Not even bad in a good way

I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

How about that mess with H. Rider Haggard's heritage! Ayesha or She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed has been filmed several times and none of them comes true to spirit of the original. "She" (1925) is silent movie with extensive budget but parts of script are missing. "She" (1935) goes as far as the North Pole where Leo/Kallikrates stumble on lost city Kor. "She" (1965) is most popular where Horace and Leo travel to lost city of Kuma. Ayesha dies in the Eternal Fire, while Kallikrates becomes immortal and waits for her reincarnation. There comes "Vengeance of She" (1968) as sequel, where Carol - a modern European girls - is taken over by the spirit of mysterious Ayesha. Finally, "She" (2001) is the latest remake which I couldn't obtain and YouTube has ban on it.Let's get to the meat now. It appears that Ayesha story is four novels serial written by H. Rider Haggard at different time intervals (1886, 1905, 1921 and 1923). You can check in Wikipedia for synopsis but it is still complicated as Maya calendar. So, stay calm until someone gives you digest or otherwise a one page summary plot. Then if you have patience and compliance, you can stop worry or else you start arguing because its in your character. I know people that hold strong executive positions and still haven't read a book in their life. They are just proxy for authority.H. Rider Haggard (1856-1925) is the most important English writer of adventure fiction. Unfortunately, his novels are not reissued regularly and maybe because there is lack of demand. For instance, Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is English Victorian era author who wrote numerous highly acclaimed novels. I would rather read two novels from H. Rider Haggard than one from Charles Dickens. It's not that he is dull, but he is highly unreadable. In our country Haggard has been translated widely in the past 80-90 years. New titles are coming in translation regularly, but I repeat, original Haggard novels are difficult to obtain."She: A History of Adventure" and "Ayesha: The Return of She" have appeared recently in double edition. Preface for two books is combined, where the Editor tells the audience how he received a parcel with manuscript. In the parcel, there is attached letter from executives of Horace Holly and his ward Leo Vincey. The manuscript gives a first-person narrative of Ayesha adventures for 2000 years.Ayesha was borrowed from Arabic, being traditionally one of Mohammed's wives names. What happened in the plot ... ehh, you can start in 500 B.C. when the frame story begin. A threesome story evolves when the Persian king invades Egypt and three people flee away in hidden kingdom of Kor, in Africa. Those are Ayesha (celibate priestess), Kallikrates the Greek (mercenary employed by the Pharaoh), and Egyptian princess (loves Kallikrates and seeks revenge on Ayesha). The story builds on ...

This in no way is accordingly to the novel written by H.Rider Haggard. Even before there had been many attempts to make film on this novel, namely "she" in 1912 version, then some other. Even then I commented and explained.This was the first novel of my life, my father gifted me this book, and since then I had loved it. The imagination of the author is marvelous, astounding and grave. While showing in this film, the plot has been changed so much that it lost the originality and beauty. It became something else than the novel.Even watching the earlier parts, of this film, I said, SKIPPING the details due to technicalities and technology available when the film is made is something different and acceptable but changing the original plot and altering with something else makes the film go to worst. I mean this is totally meaningless to show, that Kelikretes is immortal and waiting for She, this was never been in novel plot. There was no Minhari, having lust for the flame of immortality. There is no girl being drawn towards the city of Kuma in the novel plot. Even the name of the city is not Kuma, it is Kor.I was disappointed to see even this version and I am waiting someone make a good and truthful version of this film because I believe the originality of the real plot makes it more interesting to see the film. I am sure whoever has read the novel, would agree with me that this film is something else, not the real one.Now I come to THIS film, well as a film (forgetting novel completely) yea it is good one. When you are in entertainment business, and when entertainment is show business, then it might have been a good attempt, and also as IMDb data records show, the film has done a good business. Not so much good, but good to see, if you are watching it for entertainment.

