Lack of good storyline.

A different way of telling a story

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Breath-taking African scenery and Tanya Roberts, one of the most beautiful women ever to appear on a movie screen, provide lots of lovely things to look at but don't QUITE distract one from the central truth of this movie, which is that it stinks. The plot is simplistic, predictable, paint-by-numbers 80s action junk about evil mercenaries doing something evil, the dialogue is so bad it almost works as camp or self-parody, and the primary musical theme is so annoying and unsuited to the milieu it needs muting. You almost want to extract images of Tanya running about in her Fredrick's of Zimbabwe bra top and thong, taking showers under waterfalls, riding her zebras, and bouncing, bouncing, always bouncing... and put them to better music, with the dialogue cut out. The movie itself is just jaw-droppingly awful, but Tanya is just so fabulous, no (hetero male) viewer cares, as the camera lingers on her glorious body and gazes into her empty blue eyes, so blank and uncluttered by comprehension or thought. TV D-lister Ted Wass is along as her erstwhile male lead, and is so amazingly bland on-screen he makes Tanya look charismatic by comparison, no small feat. As adventure fiction, it's pretty much garbage. Enjoy the eye candy.

This is a bizarre sort of film--and very confusing and difficult to give a numeric score and I am struggling more with this film than 99% of the movies I have rated. The biggest reason is that while it is a bad movie, the production values are amazingly good and it looks pretty nice. This is not some $50,000 production by Ed Wood, but one that inexplicably was approved and made by a real honest-to-goodness studio! The cinematography and music are often quite lovely and it's obvious some money was put into the picture. On the other hand, though, the dialog and basic idea are pretty dumb--a lot like some of the many jungle B-movies of the 1930s, 40s and 50s. In fact, movies like BLONDE SAVAGE and DAUGHTER OF THE JUNGLE are very cheap films but they manage to provide decent B-movie entertainment--and are an awful lot like SHEENA, an A-picture in almost every way. The other odd thing that make this film hard to rate is its audience. While these other female jungle warrior films all were designed mostly for kids, SHEENA is decidedly NOT a kids film--and I wonder how this film managed to receive a PG rating! I assume that no one actually saw the film since it was pretty goofy and didn't notice the two very striking nude scenes with its star, Tanya Roberts. And, on one hand this makes it a very family unfriendly film but on the other, for anyone who wants to see a lot of Ms. Roberts (more than she showed in BEAST MASTER), this is your film!The film begins with two scientists bringing their young daughter to the middle of the Zambuli lands to look into the rumor of some "healing earth" that has magical restorative properties. But, only moments later, they are killed in an accident and the little girl, Janet, is renamed 'Sheena' and is raised by the nice Zambuli. Apparenlty, they have some prophecy about a golden-haired lady who will save the tribe and Sheena is this fulfillment of prophecy. Oddly, after all this (and almost 20 minutes of film), the credits now roll.Later, time has passed and Sheena is now a buxom babe--sort of like a combination of Tarzan and a Playboy cover model cavorting about the jungle and talking with animals...and taking her clothes off now and then. And, now that she has reached adulthood, the prophesied threat to the tribe is about to be unleashed. After an assassination, the good king is replaced by his wicked brother whose goal is to rape Zambuli land. A reporter and his fat (i.e., comic relief) cameraman have stumbled upon evidence that the new king, in fact, was behind the assassination, so the king and his baddies all chase them into the jungle. There, they meet up with Sheena. After dispatching the cameraman with the evidence, the reporter (Ted Wass) stays with Sheena and marvels at her ability to control animals and her curvaceous body. In the end, the film pretty much goes as you expect, though the ending (when Wass leaves) is a letdown. I wonder if perhaps they ended it that way and assumed there'd be a sequel to reunite the lovers, but critical response to the film was so bad that it wasn't surprising this sequel never was made.So what makes this a relatively bad film? Well, the dialog is THE problem. Despite Sheena being raised by the Zambuli since she was about 3, she sounds like she could fit in almost anywhere--with lovely American-accented diction. Other than not understanding a few words about modern machinery, she sounds nothing like anyone raised in the middle of Africa. The same can be said, incidentally, of the Zambuli themselves. Also, too much of the dialog sounds like it came from an old movie serial--which is great for kids (who are often less demanding) but for a skin-flick, this makes no sense.Another problem is simply that much of the film isn't that interesting. You KNOW that in the end Sheena and the forces of good will win, so there is no real sense of uncertainty.As for Miss Roberts, she wasn't THAT bad...but she wasn't particularly believable. Much of it was because she was too well-coiffed and much of it was the dialog, though her acting didn't do much to inspire either. She was, however, in her element when it came to nude scenes, as at the time she must have been one of the most beautiful women in the world with her piercing eyes and...um...everything else. The way that some blamed her for the failure of the film seems a bit unfair, as the real culprit here is John Guillermin, the director, as he was apparently insane. If you don't believe me, try watching his next film, KING KONG LIVES--a film that is a billion times dumber than SHEENA ever was.One final problem, and it's more a problem for snobs like me that look for mistakes. The 'zebra' that Sheena rides throughout the film is clearly not a zebra but a horse painted like one. This makes sense, as zebras are wild and unpredictable but the paint job on the horse was poor--way too intensely black and the strips were too well-defined--making it look exactly like a painted horse. Heck, I would have simply made it be a horse in the film or had her ride an elephant (but African elephants can also be a bit hard to control) or had her walk or run instead.Overall, not a terrible film. The movie looks nice and even occasionally draws you into this goofy little world with its odd sense of innocence. However, it is pretty dumb when you think about it.

