Runtime: 96 minutes
Directed by: John
Frankenheimer, even though he wasn't the original director
Starring: Marlon Brando,
Val Kilmer, David Thewlis, Fairuza Balk, Ron Perlman
From: New Line Cinema
Monday night I watched this film; last night I saw Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's The Island of Dr. Moreau. Both were interesting, for entirely different reasons naturally. First is the movie, then the documentary:
To PETA this must be the most frightening motion picture ever made.
Of course, PETA is a vile, repugnant organization which is much more
than just a bunch of buffoons who created a lolz of a list where they
want phrases like “Take the bull by the horns” replaced with “take the
flower by the thorns”... programs like that one episode of Penn &
Teller: BS and plenty of websites explain just how awful they are... for
example, they immediately kill most of the animals that end up in their
care, so F them... oh yeah, what was I saying here?
There aren't too many documentaries or books about the making of a film that had such a wild, infamous production history that it needed to be recorded for record. But this film definitely deserves that honor. In a few hours I will post my review for the Lost Soul docu but as I type up this review I haven't seen that yet. I only know the basics of the tortuous making of the film, such as how both Brando and Kilmer acted like total divas; it did not matter much if the former acted that was as he had been “highly eccentric” for years now and his career was all but finished at this point; Val, his starring in big budget Hollywood productions as a star suddenly ended soon after this wrapped. From what I understand, the story told in Lost Soul is pretty wild; I do feel bad for Richard Stanley that he got fired from a movie he wanted to do for years and from what I understand, a lot of the initial issues were not his fault.
Anyhow, while I've never read the original H.G. Wells story, Wikipedia says that this plot has the basics of that 1896 novel... a man ends up on a mysterious island where Moreau is a brilliant but crazed scientist that has created monstrous human-animal hybrids in the attempt to create a better human being. The story touches on many important, thought-provoking themes... which the movie only gives lip service to, for the most part. Of course there are problems with Moreau strictly controlling his creations and a rebellion happens. It comes off goofy in the film, but the entirety of this is a gigantic mess; it was obvious there were serious problems in bringing this to screen.
John Frankenheimer tried his best I am sure and at least this did get released and the film is not so bad that it is unwatchable... but there are many times where I laughed AT the film as the story is so loony, there is no shortage of inexplicable moments and perhaps it was not a wise idea for our introduction to Moreau being him appear in a Not Popemobile dressed in silly clothing (which describes all of his wardrobe) and wearing white paint on his face w/ white gloves and sunglasses as he's allergic to the sun. I can give props to Stan Winston and his studio for the great makeup that you see in the film and the score is interesting as at times you hear a didgeridoo-revealing that the film was actually made in Australia-but overall this is an epic misfire, although an insane one and I imagine that David Thewlis-the actual protagonist, mind you-is not connected to this in the eyes of many like Brando and Kilmer are.
There aren't too many documentaries or books about the making of a film that had such a wild, infamous production history that it needed to be recorded for record. But this film definitely deserves that honor. In a few hours I will post my review for the Lost Soul docu but as I type up this review I haven't seen that yet. I only know the basics of the tortuous making of the film, such as how both Brando and Kilmer acted like total divas; it did not matter much if the former acted that was as he had been “highly eccentric” for years now and his career was all but finished at this point; Val, his starring in big budget Hollywood productions as a star suddenly ended soon after this wrapped. From what I understand, the story told in Lost Soul is pretty wild; I do feel bad for Richard Stanley that he got fired from a movie he wanted to do for years and from what I understand, a lot of the initial issues were not his fault.
Anyhow, while I've never read the original H.G. Wells story, Wikipedia says that this plot has the basics of that 1896 novel... a man ends up on a mysterious island where Moreau is a brilliant but crazed scientist that has created monstrous human-animal hybrids in the attempt to create a better human being. The story touches on many important, thought-provoking themes... which the movie only gives lip service to, for the most part. Of course there are problems with Moreau strictly controlling his creations and a rebellion happens. It comes off goofy in the film, but the entirety of this is a gigantic mess; it was obvious there were serious problems in bringing this to screen.
