Sheena (1984)

Fun camp adventure with Tanya Roberts as the blonde female Tarzan clone Sheena. Roberts is AWFUL but damn nice to look at. The slow-mo shots of her riding her zebra are classic. Ted Wass has fun as the reporter who becomes Sheena's love interest. Oliver Hardy-lookalike Donovan Scott plays Wass' comedic sidekick. French (I think?) actress France Zobda makes for a beautiful villainess but doesn't appear nearly enough. Lots of eye candy and plenty of humor, intended and otherwise, make this an entertaining movie of its type. But it's also overlong and lacking much action for long stretches. The climactic flamingos versus helicopter scene is something you just have to see to believe. Surprisingly, this wasn't made by Dino De Laurentiis or Golan-Globus.

With slight modifications, Sheena is basically just a female version of Tarzan, my all-time favorite fictional character. Everyone pretty much knows going in that the plot, dialog and acting of a film like this will be of the "B" movie variety, and it is, sort of like Indiana Jones but a bit less compelling. What's magnificent, awe-inspiring and "A" level are the African locations (Kenya), the score and Tanya Roberts.Seriously, if you're bored with your every-day locale this movie is the perfect antidote. It's virtually a two-hour tour of some of the most gorgeous African scenery you'll ever feast your eyes upon. As for the score, it's pleasant and meditative; reminiscent of "Chariots of Fire." Regarding Tanya Roberts, what can I say? She's stunning.I never concern myself with ratings when watching films, but I couldn't help but be a little surprised by the PG rating here because Sheena (Roberts) is shown TOTALLY nude on a number of occasions and prances around throughout the flick in a ridiculously skimpy leather bikini; but then it struck me that it's portrayed in an inoffensive way like Eve in Eden before the fall and the consequent awareness of evil. In other words, there's an almost child-like innocence and purity to Sheena even though she's a quite skilled warrior. I commend the film-makers for successfully capturing this quality. For this reason I personally don't feel the movie is inappropriate for kids, despite the nudity.My rating of B- reflects the happy medium between the Grade C plot, dialog & acting and the Grade A African locations, score and Ms. Roberts.The film runs 117 minutes.GRADE: B-

Unless they're part of an ensemble (the X-Men films notably), female comic book superheroes get no respectful cinematically (must be a gender issue). Case in point, "Sheena", the $25 million flop from 1984, that's based on the character created by Jerry Iger (uncle of current Walt Disney Co. head capo Bob Iger) and Will Eisner ("The Spirit"). The survival member of the duo at that time, Eisner had the common sense to not be credited after seeing it. Iger's estate also followed. Who could blame them? Things start well enough when a married geologist team is killed in an African cave in while trying to find a mineral that has healing properties. Their daughter, Janet, is adopted by the ingenious tribe, the Zambouli, as part of a prophecy. The tribe's shaman (Elizabeth Of Toro, the only adept actor here!) rechristens the girl as Sheena and trains her to be the tribe's protector. After learning how to communicating with animals, swing from vines, ride zebraback (don't ask!) and sling arrows through the years (and by the film's main credits), Sheena's a fully grown woman (Tanya Roberts , "The Beastmaster", "That 70s Show"), a mix between Tarzan and any skin-mag dame, and the adventure starts.It's not much of an engaging one, though. Prince Otwani (Trevor Thomas), the NFL athlete (huh?!) brother of the African king whose nation, the fictional Tigora, houses the Zambouli, hopes to financially exploit the mineral for profit by killing his brother and framing the shaman. However, the sports reporter Vic Casey (Ted Wass of "Soap" and "Blossom") following Otwani gets footage of the truth, putting him and his hapless cameraman (Donovan Scott) in danger. However, they meet Sheena, during a rescue of the shaman, and Vic and Sheena have something of a romance while avoiding Otwani and his mercenaries.If you're not convinced by the whole yarn, barely adequately helmed by John Guillermin ("The Towering Inferno", the 1976 King Kong remake), you're not alone because the film doesn't even live to its' own expectations, being an example of how NOT to make a film. Uninspired action sequences; dated plot points; awkward racial stereotypes (Otwani speaking like a African-American street hustler while being African royalty is cringe-inducing) and leaden dialogue infest the half-baked script of David Newman ("Bonnie and Clyde", the first two Superman films), Leslie Stevens (developer of the original "Outer Limits") and Lorenzo Semple Jr. (developer of the 1960s "Batman" series; "Flash Gordon"). It's also no help that the story doesn't know what it wants to be: a campy tribute to the grade-B ,Saturday matinée serials of the 1930s and 1940s (a la "Star Wars") or a live Playboy centerfold photo session (Tanya shows her mammary glands in bathing sessions), mixed with a Sports Illustrated article. I'm still puzzled how it got a PG rating, let alone green-lighted by an A-level film studio! For a B-film, it has no charm! The actors fare no better, especially Roberts, who's like a topless stripper reading Shakespeare (it has happened!) when being profound and Wass (now a sitcom director), who unbelievably turns from hard-boiled cynic to passionate poet (a bad one, at that) when he's with our hero. Richard Hartley's "Chariots Of Fire"-like score is so pretentious, it's ironic that it fits. Pasqualino De Santis' camera work is the only bright spot here, but if you have the guts to buy/rent the film on DVD, you'll lose out (more than already) because there's only a full screen version.When people complain about too many comic book films today, they should be aware that the storytelling medium has been mistreated and misunderstood in the past. "Sheena" is one of those comic book-based films that came out at a time when filmmakers cared nothing for any fanboys' feelings, let alone any smart moviegoer, since they had no Internet to voice their displeasure. Today, the displeasure's in evident, ten times over.

The film for the period was good. It was an adaptation of the women in the movie Tarzan. Sheena had excellent environments and photographs but the base was good. This film had the beautiful actress Tanya Roberts and its thanks. The environments show a 'africa and uncontaminated healthy and the link between this woman and Tarzan animals. The Charlie's angels tried to make this movie for 80 years could be fine. The actress was physically a little 'lean arms were fairly skeletal and the breast was little short, was not a woman but increased for the role that was to run and in one thousand ups went well. The film, I repeat, was a response to male Tarzan although as usual on this website prefers to lay sea everything that was part of anni'80. It 'a tradition!!