Allan Quartermain and the Lost City of Gold - Indiana Jones and the straight-to-video-clone

Like many young boys in the eighties, I loved the 'Indiana Jones' movies - and therefore, could happily sit through and enjoy many of the various copies Hollywood churned out while trying to cash in on the genre. 'King Solomon's Mines' was great fun and, believe it or not, I didn't even know they released a sequel until I stumbled across it in 2020.  Maybe that was the major problem - I've waited too late to watch it and therefore can only really see the flaws as opposed to viewing it through a child's nostalgic eyes.

The main cast from 'King Solomon's Mines' return (i.e. Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone) to head off on another adventure into the jungle to rescue someone lost there and, of course, stumble on the 'Lost City of Gold.' There's nothing too original in the plot, but then you could probably say that about most of the - far superior - 'Indiana Jones' films.  It's just not that good, even compared to its own predecessor.

The cast is decent enough.  The two leads obviously have a degree of on-screen chemistry left over the the original and they're joined by the - always watchable - James Earl Jones and a few others that you probably won't really have heard of.  The locations are nice and, if you can forgive the blatant green-screen special effects then you can appreciate how hard they've tried.

However, despite the cast and overall look of the film appearing nice, what lets it down is simply the pacing.  The characters just sort of wander from one - vaguely dangerous - encounter after another.  They sort of amble through each one while various extras and 'non-essential' players are killed off until they finally reach their destination.  Part of me expected it to end there and then, but it sort of wanders aimlessly on adding yet more and more seemingly random scenes as if trying desperately to come across as 'epic' whereas it's just filling time with 'action' because it doesn't really have much of a story.

I've seen that this film is actually quite highly regarded by many others, so I'm guessing most of them watched this film when they were young and have fond memories of it.  I reckon that if I did too I would agree. Sadly, I just found it strained and boring; even the music seemed to annoy me after a while as it didn't really fit the scenes it was scoring.  Stick to 'Indiana Jones' or the original 'King Solomon's Mines.'

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights