Alright ladies and gents, we’re back again this week to round off the last pick of flicks.
For those of you just tuning in, in lieu of reprehensibly scanty lists of travel films, I have created what I consider a comprehensive list of the best travel films you’ve ever (and never) seen. Fueled by my love of good stories (and channeled by my obsessive fangirl tendencies), you now have the third and final installment of summaries. And should you feel inclined to venture, each well-known film is paired with its not-so-well-known counterpart for your cinematic exploration and enjoyment.
You’re welcome, world.
For the complete list and earlier summaries, see the previous two articles starting with https://the-roads-taken.com/the-best-travel-movies-youve-ever-and-never-heard-of/.
This week’s summaries:
Tracks / Cargo / A Far-off Place
Out of Africa / Australia / The Painted Veil
Hidalgo / The Physician / The Four Feathers
Hotel Rwanda / The Last King of Scotland
The Motorcyle Diaries / The Darjeeling Limited
The Mummy / Sahara
The Lord of the Rings / Ash-Lad
Raiders of the Lost Ark / The Lost City of Z / Atlantis: The Lost Empire
The Lost City / Romancing the Stone
Tracks (2013) / Cargo (2017) / A Far Off Place (1993)
These protagonists are in for the long haul in these action-adventure desert treks.
Robyn is done with society. In her venture for solitude in the Australian desert, she must not only negotiate with the unforgiving landscape, but the company of the National Geographic photographer documenting the way. Starring Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver.
Andy has no place left to go. With a zombie outbreak decimating what’s left of society, Andy must journey across a danger-laden desert is search of shelter for his infant daughter–all before his time runs out. Starring Martin Freeman, a riverboat, and the Australian Outback.
Nonnie is on the run. With her home destroyed by poachers, she and her friends must journey through the Kalahari desert, all the while trying to both survive and outsmart the poachers on their tail. Starring a baby-faced Reese Witherspoon and equally so Ethan Embry.
Out of Africa (1985) / Australia (2008) / The Painted Veil (2006)
Headstrong women having affairs with foreign lands (and mans) in these epic romances.
Karen is a baroness, but her title and money give her no pleasure in her native Denmark. Suggesting marriage to her dead lover’s brother, they buy a coffee farm for a new life on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. Karen soon becomes a lot more familiar with her newfound love of the land, the people, and a handsome big game hunter. Based on the memoirs of the same name, the film gives a glimpse into World War I colonialism in Kenya. Performances from Meryl Streep and Robert Redford do not disappoint.
With the news of her husband’s death, Lady Ashley is none-too-pleased to take the reins of her ranch. Learning of its recent mismanagement and murder, it’s up to her and the rugged cattleman known as Drover to drive their livestock across the bush and save the ranch. This is almost two films in one, the latter half focusing on Lady Ashley’s love for farm and family amid World War II. Not to spoil anything, but there is a scene with the song “Over the Rainbow” that will leave you feeling all types of ways. Starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, with a dastardly love-to-hate-him David Wenham (all native Aussies, btw, including Baz Luhrman the director.)
Kitty loves high society and social gatherings, and soon realizes her quick marriage to a quiet doctor is an ill-suited match. After an affair with a fellow socialite turns sour, her husband moves them to a remote village in the Chinese countryside. Their strained relationship will have to withstand their own failings and a growing cholera epidemic during a civil war. Based on the novel of the same name. Starring Naomi Watts, Edward Norton and Liev Schreiber.
Hidalgo (2004) / The Physician (2013) / The Four Feathers (2002)
These men’s missions to prove themselves lead all the way to the far reaches of the Middle East.