In the early 20th century, Audrey Munson made her movie debut in Thanhouser's "Inspiration" (1915), essentially playing herself: an artist's model. A year later, she appeared in another film, "Purity" (1916). What is remarkable about these films is that in both, Miss Munson appears in the nude. This is in the nineteen-teens, remember. There were censorship boards then, run by the states rather than the film industry... and of course they always sought to keep the movie screens free of smut.And yet, both "Inspiration" and "Purity" were approved for public exhibition... because the nudity in them was artistic and non-erotic. I don't know if that standard has ever been applied, to any other film; or rather, I didn't know, until I chanced across "Sheena" (1984).Browsing through the channels one evening, I found this film, starring Tanya Roberts as Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. "I'll give it a chance," I figured. So my wife and I watched as Ms. Roberts, clad only in a leather bikini-like garment, went about her adventures in the jungles of darkest Africa.Then, out of nowhere, there's a scene where she stops by a lake to bathe. I figured she would just jump in, since she's already wearing practically nothing anyway, right? Wrong!Before we knew what was happening, Tanya Roberts slipped out of her garment and entered the lake nude, in all God's glory. I mean it when I say I didn't see it coming. Most of the time when you see nudity on the screen, you kinda know it's coming, but this was a real surprise.I checked the program guide for the MPAA rating. Gotta be an R, right? Wrong again! Sheena was given a PG rating -- not a PG-13, not an R, not an NC-17. It's a PG, meaning any youngster, of any age, can see the movie without an adult. And, come to think of it, the "Parental Guidance" suggested by PG is probably because of some battle scenes in the movie.Thinking back, I wonder: Is this the first time since the two Audrey Munson films in 1915 and 1916, that on-screen adult nudity has been allowed, with no restrictions whatsoever?I'm not a big fan of nude scenes, and I don't seek them out. But this one, in Sheena, has to be the most innocent one I've ever seen.Dan Navarro (daneldorado93@yahoo.com)

I have seen this movie 25 years later on DVD.I am really astonished when I saw 4.3 user rating on top of the page. I am sure this movie deserves much more than that. It would worth more than 4.3 points even if there were no animals . I give 10 points mainly because of the animals .I must say that this is film about kind of a lady jungle hero.I would recommend this film to children if there were no savage scenes such as shooting,bombing and killing both innocent people and animals.Sheena (Tanya Roberts) is a sexy young girl who brought up by native Africans, has special kinetic powers and can communicate with animals.First of all it is not a boring movie.Landscape is amazing. As for the animals, they are incredible. Director John Guillermin did a superb job in this film with these animals.I will not go into detail about the film but recommend you to buy or rent DVD and watch this movie.