User Reviews

Haven't seen such an awful film for ages. It is so bad it almost has the potential to become a cult classic. You should watch it with a bunch of good friends and a lot of beer, and then you might just get through it.

I struggled to understand what historical period it was set in; the political references suggest 1940's, but Umbopa wears modern dress and Quatermain's school bill is of a modern order of magnitude. The effect was surreal. We were given very few clues as to the plot. There were so many loose ends or things unexplained. The unpreparedness of the Fearless Four as they embarked on their quest was laughable. Acting was either wooden or OTT.

It was as though a bunch of people met on safari in the bush with a camcorder and said, "hey, let's re-enact that old King Solomon's Mines movie" and didn't bother to plan or rehearse it much or edit the results.

Having said that, I thought the scenery (and Wittley Jourdan) was strikingly beautiful, and the cast clearly had a lot of fun making this movie!

"King Solomon's Mines" is one of the great adventure novels of all time, but it seems so difficult to successfully adapt to the screen, for no reasons that I cannot fathom. This may be the weakest version yet, paling even to the pathetic 1985 Richard Chamberlain/Sharon Stone debacle. While the director brags about using the same African locations as the classic Steweart Granger/Deborah Kerr version, it's clear that this was a misuse of the $50,000 budget. The acting and overall production values are so weak, that it's clear all of the money has gone into travel costs. A better, more spectacular movie could have been made in the deserts of the American southwest and jungles of Hawai, and none would have known the difference.

Of the no name cast, only the actor playing Allan Quatermain acquits himself reasonably well. His performance is perfectly adequate, and he has screen presence. The rest of the cast is abysmal, and the changes from Haggard's book don't even serve to make the story more contemporary or exciting. This is the kind of film that gives the straight to DVD industry the reputation it has, and it's likely only the opportunity to cash in on "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (hence the title) , which opened around the same time.

Skip this one, and see either the Granger version, or the made-for-TV Patrick Swayze version. Or even "Police Academy 6: City Under Siege". All do a better job of capturing Haggard's book, and are just more fun.

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.

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.

I bet this movie made a killing at the box office! Mainly the careers of anyone associated with it!

OOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!! I am seriously in PAIN.

Show this movie to suspected terrorists and you'll get an immediate confession! The plot was so predictable it wasn't even funny! Even what I'm sure the director considered to be plot "twists" was predictable! The "bad guy" was seriously NOT evil. Gun play was laughable. The "natives" were not at all convincing.

As for sound? Please! The sound of their footsteps walking down the road was louder than the conversation!

I've always loved the legend of Allan Quartermain, but a 10 year old could have done a better job!

First let's look at the error. In the scene when Lady Anna and Allan Quatermain are leaving the bathroom, if you look at the wall behind them you will see a motion detector. Guess they forgot to cover that one up. It even blinks as they move through the hall way. The movie has a good story line. However, I do not think they had the budget to make it a really good movie. Some of the special effects are not smooth. The women in the tribe have very colorful neck dresses, wonder if they were made from Michaels or Wal-mart beads. When the villain and Quartermain have fight scenes, you can tell they were not well rehearsed. Also, I you look at the motor car that Sir Henry hides up after the train disappears going backwards on the rails, notice the front plate of the rail car. It is a Wickham Rail plate which is used in Australia. Wonder how Africa got one of those?

Just look at the poster for this movie and straight away you'll notice the resemblance to the Indiana Jones posters, and the resemblance doesn't stop there. This is a blatant attempt to cash in on the recent return of the superior film franchise. Its not the first time the adventures of Alan Quartermain have been used to scrape some of the profits off the top of the Spielberg movies. When the original films where released a remake of "King Solomans Mines" was rushed out shortly after with Richard Chamberlain hamming it up as Alan Qaurtermain.

Although I don't really like the Indiana Jones movies I think its in very bad taste to copy them in order to milk some of there profits. This movie was pushed out faster than a novice skydiver on his first jump. Slapped together in under 8 weeks, and you can tell! this is a poor effort at storytelling. Sets and cinematography are quite passable but the plot has more holes than a tea bag, therefore Im not even going to mention any of the story because what you don't know wont bother you as the kind of person who enjoys this rubbish are those with the intellectual capacity of a retarded goldfish.