John Frankenheimer tried his best I am sure and at least this did get released and the film is not so bad that it is unwatchable... but there are many times where I laughed AT the film as the story is so loony, there is no shortage of inexplicable moments and perhaps it was not a wise idea for our introduction to Moreau being him appear in a Not Popemobile dressed in silly clothing (which describes all of his wardrobe) and wearing white paint on his face w/ white gloves and sunglasses as he's allergic to the sun. I can give props to Stan Winston and his studio for the great makeup that you see in the film and the score is interesting as at times you hear a didgeridoo-revealing that the film was actually made in Australia-but overall this is an epic misfire, although an insane one and I imagine that David Thewlis-the actual protagonist, mind you-is not connected to this in the eyes of many like Brando and Kilmer are.
Now, my take on Lost Soul:
A story so wild, the guy who eventually played the protagonist is never brought up even once.
This documentary from Severin Films is about how poorly the filming of the mid 90's version of The Island of Dr. Moreau went oh so wrong. Originally it was going to be a modestly budgeted film from New Line Cinema by Richard Stanley; this would be his biggest project after the cult success of both Hardware and Dust Devil. Several big names were added to the cast (such as Bruce Willis and James Woods) but bad circumstances happened (despite Stanley knowing a warlock and having a ritual done on the movie's behalf... no, really. He is an unusual dude) and Lost Soul is honest in showing that Stanley probably was in over his head with his project.
Then again, the second half is devoted to John Frankenheimer taking over Dr. Moreau and despite having a drill sergeant style he did not have much luck either wrangling the massive egos of two massive divas in Brando and Kilmer. That and an ever-changing script meant that the end product was a gigantic mess... not unwatchable but still a mesmerizing disaster. This documentary only has some of the cast talk about the experience (David Thewlis was not even mentioned once, let alone not appearing) but they have different opinions about the whole ordeal-Fairuza Balk is definitely still bitter about Stanley being kicked off the film. And wait until you hear how Richard handled being axed... I'll just say “not well”.
It was nice hearing from plenty of the crew and how it wasn't easy for them either, although thankfully they had decent stipends so they could have drug-fueled parties. As movie crews are always unheralded anyway, it was nice to see this Aussies get some attention. While this could have been even longer and contained more details, this seemed like a nice summary of just why 1996's The Island of Dr. Moreau turned out to be howlingly bad.
This documentary from Severin Films is about how poorly the filming of the mid 90's version of The Island of Dr. Moreau went oh so wrong. Originally it was going to be a modestly budgeted film from New Line Cinema by Richard Stanley; this would be his biggest project after the cult success of both Hardware and Dust Devil. Several big names were added to the cast (such as Bruce Willis and James Woods) but bad circumstances happened (despite Stanley knowing a warlock and having a ritual done on the movie's behalf... no, really. He is an unusual dude) and Lost Soul is honest in showing that Stanley probably was in over his head with his project.
Then again, the second half is devoted to John Frankenheimer taking over Dr. Moreau and despite having a drill sergeant style he did not have much luck either wrangling the massive egos of two massive divas in Brando and Kilmer. That and an ever-changing script meant that the end product was a gigantic mess... not unwatchable but still a mesmerizing disaster. This documentary only has some of the cast talk about the experience (David Thewlis was not even mentioned once, let alone not appearing) but they have different opinions about the whole ordeal-Fairuza Balk is definitely still bitter about Stanley being kicked off the film. And wait until you hear how Richard handled being axed... I'll just say “not well”.
It was nice hearing from plenty of the crew and how it wasn't easy for them either, although thankfully they had decent stipends so they could have drug-fueled parties. As movie crews are always unheralded anyway, it was nice to see this Aussies get some attention. While this could have been even longer and contained more details, this seemed like a nice summary of just why 1996's The Island of Dr. Moreau turned out to be howlingly bad.
No comments:
Post a Comment