I know what you’re thinking.
Another movie based on a silly Disneyland ride?
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| Our heroes — counterclockwise, from top, Frank (Dwayne Johnson), Lily (Emily Blunt) and MacGregor (Jack Whitehall) — cannot believe what has just popped out of the water, in pursuit of their tiny boat. |
Yeah, well … scoff if you like, but this one is quite entertaining.
Granted, it borrows heavily from Pirates of the Caribbean, Raiders of the Lost Ark and 1999’s The Mummy; and granted, the third act gets needlessly chaotic; and granted, the film runs about 15 minutes too long. (Don’t they all, these days?)
No question: This is something of a kitchen sink endeavor, thanks to five credited screenwriters (and likely several more, behind the scenes).
But however familiar the wrapping, the contents make the package. And there’s no denying the combined charm of Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, seasoned with the droll comic relief of Jack Whitehall. As ye olde peril-laden treasure hunts go, this one’s a corker.
The year is 1916, at the height of World War I. British researcher Lily Houghton (Blunt) and her brother MacGregor (Whitehall) are introduced while trying to persuade a roomful of stuffy academics to back an expedition to the Amazon jungle. She hopes to uncover the mystery behind an ancient tribal artifact, which is supposed to point the way to something reputed to have miraculous restorative powers.
The stuffy academics decline, of course. MacGregor looks and sounds like an aristocratic twit; as for Lily, she’s a woman, for goodness’ sake. Who’d pay attention to anything she believes?
Well, the stuffy academics should have clocked the fact that this quest also is of great interest to the Teutonic Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons), whose malevolent bearing screams “sinister” so blatantly, that he may as well have the word tattooed on his forehead.
Indeed, it doesn’t take long for Joachim to reveal his stripes.
Elsewhere, we meet charismatic Frank Wolff (Johnson), head of the Jungle Navigation Company — just himself, of course — and skipper of the dilapidated La Quila. He leads unwitting visitors to this scruffy Brazilian harbor community on sightseeing cruises along the Amazon, which are low on substance but high on humor (so he insists).
His “typical tour,” which we experience with his newest load of passengers, is this film’s direct nod to the eponymous Disneyland attraction. The homage is hilarious: same cheesy “special effects,” same awful jokes, same wincing puns, the latter delivered with a relentless lack of shame by Johnson.
