The Island of Dr. Moreau

1996 science fiction movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: An Englishman stranded in the middle of the ocean is picked up and taken to an island where a scientist is creating human and animal hybrids and working on his tan.

This movie is nowhere near as bad as its reputation would have you believe, and almost all of its problems are the result of bad writing rather than anything the actors are doing or the special effects. The movie's nowhere near as good as the 30's incarnation of this H.G. Wells novel, but it's actually kind of fun, at least to a certain point.

I'd never seen this and always wondered if the history of the movie would end up being much more interesting than the movie itself. You've got Brando in the twilight of his career, insisting on having a dwarf he'd befriended in most of his scenes and wearing an ice bucket on his head because he was bored. Of course, Brando was always the professional, so he called his ice bucket a "caloric converter" just to make it fit with the story. You've got all these stories of the actors hating each other nearly as much as they hate how often the script was rewritten. The shooting of this was so trying that David Thewlis refuses to watch the finished product.

Things start well enough with some cool opening credits--microscopic science crap and time-lapse image jumpiness with a powerful score. Then, there's Thewlis's voice, just perfect as he sets the scene. That scene--and remember that I'm sort of a sucker for people-stranded-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean scenes--has three men fighting "savagely" over the last canteen of water, and it sets the stage for this tale of humans and animals and animalistic humans and humanistic animals.

I really like David Thewlis. The guy gave one of the greatest acting performances of all time in Naked, and he's really good here, somehow not getting completely lost in the weirdness that Brando and Val Kilmer bring to that island. There was a moment when I laughed inappropriately after Thewlis meets the family and says, "Look at these people!" Those "people" give him a bewildered look, and Thewlis looks at Majia, the little fellow, and screams, "Look at him!" Majai's expression there was hilarious.

I also laughed when a guy kept saying "Lo-Mai" and then groaning after his friend's death. And, of course, the line "I want to go to dog heaven." You'd think that lines like that would not make it into the film with the amount of rewrites this thing went through.

Nelson de la Rosa is terrific as Brando's little friend, especially during a fantastic piano duet where Maija, wearing an outfit that matches Brando's, plays a piano perched atop another piano. There's no reason for Maija's character to exist, but when Brando wants a dwarf on set with him, you get the guy a dwarf. And the character--half mystery and half Weng Weng--should be the main character in a sequel--The Island of Dr. Moreau 2: Look at Him! 

Look at him!

Brando was nominated for a Razzie, and there are stories about how he had to wear an earpiece and have his lines read to him during his scenes, but I actually liked the performance. Sure, he's kind of phoning things in here, but he's still a presence, and the character's fun. I mean, who knew that Dr. Moreau invented velcro? I certainly didn't. And the dude's got his own Popemobile thing where he can move--pastily--around the island. This movie transforms from interesting to kind of awesome once Brando and de la Rosa enter, and it really sinks once Moreau dies. Sadly, after a mysterious, almost surrealist first half, the movie gets confusing and is all downhill after Brando and his ice bucket are gone. 

Other observations: 

1) "I am Waggdi. . .ha ha ha!" I think Waggdi, might be on the autism spectrum. That's just a weird way to introduce yourself. 

2) Ron Perlman plays the "Sayer of the Law" in this. One, that's a stupid name for a character, and somebody like Ron Perlman should be smart enough to refuse to play a character with a name like that. And here's my question about Ron Perlman: Has anybody really seen his real face? I'm working on a theory that he's had a prosthetic head in every single movie he's appeared in. 

3) Val Kilmer's performance is so odd. He seems more than a little high. I'm not even sure if his performance is bad or not. It's just odd. 

4) The 1st look at the animal/human hybrid things is completely horrifying. Llamas are involved, and I believe it's the creepiest birth seen I've ever seen. And all birth scenes are pretty creepy if you think about it. 

5) The costumes/make-up in this is really good, but I got sick of the Hyena-Man. I was tired of hearing him talk, and he had this goofy gait--simultaneously drunk, animalistic, and effeminate. 

6) Einsturzende Neubauten found their way into this, but it's not one of their better songs. 

7) The CGI in this is a little gross. There's one ape man jumping around, and the effects are about as bad as they can be. 1996 was too early to have ape men jumping around. Just put a bunch of hair on a guy and get a couple trampolines like they did in the Turkish Star Wars movie. 

8) I really lost track of what was going on in the last third of this. Thewlis started talking about "God number 1" and stuff, and I couldn't follow it all. Maybe I stopped caring because Hyena-Man was getting on my nerves. 

9) Assassimon. What an unfortunate name. I'd hate to have a name with "ass" in it even once. But twice? It would be cool to have a friend who just impulsively jumped around hitting things with a stick though. I guess that's what you can expect from something with "ass" in its name twice. Imagine the ridicule. 

10) The boar people listen to Gershwin, one starts humming along, and it's a musical moment that nearly tops the Brando/Dwarf piano duet from earlier. 

Here's that piano duet, just in case you want to watch it. Trust me--you do. 

11) The gun fight near the end of this movie is ridiculous. Where the hell did all the guns come from? As I said, once Brando leaves this story, the movie kind of loses its mind.