In 1978 the famous West Bromwich Albion became the first western football team to tour China playing exhibition matches. The whole thing was recorded for posterity by a BBC documentary crew including a famous exchange with the player John Trewick who asked why he hadn't joined his team mates on a visit to see the Great Wall of China replied "if you've seen one wall, you've seen them all".
The 'Road to...' movies were a bit like that. They may have been in exotic locations but if you've seen one, you've seen them all. It's not necessarily a criticism- Bond fans like me don't have a great deal of secure ground for attacks based upon films following a formula- but it does mean that they're pretty indistinguishable from one another and that there's an all-pervading feeling of unspectacular adequacy about them. In fact but for being the first one to be filmed in colour (and the only one for that matter; Road to Hong Kong reverted to black and white to hide Bing and Bob's advancing years) this could be any of them.
In fact, the opening five minutes sums up the whole series- there's a costumed song, a dance routine, some witty banter ("we've been fighting over you all week and I won. He's going to marry you"), some straight-to-camera wisecracking and it ends with Bob and Bing fleeing in fear of their lives after another failed romantic encounter. It's completely vacuous and pretty entertaining- if, sadly, dated. I say sadly because it is a real shame that films like this don't get made any more- I love them. The only exceptional thing about Road to Bali- as if you couldn't guess- truly is the colour, and that's only because they use so much garish colour that it's a bit like a Timothy Leary nightmare.
I might sound critical, I'm not. I enjoyed it, I'd watch it again if I want something cheery on a rainy day. But I won't remember anything about it a couple of days from now. 4/10
