Quatermain (Richard Chamberlain), now frequently called just 'Q' by friends and family, is back. While he and Jesse (Sharon Stone) are planning a trip to America to get married, Dumont, a colleague of his Q's brother, stumbles to their home. Q fights off a pursuer and captures a peculiar blade. Dumont is feverish but explains how he and Roberson - that would be Q's brother - found the lost city of gold. In the morning, Dumont is dead - murdered! Much to Jesse's disappointment, Q opts to go in search of his brother rather than sail to America. Recruiting Umslopogaas (James Earl Jones) along the way, he ventures into darkest Africa and discovers the lost white race as well as his brother. Unfortunately, gun runners and cannibals are eager for the lost city's gold. Can Quatermain fight off the greedy hordes?
Whereas King Solomon's Mines was campy fun, this is campy cringe. Jesse was only just tolerable in the last one but has now devolved into a screeching nag. Where Herbert Lom was fun as a comic German villain, Robert Donner is disastrous as the obviously deceitful and greedy Swarma who is nonetheless a member of the party. Cassandra Peterson - best know as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark - has a small role as one of the queens of the Lost City but is little more than a prop. Despite being queen, she is just a minion of high priest Agon (Henry Silva). Now there is an interesting choice in casting.
At one point, the party ventures into a stone tunnel that has an uncanny resemblance to the trap-laden tunnel from the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark. And sure enough, there are traps that kill a couple of nameless luggage handlers. However, when the action resumes, the party is now in canoes. What? They never got more then 10 yards into the lethal tunnel but now they're on the river? Where did they get the canoes? Did the tunnel end on the river's edge with canoes awaiting?
Quatermain carries a revolver that seems to shoot a dozen rounds or more before needing to be reloaded. He had a rifle this time around but has misplaced it before the climactic battle. Beneath the castle is a pool of molten gold. Uh, that's going to be really hot. Gold melts around 2000 degrees! You don't just walk walk around that. Somehow, Q hammers a gold figurine of a lion on the top of the temple and that unleashes streams of molten gold to slay those sieging the city. There is no explanation for this unless Umslopogaas' axe had the magical ability to melt gold when struck by lightning. Yeah, it was like that.
This was tremendously bad and nixed the idea of a third film. I'm sure all involved were glad they didn't have to make another turkey like this.
Hard pass
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