CineBad!!!

When the sacred mountain rumbles, a golden she-goddess will take over, or something like that. Anyway, that she-goddess turned out to be Sheena, a little girl whose archaeologist parents got wiped out by the rumbling mountain. They were investigating why, when you buried people in sand up to their necks in the region, their cancer got cured. Anyway, their little brown-eyed daughter Janet became the blue-eyed Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. (incidentally, Sheena is Scottish Gaelic for Janet, so perhaps this generic African tribe who adopted her was actually a lost tribe of Gaels)

Thus queened, Sheena had the power to call animals by making a fist and pressing it to her forehead and intently gazing skyward. She also had the authority to wear a skimpy fur bikini, rather than the traditional sari-like garb of the tribe. Luckily, she retained some of her English language, although her ability to form contractions, like “don’t”, “can’t” and “won’t” was lost to her vocabulary.

Sheena meets up with Vic Casey (Wass, best known as Danny on Soap), a journalist from the US. They have an adventure, trying to thwart bad guys who want to exploit the sacred rumbling mountain for its titanium deposits. On the way, Vic Casey discovers the secret of natural hair care:

Vic Casey: Your hair smells fantastic! What did you use to wash it?
Sheena, QotJ: Zam zam berries. What else would a woman use?

Sheena also gains cultural insight from the encounter. She learns the secret of kissing,. “Mouths were made for eating. Why did you touch yours to mine?” she demands of Vic Casey. Apparently, even though the villagers who adopted Sheena are extremely generous and kind, (as shown by Sheena’s description of their reception of Vic Casey: “You will be made welcome in Zakuro. [The head man's] locust bean cakes will be your locust been cakes. His fermented buffalo milk will be your fermented buffalo milk…”) kissing is a phenomenon which apparently doesn’t exist in her sheltered village.

Later on, Vic Casey is healed by the sacred mountain’s dirt. When he discovers its healing properties, he is extremely excited at the prospect of curing world cancer. However, in the end, Vic decides to let the discovery go unnoticed, as he wants Sheena’s village to remain as pristine and untouched as it always has been. Now come on, what’s more important? Healing worldwide disease, or letting a handful of natives with bad accents who hold conferences with elephants and ride horses painted to look like zebras keep up their inefficient hunter/gatherer lifestyle? Whatever your choice, Vic Casey was only thinking of his love for Sheena, and how he didn’t want the world to “adore [her] to death” or to “put stiff hides on [her] feet.”

I’m probably making way too much out of this movie. However. I was impressed by the usage of the “stop, drop, and roll” technique by a character who caught himself on fire. Usually in films and television, the second a person is engulfed in flames, it’s his or her cue to run around, wildly thrashing his or her arms. Let this be an important safety lesson to the people of the world.