!!!THIS REVIEW CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS!!!This is one of the few well-known Hammer films I had never seen, until a few days ago. I had very low expectations and so, sat down to watch this with no preconceived ideas of real enjoyment; just of ticking another Hammer film off on my head as "seen".The Vengeance of She is oddly enjoyable if totally trashy. The script goes in a vaguely similar line to the original 1965 She. It has minimal characterisation, has no inner continuity and the actions and deeds of some of the characters are totally anachronistic (e.g an Arab who seems steeped in Western magick rites and philosophy).By the end I found myself totally disinterested if Carol (Olinka Berova) is the reincarnation of Ayesha or not. I was unmoved by the loss/love of Killikrates (John Richardson)and his dilemma of being immortal without his soul-mate. The actual events lost momentum for me even before reaching the Lost City.So why watch this film? There is an ethereal beauty to this film. Other reviewers have mentioned the beauty of the lovely Ms Berova and she is stunning, so that is enough said about that. But the ethereal beauty is beyond just her looks alone.The film has some wonderful images: Berova walking down a long winding road in a white fur coat, the desert sequence, the entry to Kuma, etc. The music score by Mario Nascimbene, including the song title (sung by Bob Fields), uses a haunting but very simple melody heard throughout the film in various guises. For the scenes set in the "modern world" it is played as a jazz miniature with solo saxophone. In Kuma, it becomes a chant with an ostinato figure derived from the main melody. I find this very effective.The ethereality of these features combine to produce something unexpected. This film has stayed with me. Shallow, disjointed and incongruous as the whole thing is, there seems to be something of a 60s acid trip side-effect from this film that I cannot explain. The notions of exoticism; love unrequited or lost; beauty and decay; and glamorous adventure that are not really explicit (due to ineptitude in narrative and performances) in this film are what will now stay with me.Perhaps in five years time or more, I will have a notion to return to this film... and be totally disappointed, wondering where the effect of this film, that stayed with me in the following days, actually came from. Yet, it is there and for this I give it a tentative recommendation and a very over-generous rating.

Three years after their reasonably entertaining version of H. Rider Haggard's classic adventure 'She', Hammer Studios produced a sequel, 'The Vengeance of She'. Lacking the star power of the original (Ursula Andress, Peter Cushing and Bernard Cribbens are noticeable by their absence), the film is a dreary retread of events from the earlier movie, albeit with the roles reversed: this time around, it is the immortal Killikrates (John Richardson) who is pining for his long-dead love Ayeesha.Convincing Killikrates that his soul-mate has finally been reborn in the form of a stunning European blonde named Carol (Olinka Berova), power-hungry occultist Men-Hari (Derek Godfrey) strikes a deal with the lovelorn leader: if he can successfully lure Carol to the lost African city of Kuma (using his powerful black magic), then he must be granted permission to pass through the sacred blue flame that would bring him immortality (and give him a pop at taking over the world!).Compelled to travel to Africa by the voices in her head, the confused Carol is joined on her journey by Philip (Edward Judd), a concerned psychiatrist who is determined to ensure the beautiful young woman's safety.On arriving at Kuma, and discovering the real reasons behind Carol's mysterious calling, Philip sets out to stop the poor girl from being brainwashed into believing she is Ayeesha, and prevent Men-hari from achieving his nefarious goal.'The Vengeance of She' starts promisingly enough, with the sex-kittenish, mini-skirted Berova (think along the lines of Bardot, and you won't be far wrong) making quite an impression as she walks through the French countryside (accompanied by a haunting theme song), but it soon descends into a messy mish-mash of boring mystical mumbo-jumbo, lacklustre adventure, and unconvincing melodrama.Director Cliff Owen wisely makes the most of Berova's awesome physical attributes to try and distract his audience, having her slip into clingy white robes that give viewers a tantalising glimpse of her marvellous milky puddings (please note: my workmate Phil wanted me to use that phrase in one of my comments), but even with endless gratuitous lingering shots of her semi-clad form, the film still winds up as something of a snooze-fest.