Brightlyme i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Bryan Kluger This 1985 action/adventure film is fairly heavy handed and tends to shy away from the ultra violent action movies of the 80s that starred the Stallones, the Schwarzeneggers, or the Lundgrens at the height of their career. Instead, this is more of an episodic film, based on a true story that is more melodramatic in nature with elaborate character development and a big glaring message about industry vs nature. Director John Boorman ('Deliverance', 'Hope and Glory', 'The Exorcist II') chose to film 'The Emerald Forest' on location in the Amazon rainforest, which gives us a beautiful glimpse at the native people, the wildlife, and its surroundings. This is one of Boorman's more direct stories he has put on film and the result is a satisfying look at what parents would do for their children.The first segment of 'The Emerald Forest' has us meeting a chief engineer named Bill (Powers Boothe), who is in the Amazon rainforest with his wife Jean (Meg Foster) and their two very young children. Bill is in charge of overseeing the construction of a giant dam that will restrict the flow of water to parts of the rainforest, which will flatten the land for future industrial and commercial buildings to be constructed. Boorman clearly shows which side he is on as he delicately shows us the beauty and wonder of the trees and animals, whereas the big bad city people are using their big tractors and fire to destroy the beautiful land.Bill and Jean's young son is stolen by an indigenous tribe located in the heart of the forest known as 'The Invisible People', which causes despair for the family. We cut to ten years later where Bill and Jean are still living in Brazil where the dam is almost fully built. They are still trying to repair their broken lives without their son through work and charity. Bill walks with a journalist through the forest and comes across his now grown boy (Charley Boorman) after ten years. and is a contributing member of this new tribe and about to go through some big rituals into full fledged manhood. Bill soon realizes that what was once his son, now belongs to this primitive tribe.The film switches gears and puts this reconnection on the back burner and focuses on another tribe, which is a much more violent people with more advanced weapons than the usual spears and rocks, known as the 'Fierce People', who are about to wage war on the peaceful 'Invisible People'. Meanwhile, the damn construction is nearing completion and the entire group of tribes have to keep moving further deep into the forest to avoid being killed or taken by authorities. And now Bill must make a big decision. Does he help his lost son and his tribe stand up and fight the bad guys and stop the dam, or does he move on, keeping his life's work in tact. It's a pretty powerful story.But Boorman doesn't focus very much on the reconnection or kidnapping of Bill's son, which in my opinion was a very vital and integral part of the story. Not much time is given to the initial kidnapping and quickly fast forwards ten years into the future. And when the reconnection happens between father and son, it should have been a bigger moment, but Boorman focuses on the nature vs industry aspect right away with the construction of the dam and the rival tribes. Then, the last climactic few scenes of the film is a straight up revenge flick where Bill and his son come to respect each other's decision to move on with their separate lives.Both Boothe and Foster turn in great performances as parents who are coping with the lost of one of their kids. Their anger and depression truly shows in their faces and body language throughout. 'The Emerald Forest' is a solid entry into the 80s action adventure category that stands on its own with its originality, despite the lack of hardcore action.

