MovieChat Forums > Rapa Nui (1994) Discussion > Why this was a good movie

Why this was a good movie

posted 18 years ago by Muleke
17 replies | jump to latest

Roger Ebert wrote a book a while back titled something like 'I hated, hated, hated, this movie,' in which he included reviews of his least favorite movies. Few of the titles were surprising, but I was a bit puzzled by his inclusion of Rapa Nui.
Mind you, I wasn't totally surprised that he disliked the movie; after all, he panned Blade Runner (and then changed his rating later when it became an embarassment). No, it was the fact that of all the thousands of movies he must have seen, Rapa Nui stood out in his mind as particularly wretched.
Rapa Nui?
I read his review, and it was so incoherent I couldn't actually figure out any single thing he really disliked (he mostly talked about breasts). His main problem seemed to be that the people in the movie had quaint customs that seemed silly.
I was impressed by this movie precisely because it took me to a very different time and place, where the values and customs are unlike those of modern, first world people. Movies seldom do this so convincingly.
I've always loved classic science fiction novels, and this movie really felt like science fiction at its best: the heroes are trying to survive the death throes of a totally dysfunctional society. In fact, Rapa Nui was far more like genuine science fiction than all those action movies that use an SF setting to sweeten the violent sequences.
The plotting was very tight, with no pointless scenes or characters, and the story was engaging. The scene where they were cutting down the last tree in the universe (so far as they knew) for reasons that seemed compelling to them and yet were totally irrational, was really horrific.
And personally, I liked the breasts.

[–] vise357 18 years ago

I totally agree. This movie gave us a glimpse into a world most people know nothing about - most people think of those giant heads when they think of Easter Island, with no thought of how the giant head statues got where they are, or why.
Also, I liked the breasts.

[–] hbehtooee 18 years ago

I too liked this film and think its a big shame that so few people have seen this film.

I aslo agree that it was horrifying the way the society became so brutal at the end

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] pcventures 18 years ago

Why I liked it... a lot!

1. Almost completely unique setting for a story (budget roughly doubled due
to on location shooting)
2. Excellent cinematography (albeit with a touch too much red filtering)
3. Haunting Stewart Copeland score (some of the riffs showed up in the urban
film Fresh, of all places)
4. Surprisingly meaty take on the weakness/abuses of theocratic government
5. As well as what happens when too much wealth and power accrue
to the leisure classes
6. Flashes of odd humor, decried as "wacky" by an IMDB commentor. My favorite
is probably when they're about to cut down the last tree (the one
with JSL and SH's initials, of course), and one of the axemen
says, "someone has to do it, might as well be us."
7. To step outside the scope here, the "world has sunk, we're the only ones
left" theme was mirrored in the movie Waterworld. I wish the "polar ice
caps have melted" narration was done by the guy who did the opening
narration for Rapa Nui.

[–] kevster76 16 years ago

Truth be told is that this was the start of when the critics started to hate Kevin Costner, the man who made Dences with Wolves & starred in JFK. A year later was Waterworld and it was all downhill from there.
Personally, I loved Rapa-Nui & I liked Waterworld. C'mon!! it wasnt that bad! It was Entertaining with large set-pieces just like Rapa-Nui.
As for the critics,they don't know Sh@t! The real critics is us the movie going public. I know that we need a comment on a film to go & see it but if a critic is having a bad day, for sure hes gonna write something negative. The worst thing is, they get paid for it!!! And for someone who panned Blade Runner on release, He does not know anything about cinema & should find something else to do.

[–] sparktom 16 years ago

I too loved this movie. The DP did a splendid job, breathtaking vistas. The writers crafted a superb story, perhaps more factual than fiction. The actors did a service to the script and probably sunk into character for great lengths to help round out motivations. The director managed to get a difficult film completed with, what I assume to be as always, a difficult budget for this type of flick. Water shots, period costumes, etc.