I have given this film 1 star... as the IMDb wont allow me to give it none! Give this movie a wide birth at all costs!

Other than a few interesting scenery shots there is absolutely nothing to recommend this movie in my opinion. The acting is appalling and the plot line is even worse! The "villain" should have been fitted with a more suitable set of false teeth, I believe the bottom ones were missing - a more gross and unbelievable character would be hard to find. The "fierce savages" were mostly armed with pointed sticks and I am sure would have run a mile if Quartermain had said BOO! The (rent a crowd of maidens) had some interesting moves, but it all got rather tedious after about 10 minutes. I think your time would be better served relaxing with a good book or visiting the nearest pub.

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!

This film has a lot of memorable, really fun scenes, the characters are very likable, the acting was good, especially the villain... he was AWESOME, very entertaining. I could watch his scenes over and over again! The main actor was very true to the character of Allan Quatermain in the original book by H.R. Haggard. I thought he did a really solid job. This film was very well directed, had some beautiful cinematography, and is overall a really good, fun film that I would highly recommend.

This is by far the best film that the Asylum has ever done. I was very surprised at the quality of the story, the acting, the directing, everything was at a distinctly higher level than any of the previous films I've seen come out of The Asylum. I would say that this is a director to watch in the future. Very talented.

I expected some good action and adventures in this yet another adaptation of Haggard's 'Kings Solomon's Mines'. Such a great book of adventure makes almost a perfect scenario for a nice action/ adventure packed movie. And one can surely enjoy a nice portion of adventure once in a while. And I've always thought that it is almost impossible to spoil this nice plot created by Haggard and cherished in hearts of so many who read that great novel. Guess what? I was wrong. This movie indeed was the worst adaptation of King Solomon's Mines ever IMHO. To say it was boring would be almost compliment to the movie. Acting was terrible and unconvincing. The adventure part made me yawn and wish to have this 'forward' button to push so this torture would end faster. Unfortunately I didn't have one. If I could I'd give this movie -2 points. Although as it is impossible I give it one star though it is not worth of it after all. And I'd better go and watch some other and much better King Solomon's Mines versions

This has to be the worst movie (in my recollection)That I have ever seen. They try to claim it was the inspiration for Indiana Jones, The cast spent about two thirds of the movie walking around in the grass. The Filming Locales such as the train depot, look like tourist attractions. The plot was weak there were few special effects (sometimes when a gun was fired it was only a sound effect) The villain was not threatening at all although he tried. The story was lame, the Directing was lame, the acting was lame, it was just a LAME movie! I may have seen a worse movie but i cannot recall when! Don't waste time or money on this one, the best part was the cover art!

This is the worst Movie I ever have seen in my hole life. Its not only boring and annoying, its also bad and full of wooden acting. Stupid dialogs and ridiculous stunts mixed with endless scenes where the characters walking trough Africa on a safari without any gear or supplies!!!?!? Watching grass grow is more interesting then watching this movie. I felt asleep several times but I am sure, I didn't miss a plot, cause there is nothing, absolutely nothing. The shooting scenes are so unprofessional and childish, but I am sure, even kids on a playground could play a more convincing shooting. Its a shame, some movie like this is for sale in a store. There should be a warning:

Don't buy it, don't rent it, just forget it !

This is the worst movie I have seen in several years. It's worse than "Dungeons and Dragons" (2000).

The editing is abysmal. The cinematography is lousy. The acting is amateurish. The casting was apparently performed by lottery. The plot might be generously described as "loose." The dialogue is highly unnatural. I couldn't tell when it was supposed to have been set. There is what looks like a 19th century steam train, but Quatermain has velcro tabs on his pockets. Which reminds me that the wardrobe must have been just whatever was lying about. There was a weird mix and match of various styles and time periods which lent a great deal to the overall atmosphere of "slapped together." To be fair, though, I didn't watch the whole thing. So, maybe I'm off base. I watched the first 15 minutes, waiting for something believable or interesting to happen, then started fast forwarding and watching a couple minutes at a time, looking for the good parts. I never found them. I watched probably 25 minutes of it in all before I threw up my hands, declared defeat, and turned off the video in disgust.

