SYNOPSIS
When her brother-in-law is murdered and her sister kidnapped, mousy romance novelist Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) travels to the jungles of Colombia. Carrying a treasure map the kidnappers have demanded as a ransom, the decidedly out-of-her-element Joan’s only chance of surviving the ordeal lies with Jack T. Colton (Michael Douglas), an opportunistic, part-time soldier of fortune who seems to have stepped straight out of one of her books.
CRITIQUE
I was pushing fourteen when Romancing the Stone hit theaters. Raiders of the Lost Ark was (and still is) one of my favorite movies, and I was jazzed about the impending release of Temple of Doom. At first glance, the previews made Stone look like a shameless attempt to cash in on the Spielberg/Lucas/Ford flicks, so I really had no interest in seeing it. Then I saw the bit where Douglas is swept along by a mudslide and eventually comes to rest with his head between Turner’s legs. I quickly became interested. (I saw Body Heat when I was twelve, and spent several years hoping Turner would ask me to help her bump off Richard Crenna.) And while I didn’t actually see the movie until it hit video several months later, I ate up every minute of it. A little more than two decades have now passed, and I’m happy to report that the movie has lost none of its charm.
Back in the day, I almost couldn’t the movie had turned out as well as it did. Turner was best known for playing a smoldering femme fatale, and Douglas, who credits the movie for making him a bankable leading man, had never portrayed a character this loose and funny (and really never would again). Screenwriter Diane Thomas was a first-timer who waited tables to pay the bills, and director Robert Zemeckis, having come off back-to-back box office disappointments, hadn’t worked in four years. (I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Used Cars are both good movies, especially the latter, but didn’t find their audiences until years after their theatrical releases.) In fact, upon initial inspection, the only sure thing seemed to be Danny DeVito’s role as Ralph, one of the kidnappers. (If you’ve never seen the movie, imagine a portly Peter Lorre with a Brooklyn attitude and you’ll have a pretty good idea of Ralph’s personality.)
Then again, maybe everyone involved felt like they had something to prove (or, perhaps, nothing to lose). Whatever the case was, the planets aligned, the clouds parted, etc., and the end result was a near-classic action-adventure flick. Nowadays it’s hard to imagine anyone else possibly being involved. The mixture of talent now seems too organic. Remove one element and it’s likely the whole thing would have fallen apart. (All the proof you need of this assertion can be found in the movie’s sequel, The Jewel of the Nile. Zemeckis was replaced by Lewis Teague, and Johnson was replaced by Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner. The sequel attempted to contrive what came naturally to the first movie, and the results were decidedly lackluster.)
In addition to its likeable, well-drawn characters and snappy dialogue, Romancing the Stone benefits from two more qualities essential to a movie like this: a blazing pace and a refusal to take itself seriously. As is generally the case with a Zemeckis flick, Stone features a brief introductory section, just long enough to set the story in motion, and then it’s off to the races. Once Joan gets to Colombia, the movie never looks back, hurtling from action set-piece to action set-piece. (Truth be told, you can almost sense the director’s desire to get past the New York scenes and into the jungle.) And everyone involved seems to know just how silly (in a good way) the whole enterprise is. There’s a knowing playfulness to the proceedings that’s infectious. From Alfonso Arau’s drug kingpin (who loves Joan’s books), to DeVito’s mad flight across the open plains (firing blindly over his back the whole way), to Turner and Douglas’s plunge over the falls (in a car roughly the size of a pack of Dentyne chewing gum), to the too-goofy-for-words climax, it’s a hell of a lot of fun.
What more can I say? I loved it way back when, I still love it.
THE VIDEO
The new 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer crushes the non-anamorphic presentation of the original release. Colors, details, and black levels are solid. There’s a bit of grain here and there (most notably in the scene in which Douglas builds a fire using the pot in the drug runners’ downed plane), which is to be expected, but it never becomes obtrusive.
THE AUDIO
The Dolby 2.0 Surround track appears to be a port of the track from the original disc. The track shows its age, with a somewhat weak bottom end and thin sound effects. The surround channels are used sparingly. Dialogue is always clean and clear. French Dolby Surround and Spanish mono tracks are also included, as are English and Spanish subtitles.
THE EXTRAS
Rekindling the Romance: A Look Back (20 minutes) features Douglas, Turner, and DeVito discussing the movie’s origins, production, release and legacy. Robert Zemeckis is notably absent (possibly due to work on the upcoming Beowulf), which is odd when you consider that Stone is the movie that turned his career around. (Spielberg or no Spielberg, I can’t imagine Universal ponying up the money for Back to the Future had Stone not been a hit.)
A Hidden Treasure: The Screenwriter (3 minutes) is a brief tribute to writer Diane Thomas, who was killed in a car accident in 1985. (Although she would ultimately receive no screen credit, Thomas was working on Spielberg’s Always at the time of her death.)
Douglas, Turner and DeVito: Favorite Scenes (3 minutes) is exactly what the title indicates.
Michael Douglas Remembers (3 minutes) offers a few more minutes of reminiscing from the movie’s co-star/producer.
Lastly, you get 8 deleted scenes (18 minutes). Most of these scenes, which are presented in anamorphic widescreen, are from the first hour of the film and were probably cut in order to tighten up the pace.
FINAL THOUGHT
Romancing the Stone is just as goofy and ridiculous as it was 22 years ago. It’s also just as much fun. If you already own the original release, toss it and upgrade to this disc. If you don’t already own the movie, this is definitely the edition you’ll want to pick up.
