Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold

Heaven Help Us!

Directed by Gary Nelson, Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold re-teams Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone from J. Lee Thomson's 1985 version of King Solomon's Mines, with equally bad results. Based on the creations of H. Rider Haggard, the emergence of Allan Quatermain onto the screen again was a desperate attempt to grab the coat tails of one Indiana Jones' success. Given how bad King Solomon's Mines (1985) was, you would be forgiven for wondering how on earth a sequel was given the go ahead, but this is explained by the fact both films were filmed back to back. More's the pity.

Plot has Quartermain and his lady Jesse Huston off on some adventure to find Quartermain's lost brother at the fabled Lost City of Gold. Along for the ride are Umslopogaas (James Earl Jones) an axe wielding warrior, Swarma (Robert Donner) a nutty spiritual guru, and some other no mark plebians. What they find is a whole bunch of trouble via creatures and a despotic high priest (Henry Silva).

Action is badly staged, effects work poor, while acting and dialogue is woefully inept (Chamberlain cheese sandwich/Stone shrill/Silva and Donner embarrassing). The best "Z" grade movies have fans and entertain because they know what they are, unfortunately this doesn't, it genuinely thinks it's a great adventure movie. Even the musical score is insulting, credited to Michael Linn, he basically just hacks into Jerry Goldsmith's score for "Mines", and produces a piece that is just two chords away from John Barry's iconic Indiana Jones music. As for the racist undertones...

Bad film making. Period. 2/10