Don't bother watching this film.

I am still trying to figure out what I just watched. By all means there was something entertaining, but not because it was a good entertaining film but by awful it is. I wasn't expecting that much in the first place, as it was from the notorious The Asylum, but still you do hope to see something watchable or fun. For starters I was very confused to where the film was set, with the political references and the modern dress it could have been any period and I wouldn't even know. The editing is choppy, especially in the shoot-outs, which had no intensity at all, the scenery is dully lit and not that special, as I have seen scenery like this so many times before and the effects were so cheap you could swear they were constructed in minutes and for less the £5. The music has a rather generic sound to it and the sound effects actually manage to be disconcertingly louder than the delivery of the dialogue. Speaking of the dialogue it was cheesy(so much so I was in hysterics for all the wrong reasons) and with the delivery even incoherent, and I got no thrills or excitement from an I think derivative, often dull and very predictably told story. The characters are stereotypical and annoying, you don't feel any of the heroism and such of the lead character, while the acting ranges from wildly over-the-top to unbearably wooden. Overall, really awful though sometimes funny because of that, though I also had a feeling that I wasn't sure what it was I was watching. 1/10 Bethany Cox

Woo-hoo! We've a real winner here, folks - nearly as exciting as a trip to the stapler factory! I DID like the handy-dandy skull extractor, though - a fine addition to any cannibal kitchen, and always the perfect house-warming gift! (I'm still somewhat confused as to how Whoopie Goldburg's character "Guinan" from "Star Trek The Next Generation" ended up in this mess, red-hat-and-all!) In all fairness, however, the "Despicable Villain" (Christopher Adamson) did make at least a half-hearted attempt at acting, and the music was really quite good! Also, according to the credits, it was filmed on location in South Africa, the actual setting for the original story, which I suppose deserves some recognition. ( P.S. - M'Bopa's sex re-assignment surgery was a stunning success for him/her! )

I have never commented on a movie before. This one is so bad that the only way I could live with myself is to try and warn others. Sure there are different tastes in movies and people may think different. But you do not have to try poop on a bun to know it is not right and awful. After watching this movie terrorism does not seem so bad. I have seen XX rated movies with much better direction then what was attempted in this 1 hour 33 minute 10 second movie. Time actually went slower watching this movie then when I am on the tread mill at the health club. This movie can actually cause a tumor. This made "Doctor T and the Women" seem like a 4 star movie. This movie MUST have been filmed in only 3 hours. There was so much walking in the grass I thought I was watching PBS. There was boobs shown in the movie and I did not even care, boobs!

I'm not one of the filmmakers on Allan Quatermain, but I do happen to know the guys that made this film, and they did an absolutely amazing job, especially when you consider what they were up against. Consider this.... this film was made from pre-production to post- production in little more than 2 months (started around Jan 15, completed March 26). They turned up in South Africa with five actors, a crew of five people (Line Producer-Nick Everhart, Visual EFX-Scott Wheeler, Sound Mixer/BoomOperator/Grip/Gaffer-Trenton McRrae, Assistant Camera-Sara Renard, and Director/Cinematographer-Mark Atkins), $10,000 in their pocket, and 9 shooting days (a lot of travel time between locations). They put together a pretty impressive film here, with some very entertaining scenes (I especially love the bathtub scene, and the Zulu village scenes). They were able to obtain an authentic steam train, filmed in an authentic Zulu village, with AUTHENTIC Zulu maidens and AUTHENTIC Zulu warriors. They also filmed in Sudwala Caves, the oldest known caves in the world (240,000 million years old). The director wanted to make a film that was true to the adventurous nature of the book by H.R. Haggard, and had no interest in doing an Indiana Jones rip-off. Which, if you watch the film, you will see that this is NOT an Indiana Jones movie...it IS an Allan Quatermain movie. It was intended to be an old-fashioned romantic adventure film, and that's exactly what it is. It's a lot of fun, has quite a few very entertaining scenes... and some very solid actors. Post-production was also an insane roller-coaster ride.... imagine trying to edit an entire feature film, do all the CGI Visual Effects, shoot an opening scene, score the film, color correct, and sound mix in five weeks time! It is a near impossible feat! So I say hats off to these guys for pulling off a miracle, and making a really great, fun film under extremely challenging conditions! No, it's not a multi-million dollar production like Indiana Jones. But it has a lot of heart, and it's very entertaining.

