Is Fool's Gold an Updated Romancing the Stone?
Movie Reviewer, a storyteller, A Big Giant Sap, a believer of fate
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FEB
9
2008
Fool's Gold —
I like a good romantic comedy. In fact, I like most romantic comedies. And lately, I've found Matthew McConaugheyto be entirely engaging when onscreen. He's not just a good looking guy, but he also has a sense about him that is so captivating, making it hard to take your eyes off him. So when I find a romantic comedy that stars him, I have to go see it. I found myself in the theatre on opening day to catch McConaughey and Kate Hudson in Fool's Gold.Since I do see a lot of romantic comedies, they're bound to "run into each other" in my head. The entire time I sat in the theatre watching Fool's Gold, I couldn't help but think of one of my favorite romantic comedies, and one that was definitely one of my first, if not "the" first, Romancing the Stone, starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner.
It's in the basic part of the plot that the two films are the most similar. They both feature couples falling in and out of love while they search for a big treasure. In Romancing the Stone, Douglas and Turner searched for El Corazon in Columbia. In Fool's Gold, McConaughey and Hudson search for the The Queen's Dowry in the Bahamas. Also in both of them, they feature an "exotic" location. Romancing the Stone takes place in Columbia, while Fool's Gold takes place in the Bahamas and the Florida Keys.
Yet, in Romancing the Stone, it's the female, Turner, who plays the more inept role. In Fool's Gold, McConaughey is definitely the more inept. As Hudson's character notes, "He's a genius at three things, treasure salving, finding money for treasure salving ... and one other thing." Since we realize Hudson and McConaughey only have two things in common, and they met when she was in college, then went on spring break together, it's pretty easy to figure out what that other thing is.
And, of course, the second thing they have in common is a thirst for finding treasure at sea, that is treasure that has a good story behind it. In 1715, the Queen's Dowry was lost at sea, and Hudson and McConaughey searched off and on throughout their marriage for the secret of where the treasure was buried. Yet, since he isn't mature or good at anything else other than treasure or sex, Hudson divorces him, only to find after she was awarded everything, he blew up and sunk their boat, meaning she now has nothing.
While Turner and Douglas are being chased by a cast of characters out to get the treasure before them, including an ex sitcom star in Taxi's Danny DeVito, McConaughey and Hudson are also chased by a cast of characters, including an ex sitcom star in The Cosby Show's Malcolm Jamal Warner. The only person on the side of Turner and Douglas is her sister who is being held captive, but on the side of Hudson and McConaughey, we have her very rich boss, played by Donald Sutherland, and his very ditzy daughter, made to look like Paris Hilton, played by Alexis Dziena. The two of them seem to have even less in common than Hudson and McConaughey.
While Romancing the Stone is a true romantic comedy classic, Fool's Gold will probably never reach that status. It was a good story that held my interest, and the characters were developed, but I didn't feel enough for them as I could have, and while I laughed, I didn't laugh as much as I had hoped to. At one point, I had to question whether McConaughey was carrying the whole film. In other words, it's a good film, just not a classic that we'll still be talking about and comparing to other films a quarter century from now.
Fool's Gold is recommended by LauraBelle
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