Allan Quatermain and the Temple of Skulls

Picked this up in a five-buck Echo Bridge 6-movie pack at K-Mart that also had some TV versions of Robinson Crusoe and mummy movies. Never laughed so hard in my life. Highly recommended for connoisseurs of bad cinema.

All those who give this movie a negative review should watch those abysmal big-budget studio Allan Quartermain movies in which Richard Chamberlain plays H. Rider Haggard's main character as a guy who wants to bed all of his male co-stars, in which Sharon Stone wears far too many clothes, and in which James Earl Jones plays an African tribal chieftain with such obvious embarrassment you can practically see the tears in his eyes and hear his thoughts saying, "Remember, Jim, this is paying for that vacation house in Old Saybrook, Conn."

And really, all that money invested in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" still didn't make it make a damn lick of sense, and made me feel like George Lucas screwed me. "Star Wars made me very rich and very fat. Thanks. Here, I dressed up some of my feces as Indiana Jones for you to look at for two hours."

At least this one doesn't pretend to be anything other than crap, and on that level, it's a helluva lot more enjoyable than "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."

Stuff you gotta love:

-- The swarm of millions of somethings that are as big as birds, buzz like bees but looks like a pixellated screensaver, which causes the entire cast to cower under a rock but which poses no threat or danger whatsoever.

-- The leading lady says she twisted her ankle and couldn't possibly walk on it, and in the very next scene is hiking up a mountain.

-- The leading lady's makeup is heavier than that lady's in your town who drives the pink Mary Kay car. Honestly, she looks like she's auditioning for a role as a Tammy Faye drag queen.

-- They reach the fabled King Solomon's Mines by walking in a general direction up a dirt road. And when they get there, they just stand around and do nothing.

-- Earthquake! For no reason!

-- Two white guys found captive in the African tribe who do absolutely nothing for the rest of the movie.

-- Everything collapses! For no reason!

-- The big fight between Allan Quartermain and the villain that looks like an improvised b-slap match between the Burger King and Abe Vigoda.

-- Finally, there is no Temple of the Skulls. It's never sought. It's never reached. It's never mentioned.

Folks, five bucks at K-Mart. Can't buy a Happy Meal for that.

Wow - this movie should have been named Velveeta! The plot was non-existent, the acting was worse than a high-school play, and it was just plain cheesy. It seemed like the vast majority of the movie time was filled with completely meaningless scenes. Some of those filler scenes were twice as long as they should have been. The pauses on the various characters after finishing their line was reminiscent of watching a soap opera and the music constantly built to non-existent climaxes. This movie literally could have been 20 minutes long and would have not been any worse. I think the budget was mostly spent on the catering for the actors. This movie doesn't deserve any more words!

It is not possible to describe how bad this film is. The acting is dreadful, especially the laughable shoot-outs. I've seen kids in the playground do better using their hands as guns and shouting "BANG"! The script is absolute rubbish, the story jumps from place to place with no rhyme or reason. The villain looks more retarded than scary, he wouldn't frighten my grandmother. The direction is very poor, you're often left wondering what the various looks between the actors are supposed to mean. This is the worst film I have ever seen. Don't waste your time watching it. The only use for this film is to be shown at acting college as an example of what not to do.

Not just Allan Quatermain, but anyone who would watch this movie has to be out of their skull. This was such a terrible movie that I wanted to walk out of the theater and go home. The problem was I was already home, watching it on a DVD.

There were so many things wrong with this movie that it would be impossible to list them all, but I'll give you a few examples.

How about going off for a hiking expedition without taking any supplies, not even water or food. They didn't even carry canteens. All the bad guy, who was after them, had was a rifle and pistol and the clothes on his back - but no hat. I thought it got hot in Africa? No one was sweating. I know this because the leading lady's heavy eye makeup never ran.

How can the bad guy take out two crew members of a moving train with two shots but never hit Quatermain even when Quatermain is standing still or is only a few yards away. This happens several times in the movie.

And where did the earthquake come from? Just thrown in for good measure, was it? And when was the last time you explored a dark cavern without any lights? If Quartermain took the job to get the tuition money for his son and then gave it to his housekeeper to mail, what happened to the envelope when the housekeeper went on the trip with him.

At least they didn't have any trouble finding the unknown land where King Solomon's mines were, as a wide dirt road had been created for them to follow. The bad guy had a truck, so why did Quatermain and his party have to walk on the road? Since his house is in the country, you would think he would have a vehicle too.

I have watched many movies where the actors had to walk to get where they were going. I'm surprised that Quatermain's party ever got anywhere. I have never seen people move this slow. I walk faster inside my own house.

And what was that terrible flying swarm? Bloodsucking locusts? Day flying bats? Enraged hummingbirds? Would have been nice to know.

I could go on, but why? So I'll sum it up.

No plot. No character development. No one with any acting ability. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give it a -3.

What a mammoth stuff-up!

There's a place to record goofs on IMDb but, come on guys, there isn't enough space for them all! What period was the movie actually set in? There was a modern motion detector in one scene and a working steam train in others. (I like steam trains, by the way, so I'll give the movie 3 just for those shots!) When Lady Anna sprains her ankle, the supposed-to-be real "Indiana Jones" character is so stupid that he removes her boot out in the middle of nowhere! I'm no bushman but even I wouldn't have done that. It stands to reason that, if the ankle is injured, once the compression of the boot is removed, it will swell up to the point where getting the boot back on would be impossible. So, when the party moves on in the next scene, Anna is not wearing her boots (neither of them!). What she IS wearing isn't easy to see but, since the group had no extra gear with them, it must have been someone else's socks! But guess what? In the very next scene climbing a steep and rugged escarpment, there's Lady Anna with her boots on again!

Then, after suffering lousy screenplay, pathetic acting (from EVERYONE - with the possible exception of Wittley Jourdan). awful continuity and sad attention to detail, viewers are presented with a whole sequence of scenes in the bowels of the earth where no one took any sort of lighting, yet everything was brilliantly illuminated enough for the protagonist to see a black "beheading glove" with which to win the battle! Wow! The excitement was just too much for me!

Now, in most action movies, it is customary to have a bit of glamour somewhere so what went wrong here? By no stretch of the imagination could Natalie Stone be described as glamorous! Come to think of it, did South Africa EVER make a hit movie? The best I can think of was "The Gods Must Be Crazy" and that wasn't all that great!

If anyone is reading this before contemplating watching this movie, take it from me - DON'T!

I need to go and lie down! I just hope I don't fall asleep - I might have nightmares about being a cast member in a Mark Atkins movie!