Romancing the Stone (1984)
This film reminded me of the Uncharted video game series. I think I might have to dig it out later for old time's sake. Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) is a romance novelist s who lives in New York with her cat. Meanwhile, down in Columbia, her sister Elaine has managed to get herself kidnapped by cousins Ira and Ralph (Zack Norman and Danny DeVito). Elaine's husband, who has apparently been chopped to pieces, posted a treasure map to Joan Wilder and her cat. Presumably he did this before his grisly end.
Ira and Ralph want the map, but so does a man named Zolo. I'm not entirely sure who Zolo is, but I think he's the person who murdered Elaine's husband. Whoever he is, he appears to have the entire Columbian army at his disposal. Kind of overkill for someone chasing a piece of paper.
Somehow, Ira, Ralph and Zolo know that the treasure map has been sent to Joan and her cat in New York, and they all want it. Zolo goes to her flat to ransack it, while Ira and Ralph call Joan and offer an exchange - her sister for the map. Joan heads off to Columbia, arriving in a country portrayed here as mostly corrupt, uninviting and backwards.
Zolo and Ralph are both at the airport awaiting Joan's arrival. Ralph completely misses her, and Zolo, for whatever reason, directs Joan to a bus going to a completely different destination. The bus crashes into a jeep, the other passengers scatter to who knows where, and Zolo, who was also on the bus, tries to seize the opportunity to take the map from Joan. Fortunately, from the cliffs above, the owner of the jeep, Jack T. Colton (Michael Douglas), opens fire. He's either an awful shot, or he doesn't actually want to shoot Zolo. That's one thing I've noticed about these 80s action films. There are always people with guns, especially machine guns, in them, but nobody ever seems to hit anything. They manage to hit everything around the target instead. Kind of like me on Uncharted actually. Anyway, Colton's haphazard shots are enough to scare Zolo away. For now, at least.
Joan convinces Jack to help her to get to the nearest town. He gets intrigued by the idea of the actual treasure on the map, and after a night of dancing and super happy fun cuddles, they decide to look for the treasure themselves. Trailing them through their adventure is the bumbling Ralph, and the relentless Zolo, backed up by an entire army of soldiers who also can't aim.
When I was younger, we had this on VHS. I remember watching it up to a mudslide part of it. Not sure why I didn't watch the rest, but it is a really enjoyable adventure movie. It is quite comical, contains a good amount of action, and clearly benefits from the popularity of the genre, thanks in no small part to Indiana Jones. As it's the 80s, it also features crocodiles. Why did so many 80s movies feature crocodiles? We never really find much out abut Michael Douglas' character, nor who Zolo actually is. It's an easy watch, definitely holds the attention throughout and it ends quite satisfactorily too. I'm off to play Uncharted now to see if my aim is better than this film's characters.