This review was originally published February 8th, 2008.

Okay, let’s get this out of the way. Is Fool’s Gold essentially a rip-off of Romancing the Stone? Yeah, more or less. Does it have vaguely racist and homophobic undertones? You bet. Is it still an irresistible guilty pleasure? Yeah.

I know, I know: I’m pretty much the only one out there writing a positive review of this movie. It came out in early February, so it must be awful, right? Hey, I was ready to hate it, but what can I say? Astonishing visual beauty, fun characters, and some genuinely funny moments won me over. This isn’t a film that’ll teach you amazing new things or make you reexamine your life, but it is, without a doubt, a fun two hours at the local multiplex.

Fool’s Gold stars Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey as Tess and Finn, a couple who fell in love (or at least lust), got married, realized they hated each other, split up, and have recently gotten divorced (literally—like, the film opens with their divorce). Since meeting, they’ve both been obsessed with finding a legendary sunken treasure—to different degrees, of course. Tess, the more levelheaded of the two, actually gave up on it a while ago and took a job on the yacht of millionaire Nigel Honeycutt (Donald Sutherland) in an attempt to earn some money so she could go back to school and work on a master’s degree. Finn has continued to search desperately for the treasure over the course of their eight-year marriage, sending himself deeper and deeper into debt in the process. So then the usual Hollywood-ish “seriously unlikely series of events” happens: Tess and Finn get divorced, Finn discovers the first real clue to the whereabouts of the treasure, and he sinks his boat—all within about 24 hours. Oh, and he gets on the death list of a bunch of gangsters to whom he owes thousands of dollars. He realizes that his only hope to find the treasure is to seek out a rich benefactor with a yacht, so he tracks down Honeycutt, unaware that Tess is working for him. At this point, Finn and Tess have no money between them, and they realize their only hope is to find this treasure together.

Guess whether they end up falling in love and getting remarried.

So okay, yeah, this is pretty much stock stuff, but the reason it’s so overdone in the first place is because it works so well. Everyone loves a treasure hunt, everyone wants to see estranged couples get back together, and everyone likes death-defying stunts and cool explosions. Fool’s Gold doesn’t exactly take this to new heights, and it has some problems of its own, but in the end it’s just an old-school crowd pleaser, and it works.

First, let me take you through the good. To start, every single shot in this film is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Though filmed in Australia, Fool’s Gold is set in Key West, and the cinematographers capture the feel of the Caribbean perfectly. It’s no exaggeration to say you can almost feel the ocean breeze on your face throughout—you feel like you’re there, taking part in the adventure. It also helps that the characters are so inviting, as well. As How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days proved, Hudson and McConaughey can generate some real chemistry, and they’re even better here than they were in that film. Sutherland is able to take what is essentially a stock character and make him strangely sympathetic. The real standout, though, is Alexis Dziena, who plays his unbelievably ditzy daughter. The character’s not exactly true-to-life, but you can tell she’s having some fun here (it’s also to be appreciated that she pulls it off without simply aping Paris Hilton).

Okay, now the bad: Fool’s Gold thinks it’s really funny, and it’s not. It’s not painfully, pathetically unfunny in a Tom Green sort of way; it just never really develops its jokes, and when it tries, it usually ends up repeating its setups over and over without providing anything in the way of a punch line (though Dziena is arguably the exception to this). Case in point: Honeycutt has a pair of male chefs on his boat that are lovers. The joke is, apparently, that they’re gay. Get it? They’re gay! Ha! Oh man, there’s nothing more hilarious than the fact that homosexuals exist. Secondly, and more disturbingly, there are some serious racist undertones running throughout the thing. The good guys are all white and the bad guys are all black (except for one—and apparently the joke there is that he’s white! Get it?). Even this wouldn’t be so bad, except in addition to being black, they’re also all gangsta rap caricatures. So our villains are African-Americans raised by the streets (of Key West?), and our heroes are rich white people thinking about completing their master’s degrees. This is downright offensive, particularly coming from Andy Tennant, who previously helmed the mostly-colorblind Hitch.

That being said, Fool’s Gold is a film that’s not meant to be taken seriously anyway, and if you can forgive its faults, you’re in for a fun adventure. The choice is ultimately yours on this one, but I’m going to go ahead and recommend Fool’s Gold despite its issues. If you’re looking for a popcorn flick, this is it.