I watched it again just the other week. Definitely a fun movie. Great chemistry between Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner

ya and the sequels good to :)

According to Wiki

A virtual Who's Who of Hollywood were considered for the leads in Romancing the Stone, the list included Burt Reynolds, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman and Christopher Reeve for the part of Jack Colton and Debra Winger as Joan Wilder

If any of the above would have starred in the movie, it would have been a different movie altogether.

I have to take a different view on this. I never saw this on release, because adventure comedy capers are not my cup of tea, but I thought this might fill a few hours with some mindless fun recently.

Well, it really shows its age I think. At some point in the intervening years 'beats' became a real thing and modern capers of this sort really do pace a lot better. I didn't take notes but Douglas doesn't make an appearance for the first third of the film, which is spent developing the character of Joan. So 20 minutes developing the idea that she is a mousey white bread type with not much in the way of a life. But taking that long to explain the character is dull, is, well...dull. And it's entirely unnecessary. Nothing in the story requires it. And even if it were necessary, a good modern filmmaker would have had it done in minutes.

And plenty of dead scenes with just talking. And not witty repartee or stuff that creates plot interest or drama. Just waffle. I guess the assumption was that this was a chance to get some chemistry working between the two leads, but there is nothing that pops out to create a sense of interest. The characters are too predictable, so there is no sense of tension or potential.

And the plot makes no sense at all. Sure the genre isn't noted for intricate and clever plotting but this stuff really is dumb. Even the editing is ham fisted. At the waterfall scene we have a shot of what looks to be two figures, almost microscopic. Next they are in a cave soaking wet. Did they just swim under a waterfall to the cave? When Ralph arrives he is bone dry. Even has his hat on. That's more than a continuity error; that's storytelling that just went awol. There's a lot of that sort of thing going on in Romancing the Stone. But I'll save myself the keystrokes.

And sure, it's 1984 and synth drums are still on the charts and somehow, in America at least, hair metal guitar has worked its way into pop music (thanks for nothing Michel Jackson and Eddie Van Halen), but as a soundtrack to a movie set in Colombia? What the hell were they thinking?

In summary its not a very well made film. The script is leaden; the direction is pedestrian; and even the cinematography is not up to mainstream move standards, with scenes poorly framed and even falling out of focus at times. Still it made nearly 100 million off a 5 million budget, so someone liked it.

@CaseyJones said:

holds up well, fun flick

Agreed!

We re-watched this not too long ago and it does indeed stand up pretty well as a classic 80s effort.

Actually, we got it in a double pack but still need to watch the sequel...