Nearly 800 pages about the why, wherefore and how of the 20th Century's quickest, most personal and - possibly - least understood genocide. Obviously, it is not a fun read. But neither is it (surprisingly) particularly heart-wrenching, on a gut emotional level. Considering what is being discussed, this work almost astonishingly scientific. When one reads about the butchering of close to a million people within the span of 100 days, carried out in broad daylight in the very communities where the victims lived, oftentimes by those next to whom they'd lived for years, almost always with an arms cocktail that included rifles, grenades, machetes, nail-studded clubs, spears, bows and arrows, and even more basic implements like bicycle handlebars - when any thinking, rational human being contemplates this reality, it tends to boggle the mind. Even numerically: it is the literal equivalent (in the number of victims) of three (3) September 11ths every single day for over three months. In a country of 8 million people. Proportionally, given the population of the United States at the time, that would mean 23 million deaths in the US. Geographically, over a territory roughly the size of Vermont. How does one find enough imagination to conjure up such images and then even begin to make sense of them?

This is a true slab of Hollywood cheese, in epic proportions. Highly enjoyable, as long as you know what you’re getting yourself into. Hackneyed, clichéd, surprisingly aimless with little sense of real dramatic build-up – all of which adds up to a fairly enjoyable ball of corn.

First, the characters: cartoonish, clichéd send-ups of the usual adventure story tropes. The rugged, George Hamilton-orange, disillusioned Quatermain, who of course still has a heart of gold. The naïve, proud, fair damsel-in-a-foreign-land, Mrs. Curtis (think A Passage to India’s Anna Quested, with none of the moral confusion). The simple, often silly, but still good hearted native assistant. The Captain Kurtz crazy-man encountered deep within the Heart of Darkness.