Subject: Retrospective: Island of Dr. Moreau, The (1996)

From: Dragan Antulov <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 19:16:47 -0000

THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU (1996)

A Film Review 
Copyright Dragan Antulov 2003

Some movies have misfortune of being made before their time. In 
case of THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU, 1996 science fiction 
adventure directed by John Frankenheimer, that time was only few 
months in the future. Considering the film's subject matter, the movie 
could have gained much more publicity if its release have coincided 
with the news about sheep Dolly. However, that wasn't the film's 
only misfortune.

The plot, based on the classic science fiction novel by H.G. Wells, 
starts in 2015. Edward Douglas (played by David Thewlis), member 
of UN peace mission, is the only survivor of the plane crash. His life 
raft, that drifts across Java Sea, is rescued by Montgomery (played by 
Val Kilmer), a neurosurgeon who works in the island compound ran 
by famous geneticist Dr. Moreau (played by Marlon Brando). Once 
on the island, Douglas is cautioned never to leave his premises and 
he soon finds out why. It turns out that Dr. Moreau, in the attempt to 
make a better human being, spliced the human and animal genes. 
The island is populated by results of such experiments - half-human 
half-animal "hybrids" burdened by identity crisis. Dr. Moreau uses 
sophisticated electronic equipment and drugs in order to keep 
"hybrids" under control, but mysterious absenc of Montgomery 
would gradually create chaos.

Shooting of THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU was burdened with 
enormous problems - Val Kilmer acting like primadona, endless re-
writes of the screenplay, director Robert Stanley being fired over 
"creative differences" and few actors literally trying to escape from 
the set, being traumatised by harsh conditions in Australian 
locations. All that was hardly recipe for success and John 
Frankenheimer, hired to finish the shooting, could do very little to 
save this film from its fate. The plot is disorganised mess and even 
the presence of Stan Winston couldn't prevent "hybrids" from looking 
like real people under bad make-up. The message about man's 
inability to play with nature is buried somewhere beneath all this 
nonsense. There are few interesting and unintentionally funny 
moments in the film - Fairuza Balk doing a little bit of belly-dancing, 
Marlon Brando's character trying to stop mutants by playing 
"Rhapsody in Blue" on piano and Val Kilmer doing superb Marlon 
Brando impersonation. But fans of H.G. Wells and genre films in 
general would do themselves a service if they skip this one.

RATING:  2/10 (-)

Review written on May 9th 2003

Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in
Croatian
http://www.purger.com/users/drax/reviews.htm - Movie Reviews in English
http://www.ofcs.org - Online Film Critics Society

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X-RT-ReviewID: 1136880
X-RT-TitleID: 1072156
X-RT-AuthorID: 1307
X-RT-RatingText: 2/10