Michael Douglas: Romancing the Stone - Movie

Romancing the Stone
Cast :	Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner
Director :	Robert Zemeckis
Studio :	Twentieth Century Fox
Format :	Color, Closed-captioned, Dolby, Widescreen
Released Date :	March 30, 1984
DVD Released Date :	February 04, 2003
Language :	French (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), English (Dubbed), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language)
Audience Rating :	PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
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Customer Reviews

Rating
Date	June 26, 2005
Summary	If this isn't a five star film, I don't know what is.
Content	One of the best films of the 80s, and an all-time high for Zemeckis. I saw this film when I was ten years old, against my wishes. My mother thought it looked like fun -- she was just turning 40 at the time and recently divorced. We went together on a Friday night and had an absolute blast! I still remember this many years later, and the film has lost non of its magic. It is a beautiful, realistic romance, and totally hilarious. You have to look back a long way in Hollywood to find a film this good. A+

Rating
Date	January 03, 2005
Summary	Great movie!
Content	Joan Wilder, romance novelist, is on her way to Columbia after obligating herself to free her hostage sister at the price of a Columbian treasure map. After arriving in Columbia and taking the wrong bus, which then crashes and whose passengers leave without her, Joan finds herself lost and at the mercy of a man who wants her dead. Rescused by Jack Colton, a rough and jaded man working for his lifelong dream, Joan offers all she has in exchange for his help. After many rip-roaring adventures through Columbian countryside and city -- chasing after expensive stones, dodging private armies, and searching for Joan's sister -- Joan finds herself falling in love with Jack, only to find that in the end his "charm" might have been all a romantic trick of Jack's scheming in order to get the treasure for himself... Pros: - The main characters are really believable. Their personalities are realistic and they develop throughout the film. Joan is a girl who has only ventured to dangerous missions via her novels and is forced to learn how to adapt to new changes. Luckily, she invokes a wit she once reserved only for her writing and pulls through very nicely. Jack is a fairly greedy, raw, and jaded man without much respect for anyone. Somewhat caustic but somehow charming, Jack learns how to share his dream with Joan, a somewhat kindred spirit. - Joan is a great female lead. She has her share of the action, she's intelligent, and she's brave despite her lack of experience. - The humor is well-done -- the movie is more action / adventure-based than humor, but there are some hilarious scenes woven in that have me laughing everytime I watch the movie. Cons: - The romance happens a little too quickly. I understand that it has to happen or else -- wow, no movie -- but it was a little patchy / iffy and the development was way too fast. I would have rather had a longer movie or the same movie divided into two longer halves. - Some of the scenes are a little predictable, but even then I'd say they're pretty good. Overall Review: The movie starts off in a sequence of one of Joan's books, instantly giving the watcher a view on Joan's character without boring explanations or drawn-out cuts. From that the movie switches into several more scenes during which one gets to know Joan, her life, and her work before seamlessly fading into the action. Once Joan introduces herself to Columbia and her ineptness at meshing into the culture there -- even for the excuse of finding her sister -- Joan continues to be her headstrong self and convinces Jack to help her, despite the sacrifice she makes. Bound and determined, Joan makes her way across Columbia all the while executing fun -- somewhat predictable -- action and learning how to trust Jack despite her fear of being abandoned. The action isn't quite as riveting and epic as, say, Indiana Jones, but then again the characters are well done and one of my favorite points of this movie is that the hero is a fairly average and very clever female rather than the typical witty, godlike male hero. The characters are easy to connect with, the plot -- albeit fairly simple -- is fun and easy to grasp. I laughed more than once, "awwed" more than once, and watched more than once. This movie is definitely worth buying. Re-watchable?: Yes!

