One really has to feel for Dina Meyer as she struggles through this C-level production. The law of diminishing returns pretty much states that the more one tries to repeat an accomplishment or action, the less successful the results will be. Most film franchises conform to this rule faithfully, with the latter episodes in the Police Academy or Aliens series managing to plumb depths in their respective genres that used to keep television programmers well-stocked for early-morning material. There are also exceptional sequels, the second Star Trek or X-Men films being good examples. The third Wild Things film is the same thing to late franchise entries as Police Academy: Mission To Moscow. The most telling sign of the third Wild Things film being crap is that it did not even receive so much as a direct to video release. This was filmed with cable, or even free to air, television in mind. My guess would be one of those hotel cable channels where they screen not-quite-porn for desperate customers who have nothing better to watch.
Like the previous two Wild Things films, Diamonds In The Rough attempts to create a twisting and turning plot for the titillation of the viewer. While Wild Things 2 succeeded by completely recycling the plot of the highly entertaining original, Diamonds In The Rough attempts to recreate the mild revival of the erotic thriller without resorting to recycling the screenplay or screen composition of the original. Calling it moderately, or even mildly, successful would be flattering. Diamonds In The Rough is a failure thanks in no small part to a pace that is so rushed it feels incoherent. An attempt to recreate the threesome scene is made, and it has the virtue of both women getting naked in front of the camera, but it goes by so quickly that viewers are often hard-pressed to remember anything about it mere minutes after viewing. Sandra McCoy apparently suffered a fifty-percent pay cut for hiring a body double in this film. That should summarise how much dedication to one's art this film inspires.
Dina Meyer essentially jumps into the role played by Terence Bridge in the previous film, and by Kevin Bacon in the one before that. She is about the only person in this film who can act, and the screenplay does a good job of obscuring this. The dialogue is not exactly daft, but it really only fills space while we wait for the next display of flesh. In Wild Things, the plot was coherent and even intriguing without the little tidbits displayed during the end credits. Wild Things 2 is neither here nor there, since both the main plot and the tidbits are more or less entirely lifted from Wild Things. Diamonds In The Rough's main plot and tidbits were not written by an army of monkeys seated in front of an army of typewriters. It was vomited out by a bunch of crack-addled monkeys who bashed their heads into the keys of a bunch of typewriters for a year.
My summary says it all, really. I watched Diamonds In The Rough for over an hour, even making mental notes as something particularly stupid took place. I cannot remember a singular detail of the threadbare plot, save for something to do with Dina Meyer's character being a parole officer with a personal mission. Of course, there is the usual stuff about two characters having a complex interplay relationship that turns out to be a shady criminal conspiracy. There is simply not enough screen time in this film to give this element proper development. About the only satisfactory continuance in the film comes when a line is repeated. Plot tangents are mentioned in one second, dropped like a stone in the next, and then resumed a reel or three later with not the slightest bit of linking. Perhaps it was deliberately designed to cause viewers to lose millions of brain cells in the memory area. Perhaps the film is simply so bland or stupid that, like the production of RoboCop, the mind just blanks it out like a violent crime. As I said earlier, however, it is less than a day since I watched Wild Things: Diamonds In The Rough, and I am absolutely stumped when trying to recall something memorable about it.
Out of ten, I gave Wild Things: Diamonds In The Rough a one. It is bad enough that one could show it to people they want information or cooperation out of. After the first viewing, one is in a mildly uncomfortable mood. About halfway through the second viewing, that cyanide capsule starts to look mighty tempting.
