This Hallmark presentation is pretty trashy and slow moving. Patrick Swayze plays an American Allan Quatermain. He is a game hunter who we see in an inept opening sequence where a loutish man gets his comeuppance for shooting an elephant.
The action then moves to London, where bizarrely Quatermain is in a custody battle. The reason is Quatermain sent his son to Britain to live with his grandparents after his wife died and he stayed behind in Africa. It is just utter nonsense.
However the need for Quatermain to get money to fight the custody battle is the hook when Elizabeth Maitland (Alison Doody) the daughter of a distinguished Oxford archeologist Dr Sam Maitland (John Standing) wants Quatermain to rescue her father who is being held by a tribal chief called Twala (Hakim Kae Kazim.) Twala wants the map of the mythical King Solomon's Mines and is torturing Dr Maitland. The Russians whose Tsar funded Dr Maitland's search are also looking for the map.
It took an age for the first part of the series to get going and once it ended in the wilds of Africa you get less of the jungle and more of the desert. It is rather bland and badly scripted with little action and no chemistry between Swayze and Doody.
The action then moves to London, where bizarrely Quatermain is in a custody battle. The reason is Quatermain sent his son to Britain to live with his grandparents after his wife died and he stayed behind in Africa. It is just utter nonsense.
However the need for Quatermain to get money to fight the custody battle is the hook when Elizabeth Maitland (Alison Doody) the daughter of a distinguished Oxford archeologist Dr Sam Maitland (John Standing) wants Quatermain to rescue her father who is being held by a tribal chief called Twala (Hakim Kae Kazim.) Twala wants the map of the mythical King Solomon's Mines and is torturing Dr Maitland. The Russians whose Tsar funded Dr Maitland's search are also looking for the map.
It took an age for the first part of the series to get going and once it ended in the wilds of Africa you get less of the jungle and more of the desert. It is rather bland and badly scripted with little action and no chemistry between Swayze and Doody.
