One of the (several) attempts by Cannon to crack the big time, this is a cheerful big budget adventure movie which doesn't quite work though you can see what they were going for. It's a 1925 car race across Africa with Brooke Shields as a woman who enters a man in order to win it.
That's not a bad idea for an adventure film but Shields - who is very beautiful and does try - wasn't up to the role then. I think a decade later, or even a few years later, she would have knocked it out of the park... she later developed a genuine flair for comedy. But here she was too inexperienced - the tinny voice is too annoying.
She's too young. now this could have worked if they film was written accordingly but it's constructed to be played by an older actress - there's scenes where she takes a waterfall shower and her nipples are seen through a wet shirt, and she has sex with Lambert Wilson, who is too old for her. Her having sex very young was the point of The Blue Lagoon and Endless Love so that didn't feel weird but it's uncomfortable here, to me at any rate. Having cast her I think they should have just played her as a teenager - no sex with the Sheik, no nipples are more age appropriate co star. In some bits Brooke is effective - driving the car, flinging her male make up away - and she looks fantastic.
The film needed decent support characters and subplots like The Great Escape. It's got Horst Bucholz hanging around - I wondered why they didn't give his role to a proper comic. Lambert Wilson is effective as the dashing sheik and Jon Rhys Dvies is fun as a bad sheik - these two enter into proceedings in the right spirit of fun.
But there's not enough race. The race gets forgotten and the middle slab is about shenanigans among the sheiks, as if anyone cares. They periodically cut to some other race people but I'd forgotten who they were.
Also the plot about Brook pretending to be a man is used for about five minutes. Then she reverts to being a woman and it never becomes an issue.
The film needed more focus on the race, better support characters, race characters who wanted Sheilds to lose, more stakes on her winning the race.
It's mostly inoffensive though. I don't know why it's received such hate. An easy target I guess.
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