My quick rating - 4.6/10. I checked out Green Ice mostly out of curiosity. This movie landed smack in the middle of my childhood Showtime cable-box years, a time when I watched - or at the very least read about - everything that passed through the monthly guide. Yet somehow this one completely escaped me. After seeing it now, I’m starting to suspect the poster might explain why. This is supposedly an action-adventure flick, but that label feels wildly optimistic in hindsight.
The setup isn’t terrible on paper. Ryan O’Neal plays a down-on-his-luck engineer who stumbles into an international emerald heist after crossing paths with a mysterious woman, Holbrook, played by Anne Archer. She’s targeting a powerful emerald magnate portrayed by Omar Sharif, a man who essentially runs the land through corruption and intimidation. The plan? Bankrupt him by stealing millions of dollars’ worth of emeralds with the help of a local group of rebel mercenaries and some early-’80s “high-tech” wizardry. It’s the kind of premise that should at least be mildly entertaining.
Unfortunately, execution is where Green Ice completely drops the ball. The movie moves at a glacial pace, and the tone rarely matches what’s happening onscreen. The most baffling choice is the music. The score is so sleepy that it actively works against the film, and keeping it playing during what’s supposed to be an air-heist sequence feels almost comical. If your action scene could double as background noise for a nap, something has gone very wrong.
The romance doesn’t help matters. O’Neal and Archer have little chemistry, and their relationship feels forced from the start. It never develops naturally, instead jumping from scene to scene as if the script assumes attraction automatically exists. As awkward as that pairing is, it’s still more believable than the half-hearted romantic angle briefly suggested between Archer and Sharif, which feels shoehorned in for no real reason other than to complicate things.
Even accounting for the film’s age, it’s hard to imagine this being much better back in 1981. Yes, the computer tech is dated, but that’s not the real issue. The problem is that the film never builds tension or momentum. Scenes drag, dialogue feels flat, and the supposedly daring plot rarely feels daring at all. Sharif brings some enthusiasm to his role, but even he can’t rescue a movie that seems uninterested in its own story.
I can honestly say I’m glad I missed this one back then. Part of me is curious how kid-me might have remembered it, but this isn’t one of those nostalgic rewatches where time softens the flaws. Green Ice doesn’t hold up, and it barely holds attention. What should have been a slick adventure ends up a sluggish, oddly tranquil misfire that explains perfectly why it vanished from my Showtime memories.
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