Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain (1995)

Before Christina Ricci was truly established as the screen's indie queen, it seems that she mostly starred in what were viewed as family movies. "Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain" is a prime example. It's one of those movies that seems really cool when you're young. My favorite part of the movie was the history of the woman associated with the cave. Otherwise, the movie isn't anything special (especially since 1995 also saw movies like "Smoke" and "Unstrung Heroes"). As for Anna Chlumsky, she also gravitated more towards serious roles as she aged. I'll give the movie that.Also starring Polly Draper, Diana Scarwid (Christina in "Mommie Dearest") and David Keith (Drew Barrymore's father in "Firestarter").

The story started out okay: A teenager from the big city moves to a small town and begins a friendship with the girl no one likes, who is physically abused by her stepfather. Then both of them decide to set out to find gold on Bear Mountain.However, early in the movie, it takes a turn for the worse: it starts looping in an endless chain of clichés, which I'd like to point out.(WARNING: the following might be a spoiler for whoever hasn't seen the movie.)When Beth can't use the breaks on her bicycle, she screams for Jody to get out of the way - however, she refuses to take this advice, and runs forward - and faster than the bike - and falls in the river.Later, Jody tells Beth that she found an old book with the story of Molly Morgan. The book is later revealed to contain everything on how to get to the gold, and even a map! Yet, no one ever went searching before.Jody and Beth wait on the boat for the exact time when the sunlight will bounce off the gold and reveal the mine (for only ten minutes). Coincidently, the beam lands EXACTLY where the girls have their boat - and the it looks amazingly like a spotlight.Jody moves in to the cave - which has naturally formed stone furniture - and reveals to Beth that she killed her stepfather the previous night - with a fishing pole - and says that she was sure he wasn't breathing. Yet, in the latter scenes, he reappears, perfectly okay and unbruised.Beth nearly drowns when she gets her leg stuck under a big rock and the water level rises - did it ever occur to her that she could sit up? It was her LEG that was stuck.Jody never tells the police that her stepfather abuses her - even though she has the bruises to prove it.In the scene where Beth tries to find Jody in the mountain, she finds a particular cave with awesome lights moving on the walls. These lights are revealed to be reflected by the natural - and lapidated - crystals in that cave.Jody and Beth find the gold! But when they reach out to grab it, they discover they're larvae. Golden, glowing larvae.And finally, Molly Morgan appears and saves them both from Jody's stepfather. Then, later, Jody and Beth receive a pack of gold from a lawyer "whose client wishes to remain anonymous". But it's never explained how Molly Morgan has a lawyer - and just why she gave that gold to the girls.

If I could just say a few words about this movie they would be, "A Must Buy!". In fact, I don't know why I let this movie go for so long before getting it myself and watching it because it is very good -- a fantastic adventure and enough suspense to keep you watching it all the way through (at least the 1st time).When this movie aired on the Wonderful World of Disney this past Sunday night (June 11, 2000) I watched it for the first time to preview it. I was also trying to do something else at the time, but it was so good that I could only continue what I was doing during commercial breaks.The next day, I just had to go out and find it on video to add it to my own video library and then I watched it again later that night and one more time the next night. This is real good movie to watch over and over again, though, seeing it the 1st time is the best.To sum all this up in a few words, this movie has surely become one of my favorites and will most probably be a heavily played video, too! An excellent movie! 10 Stars!!

If you have seen this movie, I am very sorry. I sat through this terrible film one afternoon and wound up actually kicking myself for it. The acting is bad, but what do you expect from two young girls. The script was just awful, and there was absolutely no excitement or value whatsoever to this film. The events are both predictable, and highly unlikely. The worst part about it is there aren't even any laughable aspects as in other terrible movies such as Troll 2 or Manos: The Hands of Fate. If you haven't seen this movie, don't go out of your way to see it. Actually, do everything you can to avoid seeing it. I'm sure that this was one of the films they forced Alex to watch in A Clockwork Orange.