She (2001)

The Canadian media company Alliance Atlantis specialized in television projects, but did also release several feature films. In 2001 the company joined with several international partners to create an adaptation of H. Rider Haggard’s 1887 novel “She: A History of Adventure,” filming primarily in Bulgaria to keep the budget low. This project appears to be a made-for-television movie, (In spite of some mild nudity), but it did receive some limited theatrical distribution. “She” is a somewhat obscure motion picture, and it has not been released in a DVD format to my knowledge. I acquired a VHS recording to view this feature.

This week’s movie was “She” from 2001, directed by Timothy Bond from a script by Peter Jobin and Harry Alan Towers. The dying “Michael Vincey,"(played by Christoph Waltz in an early role), entrusts the care of his son to his friend “Ludovico Holly,” (Edward Hardwicke), and his manservant “Job,” (David Ross, giving a particularly annoying comic relief performance). Twenty years later the now-adult “Leo Vincey,” (Ian Duncan), leads Holly and Job on an expedition to Samarkand to discover the secrets of his father’s death. After several adventures the trio find the lost city of “Kor,” ruled over by the beautiful immortal “Queen Ayesha,” (played by French singer Ophelie Winter). The Queen believes that Leo is the reincarnation of “Kallikrates,” the lover she murdered centuries before in a fit of jealous rage. She demonstrates the blue flames of immortality, which consume her in a really unconvincing display of primitive CGI.

This film is watchable and is never boring, but it also never really convinces the audience of the reality of the characters or of the world they inhabit. As I sat through this tale I was always conscious that I was watching a movie. Never for a moment could I suspend my disbelief. This is a very bad movie, although it is a sporadically enjoyable one.

With one adaptation in the nineteenth century, nine adaptations in the twentieth century, and one adaptation, (so far), in the twenty-first century, “She: A History of Adventure” is rare in having motion picture versions in three different centuries!

In the year 2000 Ophelie Winter played alongside Leslie Nielsen in the comedy film “2001: A Space Travesty.” Seldom has a movie so successfully achieved the promises of its title!