Okay, here's the deal. Y'all ever watch that show "Unsolved Mysteries?" Somebody winds up that big key in Robert Stack's back, and he spouts off for an hour about all these weird occurences, crop circles, no-suspect crimes, all that yada. Brother Bob likes to make everything sound like he's about to solve the Riddle of the Sphinx or something, but it's usually some bozo that took off a bank and split town, and we're supposed to keep an eye out for him. They've never solved the Bermuda Triangle thing, or Amelia Erhardt's vanishing act, or any of that Rod Serling stuff. Just your average, run-of-the-mill mystery.
If the folks at CBS are reading this, and I'm certain you are, I have a nice little unsolved mystery I'd like y'all to take a crack at. How do the yahoos in Hollywood manage to take a lot of great components, mix the all up together, and make one big package of mediocre phlegm? Look at Godzilla, although calling Godzilla mediocre is being absurdly nice. All that pre-existing market. Huge build-up. Superflash producers, and a humongous CGI lizard. Mix it all together, and you've got a blockbuster hit, right? Wrong-o. You've got two hours of elephant-cage sweepings, with a soundtrack album, no less. How do they do it?
I mean, look at the ingredients for the new Touchstone release, Six Days, Seven Nights. Harrison Ford, one of the most bankable stars in the business. He's cast in the lead of an action film, where he has been riding in high cotton for over 20 years. You add Ivan Reitman, one of the more dependable comedy directors, to helm the film. You add Anne Heche, who's coming off a great performance in Wag the Dog and is very attractive to boot (don't start with me on the whole Ellen thing. I'm still hoping....), as the romantic interest. Add a tropical island as a setting. You've got another Romancing the Stone on your hands, right? Funny, adventurous, exciting, romantic, the whole delicious enchilada, right?
Well, "Unsolved Mysteries," you figure it out. 6 Days, 7 Nights works hard to accomplish the same formula for greatness that ran up major bucks for Romancing the Stone. Unfortunately, with all that fuel for the fire, it barely starts to sizzle, leaving everything and everybody waiting for the heat that never comes.
Anne Heche plays Robin, a Manhattan magazine editor whose boyfriend, Frank (David Schwimmer) surprises her with a trip to the South Seas. Frank and Robin get down there, and meet up with a charter pilot named Quinn (Ford), who flies them over to their vacation villa. Robin needs Quinn's services to go on to Tahiti to supervise a photo shoot, then it's feet-up and Mai Tais on an island paradise. But (uh-oh), the beat-up old plane goes down, stranding Quinn and Robin on a deserted island. And they fight, then they bond, then they (guess what) fall for each other. Oh, and did I mention that they have to fight the last band of pirates to survive into the twentieth century, other than Congress? Yes, pirates. Watch my pupils roll.
Like I said, all this should have worked, but it just never comes together. Reitman always does his best with a quick, witty script that goes along at a nice clip, and it looks like he tried that here, but the whole thing needs too much set-up. He pushes every aspect of this film to be like Romancing the Stone, but it just comes across as forced instead of inspired. I don't know if this is the way writer Michael Browning intended his script to be, or if studio meddling rewired the whole idea to fit some new scheme they wanted. Regardless of which is true, it needed an extra dose of jazz and less formulaic plot-pointing.
Now, before you jump up and go all crazy, there's a lot here that was worth watching. Ford is fun to watch, especially since he's not so hard-pack serious as he was in Air Force One. Heche, too, is proving herself to be rather handy as a comedic actress that can also do an action sequence. I did notice, though, that there never is a sparkle between the two of them on screen. Where Douglas and Turner got warmer and warmer throughout Stone, here, there is none of that smouldering attraction that you can see in the actor's eyes. I'm sure I'll here screams about the comparisons, but watching Ford and Heche, I was reminded more of Cary Grant and Leslie Caron in Father Goose. Two people falling for each other more out of a sense of mutual respect than animal attraction. Grant and Caron bicker, fight, and even slap one another a couple of times before they realize that these two strong wills could compliment each other nicely. Ditto here.
Where the movie bogs, though, is in the rest of the story. The whole idea of Quinn's girl Angelica (Jacqueline Obradors) and Robin's guy getting together while they "mourn" their lost lovers plays like a bad sitcom. Schwimmer is still in full "Friends" mode, all basset-hound faced and nasal, and this incredible island girl (and I mean, INcredible) is so goofy, I kept waiting for Matthew Perry to pop in and say something to break the monotony. It starts funny, but it needed to end way before it did. And, for the life of me, I do not even want to discuss the use of PIRATES in a movie. I mean, did we learn nothing from Cutthroat Island? I need pirates in a movie like I need another year of "Suddenly Susan" on NBC. Pirates?!?!? Sure, they're not like Treasure Island - pegleg - Captain Hook pirates, but they're still pirates! Why not drug lords, or arms dealers, or Beanie Baby smugglers?
All that aside, there was a great potential here that never gets tapped, save a few swipes near the surface. There are moments that could have been big, but they weren't. There were jokes that could have punched better, but they didn't. There were sequences that should have been plotted better, but they weren't. If they were and did, you've got a damn good movie. They weren't and didn't, and you're left with a lazy so-so movie.
If you're a Ford fan, you'll like this well enough to see it once, and catch it on cable next winter. If you're looking for some adventure on the high seas for your summer vacation, call Kathie Lee and get a Carnival cruise. This one's not going to leave you as satisfied as you'd like to be. Consider this the new product from Touchstone Pictures - "Romancing the Stone Lite - Great look, half the fun."
Image copyright Touchstone Pictures.
|
under the knife