek across the Dark Continent you’d better make sure you don’t have any bullet holes in you, but otherwise you’re good to go.

7: Laugh at the stupid savages: It is wonderful how much thought they put in to the portrayal of pre-colonization Africa. For instance, when the true king returns to his tribe, rather than having a war or going through some sort of espionage, the leader simply says hello and tells him that some slaves have to, can you guess? Yes, fight to the fucking death. And if you don’t know who wins the fight between Quatermain and annonymous slave #1 then you’re a vegetable, and if you don’t know whether or not Quatermain spares his opponent in the end you’re a rutabaga, the lowest of all vegetables.

8: The shoddiest traps: So after getting nothing but help from Cagool, Quatermain and little miss screams a lot go to the mines where they are confronted with a cunning trap: You step on the floor and a spear shoots up a foot in front of you. A fight breaks out between Quatermain and yet another adversary the movie’s writers invented and spears start springing up everywhere but where they are standing. Finally his enemy gets impaled by the only trap that actually worked. But then again, these are people who’s electoral process is two men hitting one another with baseball bats, so let’s not be too hard on them.

9: The end: Quatermain proposes while they’re trapped in the mines and about to die, but then by pulling random articles of clothing off a statue they escape. So after destroying the… ummm… thing that they’re destroying, Quatermain and Cleo-the-cock-container kiss. In the next scene they have a house and a family even though they didn’t take any of the treasure which was the entire point of the book.

10: The soundtrack: It seemed as though understated, poorly written classical music was used for the main themes which didn’t provide a very stirring backdrop. The use of quasi African tribal music was a nice touch, but it came on at random times. You don’t need to hear African tribal music while Quatermain is taking a piss. I recall that the old version of this film wasn’t much more accurate, but hell at least they could pump up the jams. Come on you know what I’m talking about.

11: My final complaint is the editing and scene progressions. There are none. Even when we’re moving from a scene of Quatermain looking at one guy, turning, and then looking to another, the editors opt not to show a smooth progression on camera, but rather to black out the picture for a second and then start off with a whole new shot. And sometimes they couldn’t find shots they liked in one location so they’d cut to another for a second. While they’re making their “arduous” trek through the dessert there is a sunrise shot, but it’s over a lush forest river where nothing is happening. Calling it choppy would be doing this movie an undue service, and calling it wildly inaccurate would as well. The only sound that can describe this movie is the sound of the zombie H. Ryder Haggard sucking out the brains of anyone involved with it.

Oh, and to the people who thought casting Patrick Swayze might help, he stopped being hot in, like, what? 1985?

[SimeSublime]

After being rather confused for a bit, I can only assume they remade this movie somewhat recently. Though I'm not going to bother seeing it now.

[J m HofMarN]

It's in dvd stores but I couldnt find a date on it. There's an old version of it from the eighties that, unlike most eighties films, is probably better than the modern one.

[SimeSublime]

I actually hired the 80's one out once, but never got around to watching it, lazy bastard that I was (read: still am).

[J m HofMarN]

Check out the original, you'll see what I mean about the kicking soundtrack.