Yes.
This novel is a great, entertaining yarn about a Crusoe-like struggle for survival. The characters find ingenious ways to make use of the resources the island provides, and therein lies the interest.
There is nothing about massive beasts in the book. Unless, of course, you count the large breed of fox. Foxes the size of timberwolves have somehow become animals (even mosquitoes) that are 1000 times larger than normal in the movie. Verne was too grounded in science to make such a preposterous claim. Animals could not have evolved to that size without a correspondingly large supply of food.
The acting in this flick is terrible. The scripting is worse than the acting. The special effects are worse than...well, you get the idea.
Southerners might be surprised and offended to know that the Confederacy has now become a Nazi-like organization which runs death camps and commits hideous atrocities. The notion that the two women have to leave the prison camp because they're worried about their safety is an appalling slap in the face to southern culture. Of the two, the North was far less respectful to women than the South.
This movie shows its hand too soon. Verne kept secrets from us, and the characters. We don't learn where the island is in the world until they've been there for some time. Nemo doesn't appear until near the end. The island reveals its resources to the characters gradually, and only through the hard-earned labour of the characters. This movie reveals all of these facts up front, within the first hour. What's left to discover? Where does the "Mysterious" part come in?
Although there were pirates, there was no lost treasure (a wearisome and clicheed subplot, all too predictable) in the book. Its use as a plot device is a distraction from the real interest the original story offers.
How expensive would it really have been to make the original story, instead of this CGI-laden dreck? I would argue that it might have been a lot cheaper, especially with someone else than Stewart in the Nemo role. Read the book and see if you agree. It certainly would have been cheaper to use trained wolves made up as foxes than to pay for all of the dull, illogical CGI monsters.
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tom_amity
18 years ago
Pike69 and Brandon are right on the money! A film version of this story that followed the book would be one of the most riveting movies ever made.
Unfortunately, this isn't the only Verne novel that's been butchered by filmmakers. Disney's "In Search of the Castaways"? Stupid. The two previous films of "Mysterious Island" (actually, one film and one TV version)? Stupid. The two TV versions of "Twenty Thousand Leagues" that came out the same year, in fact the same month of the same year? Stupid. "Light at the End of the World" (classic miscasting of Kirk Douglas and Yul Brynner)? Stupid.
I recommend "Around the World in Eighty Days" (the more recent version - despite the rewriting of the Passpartout character to fit Jackie Chan). Or Fleischer's immortal 1956 version of "20,000 Leagues" (again, despite that embarrassingly hammy performance by Kirk Douglas - this Nemo is one of James Mason's best performances, which is saying something). Or the version of "Master of the World" with Vincent Price as Robur, despite the addition of a gratuitous female character.
Most films of Verne books are trash. This particular "Mysterious Island" is, however, easily the worst.
Somebody said somewhere on IMDb that Verne's novel "The Begum's Fortune" would make a pretty cool movie. I agree.
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pninson
17 years ago
Verne wasn't the only victim --- has anyone ever seen a decent adaptation of an H. G. Wells story? Empire of the Ants, anyone? War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise?
Interesting how authors like Verne and Wells, whose books have been translated into dozens of languages and remained in print for more than a century, are considered by filmmakers to have inferior stories that need to be replaced by something catchier.
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