Frank Hopkins is a washed-up distance rider. After a botched performance in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, he receives a mysterious invitation for one last race. Now in a foreign and savage land, he must come to terms with himself and what he’s really riding for. This film is a good ole action adventure story on the surface, but at its heart, it’s a veiled metaphor for whom the film is named: Hidalgo the mustang. His horse, being of mixed blood and certainly the underdog in a race with thoroughbreds, must prove he has the mettle of champions despite lacking a sterling pedigree. Likewise, Frank deals with accepting his mixed-race heritage, and if he is good enough to even represent one of them. Starring the real-life-cowboy Viggo Mortensen and pretty-much-a-sheikh-anyway Omar Sharif.
Rob is a barber’s apprentice with a unique gift. Inspired by lifesaving medical care unknown to his home in medieval England, he travels to the Middle East to study with the famed Physician himself–or die trying, even amidst the deadly Black Plague. Starring Tom Payne and Ben Kingsley.
Harry Faversham is an officer in the Royal Army. When his regiment is called to duty in the Sudan, he resigns the night before shipping out. When he gets word of his regiment’s untimely capture, he takes it upon himself to redeem not only his friends’ lives, but his own honor. I gotta tell ya, I kind of love this movie. As a teenager I saw it multiple times in theaters, and though there are older versions that some critics claim as better, this is the one that has affected me the most. Heath Ledger leads an all-star cast of Wes Bentley and Kate Hudson to name a few.
Hotel Rwanda (2004) / The Last King of Scotland (2007)
War-torn Africa sets the stage for these civil war dramas.
Paul is a Hutu hotelier. When local forces become hostile against the Tutsi, he risks it all to protect the innocent Hutu and Tutsi alike, housing the refugees in his hotel. Based on the heroic true story even amid the horrific in civil war-torn Africa.
Nicholas just graduated med school and is eager to see the world. What seemed like a dream job as personal physician to a government official becomes a dangerous game of intrigue proving just where his loyalties lie. Based on the novel about the real-life dictator of Uganda.
The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) / The Darjeeling Limited
One ride can change your life.
Che Guevara is months away from a medical degree. To celebrate, he and his friend take a motorcycle trip through South America. What they find ignites both compassion and indignation in the later Marxist activist and leader. Based on the autobiography of the iconic Guevara, starring Gael Garcia Bernal.
Francis, Peter and Jack are in for the ride of their lives when their father’s death brings them together. Thrown off a train and trekking across India, they find their ways together across the countryside and back into their own relationships. For all you Wes Anderson fans, this is the stuff for you. Starring Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman and other cameos of Anderson’s usual suspects.
The Mummy (1999) / Sahara (2005)
Action adventures in the classic style of exotic melodramas. My gosh, what a sub-genre.
Evie is a librarian who is done with sitting back with her books. With her brother, a handsome gunman and his map to an ancient burial site, it will take all of their books and crooks to send the unleashed undead back to where it belongs. This film is just plain fun. From the open-mouthed sandstorms to flesh-eating scarab beetles, it’s all over the top, but hell if it isn’t a thrill of a ride. Starring Brendan Fraser as Rick O’Connell the gunslinging adventurer and Rachel Weisz as my kindred spirit the liberated librarian.
Investigating a disease in the Niger river, a doctor becomes embroiled in political intrigue and a search for lost gold buried in the desert sands. This film is alleged considered one of Hollywood’s biggest flops, but hey, Matthew McConaughey somehow sells the convoluted plot anyway.
The Lord of the Rings (2001) / Ash Lad (2017)
Now, before y’all lay into me yes, technically the “Lord of the Rings” is the name of the series/franchise, not the first movie. That likewise goes for my guy the “Ash-Lad” first and sequel films. This sub-genre would subsequently fall under epic adventure fantasies based on literary works.