Rating
Date	October 29, 2004
Summary	Is this the bus to Car-ta-hay-na?
Content	I'm busy reviewing all my 5-star movies, and this is definitely one of them! In my book, any movie that involves a gem, a jewel or a stone, whether it be stealing one, looking for one or just plain wearing one is a great movie! (Just think of the ones you know!) Michael Douglas, refreshingly, plays Jack "Trustworthy" Colton, a romantic hero, of sorts (instead of his usual oversexed baddish good guy,) who, for $375 in traveler's checks (as long as they're American Express) agrees to help Kathleen Turner as Joan Wilder, a hopeless romantic romance novelist who is just waiting for her romantic hero to arrive, follow some sort of Columbian treasure map to the El Corazon stone before all the bad guys hurt her sister! But, really, the best part of this movie, other than "El Corazon," are all the other guys, bad and good, and there's lots and lots of them! Starting with Gloria, Joan's publisher. What a woman--the scene in the bar where Gloria and Joan are drinking 'grasshoppers' of all things, and Gloria is perusing the available men--absolutely funny! And when she tries to persuade Joan from going to Columbia--really, really good! Then, there's Danny DeVito and his cousin Ira--"they're not two people, they are...one...person." Then there's Zolo, "the butcher" who killed Joan's sister Elaine's husband. What a meanie! And he gets what he deserves, don't worry! And lastly, there's Juan, the Bellmaker ("Bellmaker, my as*! You know that fuselage we slept in last night? That was probably one of ol' Juan's lost shipments.") He just loves Joan Wilder and reads all her books, with many copies, hates phones, but sets out to help Joan and Jack in his "lil' mule, Pepe!" What fun! Probably my only gripe about this movie/DVD (and I owned and watched the VSH version many times before upgrading to DVD) is that there are three scenes in the original movie that had subtitle translations (two scenes where Zolo is talking to his men and a particularly funny line when Zolo is talking to DeVito's character about the French.) Now, if you don't know what these guys are saying because you can't translate the Spanish or the French, then it's really lost here. I find this to be a gross deletion on the DVD! It's like bleeping out a few lines...and who wouldn't consider that defective and flawed. I would even buy a re-release of this DVD if they would just put those subtitles back in! But that complaint aside, this is definitely a 5-star romantic treasure-seeking funny adventure that you can re-watch a hundred times and really enjoy it! See also: The sequel "Jewel of the Nile" is not as good, with a nice twist on "the jewel," returning characters of Gloria and DeVito, and Joan is pretty over-the-top ditzy, but it's worth seeing and maybe owning if you absolutely love "Romancing the Stone." It does have a very Middle Eastern flavor, so if the terrorist attacks of 2001 have you a bit uneasy, this may not be a good one to see.

Rating
Date	August 22, 2004
Summary	gets better every time
Content	I first saw this movie when I was about 10 and the babysitter was flipping through channels. Needless to say, I still love it, and I decided to buy it because there's only so many times you can borrow a movie from the library. Adventure! Danger! Comedy! Romance! What else is there to say?

Rating
Date	May 12, 2004
Summary	Romantic Comedy Adventure: Turner And Douglas
Content	This 1984 film was the first that brought together the incredible on-screen chemistry of Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas. The film, a romantic and comic version of the Indiana Jones films, involves a romance novelist (Kathleen T) and how she gets wrapped up in a hunt for a rare and valuable diamond. As her love interest and her partner in the search is Michael Douglas. At first, the two don't get along very well. Their fighting and bickering as well as game-playing (they each plan to dump the other and take the diamond for themselves) is only an overture to the subsequent romance and passion that overwhelms them. At the end of the movie, they are on a boat on top of a car in New York City headed for a romantic world travel adventure. This movie also stars Danny Devito (this team- Turner, Douglas and Da Vito would later make War Of The Roses which was a darker comedy about a nightmare divorce). Danny DeVito is hilarious as he is a shlemiel. The location was shot in South America, specifically Columbia, and the lush scenes of photographic landscapes - jungles, rivers, waterfalls, rapids and villages, make this a very engaging adventure story. Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas are really great together and it is the real salvation of the movie. For Turner's character, her life becomes an adventure and a romance as any of the novels she has written. Highly enjoyable, very comedic and never aging, this movie is a welcome fill for any space in your DVD collection. On DVD, it's even better. Greater color and sound, picture quality and bonus feature such as insight on the film, the actors and commentary.

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