I was impressed the first time I saw it years ago, and I'll be renting it again soon to show my wife. It may not have the budget that Mel's "Apocolypto" had, but it shines as the first of it's type.

"Careful with that axe, Eugene." - Pink Floyd

[–] sparktom 16 years ago

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] lnichol619 15 years ago

Tried to watch this movie tonight and, personally, it was ruined for me as soon as the characters opened their mouths and started speaking English. Perhaps this is one of the things that bothered others who didn't like the film. It's very difficult for a movie to come across as being authentic when something as significant as that has been tampered with.

[–] mach37-2 15 years ago

And what language would you have preferred to hear spoken in this film? Would subtitles have met with your approval? Does anyone really know what language they spoke? At the very least I am thankful that the characters did not speak with a British accent. Okay, I would consent to the tradition of starting out the first few sentences in a "native" language with subtitles, then transitioning to English; would that have ruined it less for you?

[–] willb-8 15 years ago

I agree, the voices really bothered me. I also felt the characters were simplistic and childlike. This island is facing issues which risk all their lives on the island - deforestation which is huge in so many ways for these people as well as the obvious uprising of the short ears and yet only Jason Scott Lee's character notices this or cares? The short ears express no concern in chopping down the very last tree to win the rule of the island - are they thinking no further than a few days into the future? The lessons are real I just felt the treatment simplistic. The race at the end is fantastic and saves the movie but it could have been a lot more than that.

[–] zhokar 14 years ago

What I found shocking about the movie is the ethnological angle presented by the filmmakers or suggested to be taken by the viewers. Worse than in Apocalypto the culture is displayed in a way you'd expect in colonial times from people visiting a varieté, presenting exciting exotic animals and dressed up noble wild men.

In the words of Roger Ebert:
"Rapa Nui slips through the National Geographic Loophole. This is the Hollywood convention which teaches us that brown breasts are not as sinful as white ones, and so while it may be evil to gaze upon a blond Playboy centerfold and feel lust in our hearts, it is educational to watch Polynesian maidens frolicking topless in the surf. This isn't sex; it's geography."

Quite honestly this disrespectful interpretation of cultures in Hollywood makes me sick.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] DC-Tiki 12 years ago

I just watched this movie, fully enjoyed it and didn't really even notice the nakedness of the characters as the storyline of people isolated in a steadily declining ecology was far more engaging than checking out some eye candy. I just assumed that this was historically accurate that the people wore (or didn't wear) clothing like this, if it isn't then I guess one might have a point of saying it was exploitation only it clearly wasn't intended to be and is more likely to have been a genuine mistake. If it was meant to titilate then a horny guy like me would've definitely noticed it a lot more, the way I notice all the hot models pretending to act in a Michael Bay movie. If you watched the movie and all you saw were 'sinful breasts' tempting you then i think the problem lies with you (and Ebert) and not the film.

[–] i_am_switch 10 years ago

for what it is worth, when Euros came around to Easter Island, pretty much everyone that was left alive told the same story, that the cult of the birdman became the rule, there wasn't any natural disasters to cause a sharp decline in population, there wasn't warring because the cult of the birdman eliminated it via the egg hunt, and the island became vastly over populated. The resources were decimated and there wasn't really any consensus as to why (most people who were alive when the last tree was dropped were dead by the time explorers found them) and yeah the film may have taken some liberties with that. On the other hand, it is not a huge jump of logic to believe that the CoBM did destroy whatever resources were left in an effort to get more standing heads constructed.

Much of this film is historically accurate, from the dress, the culture, and the cult, from the rather frighteningly limited amount of knowledge that still remained.

[–] Zando777 11 years ago

It wasn't bad. Ebert is gay.

[–] wegottableeder 10 years ago

Ebert had a bit of a history of giving movies bad reviews and then "revising" his opinion after the movie went on to be considered a classic. I believe he did the same to A Clockwork Orange IIRC.