Rating of
1/4
Safari spoof that's more silly than sexy
Indyfreak - wrote on 02/15/21
Tacky adventure-comedy that feels more dated than the 1940s comic strip it's based off.
Former Bond girl Maud Adams plays the villain, a Nazi femme fatale, and she's probably the best part. Similar to a Bond villain, she has a gaggle of useless henchmen at her disposal. Flash Gordon star Sam Jones plays the hero who's basically a corny Indiana Jones clone except not as smart. There's also a pair of stuffy British gentlemen that react to everything with a stiff upper lip. It's kind of funny that there's all these side characters running around in the jungle but I can sort of understand it since the title character herself is not very interesting. But Kirsten Hughes is still pretty and loses her clothes a lot, so there's that at least.
Shot in Mauritius, the movie is so small in scale despite the plot suggesting global implications. Characters walk to every place so it seems they shot in the same location.
The movie often feels like it wants to be a naughtier movie but for some reason it restrains itself to being a simpleminded film that families could watch. There were a couple jokes that did make me laugh, I'll admit. Oddly the movie has a similar feel to the Allan Quartermain movies starring Richard Chamberlain, but unlike those movies it's not as violent and the adventure aspect is not as exciting to offset the corniness.