Steffi_P While modern cinema has reflected changing attitudes towards various social issues, and "message" movies were consistently popular from the 60s to the 80s, it was startling sometimes how naïve they could be in the name of a good cause. The Emerald Forest was one of a number of environmentalist pictures from the 1980s, when the green movement was really starting to grow. It makes a few good points. It gets everything else wrong.You see, The Emerald Forest (directed by John Boorman and scripted by his long-term collaborator Rospo Pallenberg) is so keen to make a statement on the ravages of industrial expansion, the power of nature and the benefits of being in touch with the wild that it frequently leaves logic on the doorstep. In this world, primitive has to be shown winning out over advanced, and so Charley Boorman's bow-and-arrows proves to be more effective than Powers Boothe's gun no matter how improbably this seems. Not that imaginations can't be stretched, but time and again the stretch is so distractingly flagrant that it becomes obvious a point is being made, and it makes the movie seem more preachy.Things get worse when we come to the portrayal of the indigenous people. Obviously best intentions were meant, but this is at best patronising and at worst crude. On the one hand we have the "noble" natives living as one with nature, and then there are the "bad" natives, a bunch of grunting savages straight out of a 1930s safari flick. The attitude seems to be that these people are simply aspects of nature – sometimes kind, sometimes cruel, but not really endowed with the complexity of humanity. The simplicity of the Invisible and Fierce Peoples is almost akin to the stark dichotomy of good-guys-in-white versus bad-guys-in-black that you see in old Westerns. And even though the way of the invisibles is presented as an ideal, it does involve the ritualistic clubbing of women over the head as a prelude to courtship. But the women are shown to like this, so apparently that makes it OK…Admittedly, John Boorman is an exceptionally good director, one who crafted pictures of sublime rhythm and breathtaking beauty. He presents the rainforest as not only lovely to look at, but also deep, endless and all-enveloping, with fronds curling all around the frame, and distant vanishing points visible even in dense jungle. In contrast, any scenes in urban areas look dirty and cramped. He exercises wonderful control over colours. Really, this is a two-tone movie, having only the green of the forest and the brown of the city, the occasional flash of red just giving the shades that little bit of definition. And in spite of everything, Pallenberg's characters do at least have enough dignity to stir up some genuine poignancy for Boothe's reunion with his son.But there are still many other areas of naffness in The Emerald Forest. Powers Boothe is a stupendously dull actor, to the point where I can only assume his being cast was to make some point about wooden things not being chopped down. Eduardo Conde, the photographer who accompanies Boothe into the forest, is unnecessarily ugly, with an awful combination of long hair, bald pate and monobrow. The best performance is that of a young Charley Boorman, before everyone knew him as Ewan MacGregor's motorbiking chum, getting very much into his role as the assimilated white boy. But why do he and Boothe, when apparently conversing in the tribal language, in fact speak English with a few swapped letters? I mean, I'm no expert on Quechua dialects but I very much doubt the indigenous way of saying "I killed a monkey" is "Ah kinned a vunky".It's typical of 80s enthusiasm that those responsible for The Emerald Forest probably thought they were making something profound and hard-hitting, but with hindsight we can look back upon it as every bit as awkward, vaguely offensive and even unintentionally funny as many movies from the generation before it.

chris-ft This is an amazing movie about a father dedicated to finding his son who has been abducted by native Americans in south America. My mother stumbled across it some time ago and recorded it for me claiming she had watched it over a decade ago and it stuck with her since. I watched it with my girlfriend and we were both amazed by the film! I would not normally expect much from an old film but this one had everything. The scenery was amazing, the acting was excellent and the plot keeps your heart racing. The abducted kid grows to become one of the natives and embarks on an amazing adventure following his fathers 10 year search for him. It brings you deep into the amazon rainforest as you learn about the life of 'the invisible people' tribesmen and their conflict with another terryfing tribe. I cannot understand how this film has such a low rating nor the fact that it is not well known. If you stumble across it be sure to watch because in my opinion this is the greatest film ever made!!

Boba_Fett1138 This movie makes some odd choices. On the one hand it's a good looking and also clearly professionally made movie with lots of talent involved but it just makes some wrong choices in its storytelling.The movie obviously starts of as a dramatic 'based on true' events movie but soon as the movie starts to progresses it starts taking some obvious 'Hollywood' turns, with its emotions and action and the story becomes more unlikely and clichéd. Of course nothing wrong with this, since it definitely makes the movie an entertaining and bit of adventurous one. But in this case the approach doesn't really work out, since it also obviously is a movie that wants to be taken seriously and has a clear message in it. You know, the kind of message to 'save the rain forest'. It also uses lots of technology vs. nature elements. I'll admit that this movie is a better attempt than all Steven Seagal attempts combined but no, that doesn't mean that this movie is a perfect or truly successful attempt on its own. The movie seems to lack the proper emotions to see this as a completely effective one, though the right intentions are definitely there. I mean for instance, the characters within this movie see each other again for the first time in 10 years but yet they seem hardly affected by it all.The natives scenes also aren't always among the best or most interesting one's out of the movie. Sure the nature environments are beautiful looking but it slows the movie a bit down in the middle, which also is in big contrast with the serious and dramatic first part of the movie and the action filled final part. The entire movie doesn't always feel like one whole. The parts of it are all too disjointed.It nevertheless it is a rather good- and also entertaining enough movie to watch, despite its obvious flaws and bad choices in the storytelling. And hey, it's got Powers Booth!7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/