THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU
A film review by Steve Rybin
Copyright 1996 Steve Rybin
Directed by John Frankenheimer. Starring Marlon Brando, Val Kilmer, David Thewlis. Rated PG-13.
Stan Winston's special effects and William Fraker's wonderful cinema- tography are the main highlights in this retelling of H.G. Wells' novel. The movie has a terrific visceral impact, but it's hard to take it seriously at times: Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer both give over-the-top performances, and too often the film seem to be going for cheap laughs instead of moving the plot forward.
Brando plays Dr. Moreau, a brilliant scientist whose genetic experiments have gotten out of control. Val Kilmer is his right-hand-man, but Kilmer doesn't get much screen time here. David Thewlis' character, the lone survivor of a plane crash, becomes trapped on Moreau's island, and it doesn't take him long to figure out what is going on.
Frankenheimer's telling of this story is visually exciting and well-made, but the film is not quite sure what it wants to be. For the first hour, it's straight-up science fiction with a bit of humor thrown in; the last forty minutes or so, it's basically an action-thriller. It does, however, succeed at being consistently bizarre.
Grade: C+
Reviewed by Steve Rybin
Other Recent Films ------------------
Basquiat A+ Chain Reaction C Courage Under Fire A- Escape From L.A. B- The Fan C Independence Day A- Kansas City C+ Kingpin C+ The Nutty Professor B+ Trainspotting A-
Visit "Another Shmuck on the Internet Reviewing Movies" at http://pages.prodigy.com/oldman/shmuck.html
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews