Jules Verne's Mysterious Island

A Verne Classic Gets A Modern SyFy Treatment: Pleasantly Silly, But Not Much Fun
Thank you, SyFy! You've done it again! Sadly, though, this time you've somewhat missed the boat (or the balloon). The original presentation of "Jules Verne's Mysterious Island" is another epic of bad movie mayhem. For the record, I love SyFy films for reasons too numerous to indicate. I have ranked some of their abominable classics at every step of the ratings scale--including five stars. But to really stand out, an intentionally bad movie has to embrace its silliness and be an unapologetic bit of fun. "Mysterious Island" embraces its silliness, to be sure, (to the point Verne would be rolling over in his grave) but it somehow still misses out on the fun factor. I wanted to laugh along with the cast of nincompoops, but instead I found their exploits quite tiring, grating and underwhelming. The cast was decent, I've liked leads Lochlyn Munro and Gina Holden in other projects. And the presence of the great character actor Pruitt Taylor Vince was a welcome addition--but then I...

No Jules Verne...
Rarely am I moved to write an actual movie review, but this movie was SO BAD that I will, if only to warn people off of it. I love Jules Verne. I read unabridged copies of (English translations of) From Earth to the Moon and Journey to the Center of the Earth when I was only eight years old. I've read Mysterious Island, arguably my favorite Verne novel, at least a dozen times cover to cover. These are some of the best adventure stories ever written, fruit of an unfettered imagination fueled by the amazing discoveries in physics and engineering of Verne's day, a day when anything seemed possible. They are also darned good STORIES, full of rich plot and historical context (well or poorly done). They literally beg for someone to make equally unabridged movies out of them, movies that simply realize on film the story that Verne so ably tells, with the lightest of editorial hands.

Until someone does. That someone INEVITABLY decides that they are a better writer than Verne (or,...

NOT YOUR MOMMA'S MYSTERIOUS ISLAND
Pruitt Taylor Vince fans will be pleased to know he dies early in the film so they can feel free to eject the disc at any time. This film combines Mysterious Island, and Bermuda Triangle time travel with morlocks (from Verne's "Time Machine") into one film and does so rather poorly.

The film deals with issues of race, but does so as a "now vs then" scenario. Gina Holden and Susie Abromeit provide the token eye candy as women aviators from 2012 named Fogg. Phileas Fogg was a Verne character from "Around the World in 80 Days." Toss in Captain Nemo (William Morgan Sheppard) from "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" and a giant octopus that prevents any ship from leaving and I think you get the idea. In movies, not all gumbo is good.

The acting was not great. The dialouge was faux-drama. The special effects weren't. The movie ended with a sequel in mind (good luck with that). This film might work for preteens, although the 1961 version keeps looking better with time...

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