– Yeah, I didn’t get as far as mentioning the hang glider in my review because I was out of give-a-craps. What’s most ridiculous about that is that Ator isn’t exactly towing any luggage — they had just escaped from the snake cult with nothing but their swords — so where the hell did it COME from? (It’s also pretty clearly an absolutely modern hang glider. In close-ups, there’s rattan wrapped around the struts, but the long shots clearly show all it as off-the-shelf modern. I never thought I would be nostalgic for the “gliding from a dead pterosaur” scene in Yor, the Hunter From the Future, but…)

All good background. However, Nuriak is about as subtle and deceitful as a brick; I’m guessing, as with many things, that it’s simply stupid writing.

* The protagonist and his pals get attacked by “invisible warriors” in the cave, i.e. they spend several minutes staggering around swinging their fists through the air and throwing their heads back pretending (entirely unconvincingly) that someone is punching them in their faces.

* Out of nowhere, the protagonist suddenly takes to the skies on a hang glider because… well, just because, I guess. (Needless to say, Joel and the Bots had a field day making fun of this scene.)

* The protagonist wrestles with a giant snake down in its pit, and by “wrestles” I mean “pretends (also entirely unconvincingly) he isn’t the only one actually moving around by wrapping his arms around what’s obviously a big snake-shaped rubber prop and pretending he’s trying to strangle it while swaying it back and forth to simulate motion.”

It’s all so hilariously absurd that you don’t even need Joel and the Bots to help you make fun of it; just gather your snarkiest fellow movie critics for a movie night and do your own mocking running commentaries on it together.

In other words, this Nuriak dude did rape the twins’ mother, but by some kind of deceit (e.g. stealing her husband’s clothes and posing as him while slipping into bed with her on some dark and cloudy night) or treachery (e.g. plying her and her husband with liquor until they both passed out and then taking advantage of her) rather than by pinning her down and forcing himself on her or holding a knife to her throat and threatening her into compliance.

Given that I’ve never seen a movie adapted from a Dan Brown novel (for good and legitimate reasons), my statement that those were the most chemistry-free romances I’d seen still holds true.

That is then followed hotly on its own heels by, yes, shockingly, Tom Hanks, again with Felicity Jones in Inferno. It’s hard to fathom that a guy with that much real talent and charisma (I mean, let’s be real, who doesn’t love Tom Hanks???) can blow it twice in a row like that. Two Dan Brown novels; the same leading man/hero in both and then…kablooey, the worst chemistry on film, ever. EVER. (Don’t get me wrong, left to my own devices, i could probably come up with 100 more lousy couples but…this one, given the source material, the era of filming and the sheer, innate lovability of the male star…it’s hard to figure out how they went THAT wrong, so early and so often. Just sayin’!