The Great Movie Re-Watch
Director:
Robert Zemeckis
Writer:
Diane Thomas
Starring:
Kathleen Turner
Michael Douglas
Danny DeVito
Blurb:
A mousy romance novelist sets off for Colombia to ransom her kidnapped sister, and soon finds herself in the middle of a dangerous adventure hunting for treasure with a mercenary rogue.
Thoughts:
I love adventure movies, and Romancing the Stone ticks all of my boxes. Not only is it an adventure, but it also includes romance, and it does it well. How often can you say that? Never, that’s how often. I wonder if it’s because a woman wrote it? Sadly, Diane Thomas was killed in a drunk driving incident, and we never got to see other movies from her. Apparently, she was working with Spielberg on some things at the time too. That’s two female writers in the 80s, attached to movies I love, that died…
Reviewers have compared Romancing the Stone to Indiana Jones, and I don’t see it. Apart from the fact that they’re both adventure movies, they don’t share anything else. Joan Wilder, Kathleen Turner, is definitely the main character. I don’t care what Michael Douglas thinks. Joan was the main one, and he was her sidekick.
They weren’t fighting Nazis. They were searching for treasure with a treasure map. Archeology played no part. Seriously, other than the adventure aspect, how is this like Indiana Jones? It feels like reviewers getting all pissy cause it was female-led.
Two conspiracies in one post, nice!
And now it’s time for Random Facts from the Wikipedia Article!
-Sylvester Stallone was considered for the role of Jack Colton. Thank goodness that didn’t happen, I can only imagine how he would have demanded things be changed, plus he’s not good with romance.
-Robert Zemeckis almost didn’t get to make it because 20th Century Fox had no faith in him after two failures. It was because of the success of Romancing the Stone that he could go on and make Back to the Future.
And that’s the end of another edition of Random Facts from the Wikipedia Article!
There weren’t many random facts this time. The film didn’t have much drama going on with it, so that’s nice.
I wish more movies like this were being made—films like this and tv shows like The Librarians. I’m hoping that because of everything that’s going on in the world, entertainment will start to veer toward a lighter fare. Bridgerton was wildly successful, proving that people want happy, predictable media right now. Please, please bring back my adventure movies. The only upcoming one I’m aware of right now is Uncharted with Tom Holland, and considering it’s based on a video game, I do not have high hopes.
I’ve written a whole long blog post about my favorite Adventure movies and my feelings on them, so there isn’t much else to say about Romancing the Stone.
Dynamite Review 