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The Island of Dr. Moreau

The Island of Dr. Moreau

List Price: $14.98
Your Price: $13.48
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Sick, Twisted and Entertaining
Review: If you are looking for a litte twisted entertainment TIODM delivers. I made my girlfriend watch it and she had nightmares. As for me, it was just what I was looking for and Brando delivivers a great performance as a scientist gone mad.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: What a Reaction!
Review: I haven't seen this film but HAVE to buy it on the strength of such diverse passionate reactions. It sounds like a 'must-buy' - if only as a conversation piece.

I have now seen this.
I have re-rated to 1 star - that's for the opening credits.
David Thewlis must have been extremely desperate to appear in this.

Marlon?... must be having a laugh.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: AWFULLY good?
Review: This is easily one of the greatest A-list pieces of garbage of all time! Definitely of great interest to anyone who enjoys meaninglessly self-indulgent performances from actors who garner critical respect, yet seem to act as though they are on a boatload of illegal substances during filming. Frankenheimer fans should enjoy his direction in a Sci-Fi setting, especially considering the alledged circumstances. For Cult only- Average fans should stay away; it adds up to little more than the equivelant of a great picture of an ugly person. (note.- Thewlis' facial expression when the"Mini-Me" dwarf attempts to shake his hand is priceless!)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A modern masterpiece
Review: Here are 4 reasons why this is the best film ever: 1. It has more depth and intrigue than Citizen Kane 2. It has more excitement than Star Wars 3. It has better dialogue and humor than Pulp Fiction 4. It has Brando's monkey sidekick. I have to go now, the men in white uniforms are coming for me. They want me to take my medicine. Help! Help!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Dismal Island of Dr. Moreau
Review: Usually I watch a movie for enjoyment, or laughter, or just curiosity. The newest version of "Island of Dr. Moreau" is so bad that was ashamed watching it. I rented it and would recommend others buying or renting the far superior version starring Burt Lancaster and even better, "The Island of Lost Souls," with Charles Laugton as the mysterious doctor and in an equally impressive performance, none other than Bela Lugosi as the leader of the animal mutants. H.G. Wells rarely fails on paper and the novel is good, but what the film makers have done is beyond imagination. John Frankenheimer, the same director of the "Mancherian Candidate," is reponsible for directing this mess. Marlon Brando , as Dr. Moreau, possibly gives the worse performance by an actor in a film that I have ever seen. Covered with Number 50 sunblock, wearing buck teeth and covering his head with what looks like a lampshade in his first scene, what was he up to, putting on the director and playing a joke on the audience? If studios pay actors like Brando a million dollars for dreck like this we are in trouble folks. Val Kilmer's sleepwalking performance is not far behind Brando's preposterous presence. It almost made me forget how good he was in "Tombstone." The great special effects wizard, Stan Winston, wasted any creature work because of the shoddy acting and directing. I give this version one star only because of Stan Winston's work, and what a creative team of actors and a good director could have done with the exoitc local, the possibilities for a good horror film in the tradition of the previous works. As it stands, it is the worse film Brando has ever been in and one of the worse films made by a major studio ever made. No DVD nor wide screen showing could save this ship that sinks in memory faster than the Titanic. Many old films are rotting and technicians are restoring them back to their original luster. This is one film that they should let evaporate in the archives. Save your money and buy the previously mentioned versions, far outclassing this monumental epic, appropriately about man's arrogance while monkeying with Mother Nature. The movie is a true mutation, an experiment gone far far wrong.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Absolutely terrible.
Review: The film is so bad that it's not even worth commenting on

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Mmm...
Review: This film's repulsive birth scene makes it worthwhile, as does Marlon Brando's creepy performance. David Thewlis doesn't hurt, but he could do better. Val Kilmer's performance is annoying, and I'm told his bad attitude didn't make him any friends off-camera (upon finishing Kilmer's last scene, Director John Frankenheimer screamed for Kilmer's immediate removal from the set.). Worth viewing by those with strong stomachs, but not for those who wish to get anything out of it.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Kilmer should never work again
Review: This film is unintentionally the funniest thing I have seen ever. As a musician I found the piano playing scenes so disturbing I thought I was going mad when I saw it. The onlt thing worse than Brando's hammy acting is Kilmer. Watch Thewlis, he knows this is bad and is scared out of his wits. Avoid like "Venom."

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Was This For Real!
Review: After sitting through this egregious, overblown catastrophe of a movie, I didn't just want a refund of the buck I spent to rent it ... I wanted the hour and a half of my life back!

You watch the credits at the end of this movie and see all those little names scrolling by ... hundreds of people involved in this movie at one stage or another ... didn't at least *one* of these folks have the guts to say "Uh, this movie really sucks, let's fix it?" before it got released and foisted on the rest of us? What were they *thinking*!

The story has a lot of potential, there are cool costuming effects galore and some good acting talent here, but the net effect is a barely intelligible mishmash -- I can't figure out if this is supposed to be a straight-up scifi/horror movie or just campy parody. I get the impression that the scenes that *explained* most of this stuff were left on the cutting room floor. If we'd actually gotten enough background detail to give a rat's behind (uh, no pun intended) about any of these characters, especially the hybrid animal/people, it could've been a really interesting movie. Even if they'd fleshed out the scientific and logistic aspects of Dr. Moreau's work enough to make it borderline plausible, that would've helped. But noooo ... the entire thing just degenerates to the hyena-guy-goes-berzerk-and-commandeers-Jeep pyrotechnics-fest at the end. Yeah, right.

I think the saddest part is the waste of talent here. It was truly creepy watching the hulking, freakish Marlon Brando mugging and panting through this role. Ironically, I'd just watched "A Streetcar Named Desire" a few nights before I caught this flick. Shudder. I watched him in this with the same morbid, repelled feeling I had watching Joan Crawford and Bette Davis in "Baby Jane". Val Kilmer at least seemed to be enjoying himself, and yes, his Brando impersonation was funny. Mostly I just feel sorry for Fairuza Balk -- she needs to get a better agent!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A different view point...
Review: I watched this film recently, I enjoyed it a lot. I thought it was very thought provoking, it wasn't predictable, it didn't have cheesy super cool stars, it wasn't unnecessarily violent (not to say the film wasn't violent), and I really enjoyed it. All the charcters were really deep and even the animal characters seemed to be deep too (as much as an animal can be). By reading other reviews a lot of other people didn't have the same opinion as me, this may be because I haven't read the book/watched the other movie so take that into account when reading my review


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