Frodo is a hobbit, and doesn’t know much about the big world outside the Shire. After receiving a mysterious ring from his uncle, he embarks on a quest to save Middle-earth from Sauron and all of the dark forces with it. It’s up to him, the fellowship, and his hobbit friends to take on the big bad of the world and show the biggest courage can come from the smallest of them all. That bare bones summation does not begin to describe the depth of characters and complex world of Middle-earth at all. If this is the first you have ever heard of these films (and I have actually met some classmates who have never seen them to my chagrin) drop what you’re doing and watch them now. Regardless of your reverence for the source material (which is superb) moviegoers and literati alike can enjoy these epic tales of heroism and mythology. The few scenes of monologues alone of Gandalf and Samwise are, in my humble opinion, the stuff the cinematic legend, surpassing genre, gender, race, heck maybe even space. Also, the trilogy showcases the diverse landscape of New Zealand, from glaciers to glades. Based on the renowned novels by J.R.R. Tolkien. Starring an ensemble cast of living legends, Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, our cowboy buddy Viggo Mortensen, Karl Urban, John Noble, and Bret McKenzie to name a few.
Espen is kind of a screw-up. Labeled the useless “ash lad” by his brothers for his impractical tendencies, he’s cast out for causing one-too-many accidents. Through perilous challenges, he must use his unique skills to outwit the Mountain King and win both the princess and his home back. Like the previous set of films, Ash Lad is a film franchise in two so far, and based on the quality of the cast and story, I hope a third. And believe me, as an American newcomer to Norwegian cinema, in this film everyone is invited to make fun of the invader Danes. Based on the folktales of the national folk hero from Asbjornsen and Moe, the Espen the Ash lad is a Norwegian persona as household as Jack the Giant-Killer or Snow White. And while the rugged locale may be familiar to those Nordic neighbors, it nonetheless shows off just how rugged and untouched the natural Norwegian landscape can be. Starring the Norsk ensemble talent of Vebjorn Enger, Thorbjorn Harr, Mads Pettersen and Allan Hyde as the Danish prince (the latter of which you may recognize from “True Blood”).
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) / The Lost City of Z (2017) / Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
Lost cities are these academics’ expertise as they search for the impossible.
By day Professor Jones is a bowtie-wearing academic. By night, he’s off in the Peruvian jungle in search of coveted artifacts. With help from old friends, he must find the powerful Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis use the power themselves to turn the tides of world powers. Another classic cinema adventure, this is kept in the Library of Congress as a national treasure, and one of the first collaborations between film masters Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Starring Harrison Ford.
A man of skills and marksmanship, Officer Percy Fawcett is a shoe-in to survey the civil war shifting boundaries in South America. When he finds evidence of an advanced lost city in the Amazon jungle, he becomes obsessed with proving its existence to the Royal Geological Society and himself. Showing just how much OG explorers had to endure in awful weather conditions, it’s more a story of belief against all odds than anything else. It diverges in the end from what the source material suggests happened, but in a way that ambiguous romantic possibility works more than the ambiguous so-called facts. Starring Charlie Hunnam and Robert Pattinson.
Milo Thatch knows he can find the lost city of Atlantis–if only financiers didn’t think him of the laughingstock of academia. With funding from a mysterious businessman and an eclectic exploration team, they find more than an abandoned city. It’s up to Milo to be the hero he never thought he was to protect the city and his friends from forces more dangerous and mysterious than they imagined. Starring Michael J. Fox and an ensemble cast of the colorful yet lovable weirdo crewmates.
The Lost City (2022) / Romancing the Stone (1984)
The search for lost treasure continues in these epic romances of writers-turned-adventurers.
Loretta is a popular romance novelist who is done with the book tour doldrums. When she’s captured by a billionaire convinced she knows more than she lets on, it’s up to her book tour model to make it out of the jungle and make out with each other in one piece. Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum have delightful chemistry as the unlikely adventuring duo, as he does indeed prove a lady writer can be smart and hot.
Joan is a romance novelist who is more invested in her stories than her own life. When her sister’s life is threatened, it’s up to the street smarts of a smuggler and herself to live the adventure she’s always written about, but never known. Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner sizzle as the iconic good girl/bad boy couple. It’s likewise a fun escapist fantasy, and I wish there were more like it.
Until next time fam, with our film finale. Nos vemos.
Love, Amanda