Enough has been posted already about the shortcomings of this film that I needn't rehash the same criticisms here. Yes, the film is awful; I watched it all the way through out of perverse interest in seeing how bad it would get (it stars poorly and gets worse). At least one reviewer says the film is a remarkable achievement because it was shot in only nine days. For my part, I wonder why it took that long; the film looks like it could have been made in three days.

What really intrigues me about this film, however, is its chronological ambiguity. In what time period is it supposed to be set? H. Rider Haggard published KING SOLOMON'S MINES in 1885, so the original story is clearly set in the 19th century. That date is important because the book came out at a time when little was known about the Southern African interior in which the it is set–mostly the region now known as Zimbabwe. To call Zimbabwe unexplored territory in 1885 would be an exaggeration, but outsiders knew little enough about it, and especially its impressive stone ruins, to make a fantasy story about ancient mines seem plausible at the time.

This ALLEN QUATERMAIN film appears to be set in the 21st-century present, with a strong 19th-century flavor. The modern clothes characters wear, beer bottles, the occasional appearance of an automobile, a letter addressed to Quatermain in "KwaZulu-Natal" (a name coined during the 1990s), and other details all point to a modern time period. By contrast, the notion of unexplored territory, an antique train, and other details point to a 19th-century setting. My guess is that the makers of the film wanted to set the story in its original time period but couldn't afford the costumes and sets necessary to carry off that illusion. Still, they might have taken greater care to keep obviously modern elements out of the film.

Much is made by the producers and by some review posters about the film's being shot in South Africa. A nice touch, certainly, but not a big deal. Aside from transportation costs, it would have been cheaper to film in South Africa than elsewhere. In any case, they could have made better use of South African landscapes. There's a lot of beautiful scenery in the film, but little of it evokes the rugged, mountainous terrain of Haggard's novel, and the film totally fails to convey the idea its characters are on an epic journey. The only significant animal scenes in the film appear to be from stock footage, and the scenes shot in an African "kingdom" (apparently a modern tourist village) are an embarrassment to watch. (Incidentally, most of the original novel's story is actually set north of South Africa, so it's a little misleading to suggest that this film was shot where the story takes place. ) A few reviewers have commented on the film's excellent music. I don't know why; I found its score dull and unimaginative. The African drumming is especially bad. One can hear better drumming in a "Bomba" film.

Well kinda. Too much time spent in some scenes, gun battles were atrocious, otherwise I was able to make it through the whole movie just for the adventure.

Ho HO! This film is crawling to it's death on cable even as I type.

I had to come here and find what people were saying about this stillborn turd of a movie. I gotta tell you, the reviews are the best part of the viewing experience. Even the two good ones are so obviously self serving they might have been written by the director's mother.

I won't rehash what so many others have already said. Every criticism is spot on and should be accepted as fact.

It's as if someone said, "The problem with the Indiana Jones movies is that they rely too much on action, personalities, spectacle, and special effects, so I won't put any of that in my film!" I can imagine how the film was so badly made, but I have one complaint that I have never thought to make of ANY movie, no matter it's budget or terribleness.

The woman who plays the 'romantic interest' in this film is probably the least convincing seductress ever to appear in a movie. This slightly doughy mouth breather made me question my sexual orientation, as I have never in my life been so unmoved by a feminine presence on screen. I'm not one to demand classic beauty from any woman, and indeed have lusted greatly after some pretty odd looking ducks from the days of direct to VHS creepitude, but this woman...GOD! Is she the money man's sister? "You told me I could be in your MOVIE! MOMMMM!"

I'm sorry if you bought this hospital food as adventure flick, because you got it on DVD. A few years ago, you could have taped over it and gotten a little return on your investment.

But as it is, enjoy the bad reviews.

I know I did!