The Go Go Boys & The Lost City Of Bordom

It's an increasingly common practice these days for an ultra-successful movie franchise like The Matrix or Pirates of the Caribbean to shoot their sequels back-to-back as a cost saving exercise. That way you get to keep your valued cast and crew for two features and you only have to pay them one salary! But back in 1985 it wasn't the done thing. So we have the Go Go Boys (er, that's Cannon Films' Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus) to thank for the two Indiana Jones exploitation movies based on H. Rider Haggard's classic literary character Allan Quartermain. The first, King Solomon's Mines, is my favorite guilty pleasure movie. Despite it being tacky, childish and devoid of subtlety...it's also funny, swashbuckling and packed to the max with ludicrous invention.

The sequel, Allan Quatermain and the Lost City Of Gold, shot the same year with returning stars Richard Chamberlain and a young Sharon Stone, is nowhere in the same ball park as it's predecessor. The glorious Zimbabwe locations make a welcome return, as does the stunning Jerry Goldsmith score (heavily chopped and remixed by replacement composer Michael Linn), but it's not enough to save a movie with lead in it's veins. Gary (The Back Hole) Nelson's direction is flat and static, the screenplay punchy in places... but generally lacking much spark...and the budget severely restricted (even though there's some impressive large scale sets on show).

Henry (Kane) Silva looks twatish in poodle metal perm, as does poor Cassandra (Elvira) Peterson, both as the baddies of the plot. At least James Earl Jones puts in some effort...the poor guy... but it's all too slow and pondering. The fun has gone. When there should be a fight or a chase or an escape, all we get are shots of our heroes endlessly canoeing downstream, and that's not the rip-off adventure flick I signed up for.