This 1997 version of H.G. Wells classic yarn was a huge flop. On paper, the casting of Marlon Brando as the mad geneticist seemed like a winner. Throw in a supporting performance by flavor of the month actor Val Kilmer. Get respected writer/director Richard (HARDWARE) Stanley to write and direct. Secure Oscar winning special effects artist Stan Winston to handle the visual effects. With all this talent, you think the movie would at least be moderately entertaining. Sometime during production, Stanley clashed with the studio’s political brass and was promptly fired. John Frankenheimer was quickly recruited to bat cleanup. Not to knock Mr. Frankenheimer’s talents, he is a great director, but he has had no experience in the realm of sci-fi or special effects films. I believe that had Richard Stanley stayed on the project, we might have had a stylish, special effects driven film (but maybe not, perhaps this one was just destined to fail).

But we all know how it turned out. What went wrong? Well, one thing that may have hurt it is that several minutes of footage had to be trimmed for theatrical release. Well, no matter how good a New Line movie is or how bad it may be, you can count on a high quality DVD with some decent extras. To atone for the studio politics, they released an unrated director’s cut featuring an additional 4 minutes (which may make Frankenheimer happy), but this is a good example of how a director’s vision is not enough to correct the studios mistakes (or justify a movie that should have never been made).

Besides the talents of Frankenheimer, Brando, and Kilmer (as Montgomery), David (DRAGONHEART) Thewlis is the actual protagonist, Edward Douglas. Fairuza (THE CRAFT) Balk portrays Aissa, the cat woman. Rugged Ron Perlman is at home playing the half-human\half-beast Sayer of the Law (a role Bela Lugosi made famous in the 1933 version). New Zealand actor Temuera Morrison plays the leader of the evil animal men Azazello.

Well, we all know how bad this movie is. The good news is, taken as a bad film there is some worth here. There are scenes so bad, you just have to laugh with it. Like the scenes where Brando camps it up in diapers, a muumuu, and kabuki make-up. And in another scene he plays the piano with one of his midget mini-me creations is something right out of a John Waters film. Another ridiculous scene is when he sits with a bucket on his head while his daughter fills it with ice. Brando resides in his lavishly furnished jungle estate and insists that no one is to eat meat, even though characters based on carnivores are evident in the film. When Val Kilmer’s drug addled biologist character goes insane, he puts on a dress and his performance turns into a big slab of ham. He goes on and pretends he is Dr. Moreau (he imitates Brando) for a large portion of the movie. All of this results in outrageousness, and I don’t mean outrageous in a positive sense.

In 17 years of secret experiments on his remote tropical island, the Nobel laureate geneticist Dr. Moreau has tried to create a better human race by mixing the genes of other mammals into the human gene pool. In the process, he has developed a population of hybrids who regard him as ``the father.'' Moreau sandwiches an obsession with playing the keyboard music of Bach and Chopin between his eerie experiments, which keep producing freakish specimens.

Douglas (Thewlis), now a captive, pokes around the island hell. He sees danger at every turn, and a desperate escape attempt initiated by Moreau's daughter, Aissa (Fairuza Balk), the only one of the inhabitants who seems normal, is linked to a disastrous uprising of the beast-people. Douglas also meets the beast-people's Sayer of the Law, a half man half-animal with a Moses complex.

Things get ugly when Moreau learns that one of his creations, leopard man Lo-Mai (Mark Dacascos), has violated the Law by killing a rabbit. At a hasty trial, the hyena-swine (Daniel Rigney) discovers that Moreau has embedded electronic chips in the bodies of his creatures. Moreau controls them from a remote keyboard he carries around. The beasts begin to pull out the chips, and the inevitable rebellion erupts.

The final act has the oppressive characters getting their comeuppance, while the beast run amok. The creatures commandeer military-type vehicles and take up firearms and firebombs. It doesn't quite fit, though. When was the last time hyenas drove jeeps and blew away people with machine guns? Answer: When a Hollywood movie needed chaotic action sequences to keep audiences from demanding their money back out of sheer boredom.

The only thing worthy in the whole movie is the make-up effects of Stan Winston. Winston does an admirable job with the animal men, and gives the highly intelligent creations and abundance of human features. The primal beast men who hate mankind are simply a step up above their animalistic counterparts. One huge failing of the special effects, which cannot squarely be blamed on Winston (since CGI is not his forte) are the CGI effects, which thankfully take a back seat to Winston’s animatronics. The CGI are extremely cartoony, moreso than I’ve seen in any movie. There are some tiny rat-like creatures that are CGI animated and you can see right through them in some angles.

There are more reasons why this film is terrible. First is the 6^th grade level sci-fi expositions. Secondly, the film is cliched, both for its "playing god" theme and the "create the perfect human race" theme. Thirdly, Brando acts like a total loon throughout the film. Yet, Kilmer feels he must upstage Brando by out-weirding him. And together their performances don’t make you feel sympathetic when their characters meet their fates. The only worthy performance is by David Thewlis, but he appears to be embarrassed that he is in this stinker.

SIGHT

You can always rely on New Line to use 16x9 enhanced widescreen (2:35:1) transfer and this one is excellent. The image is very sharp and well defined. Color reproduction is vivid and without bleeding, or chroma noise. The blacks and shadow details are deep but you can see everything clearly in the many night scenes. Flesh tones looked natural in all lighting. There is a lot of blood flow in this film, and the transfer makes it all the more horrifying. The detail level is incredible and the lush green scenery of the island is full of color and detail. William Fraker is a capable cinematographer and his visuals redeem the film somewhat. The special effects for the most part are impressive, except the poorly integrated CGI effects.

SOUND

This is a great DD 5.1 Surround soundtrack. There is a lot of ambience in the film that the soundtrack enhances. The first hour is very dialogue driven. Then the soundtrack kicks into high gear in the last act. During this part of the movie, the soundtrack consists of the sound effects (with deep bass), the dialogue, and the score perfectly synchronized which makes for an enjoyable audio sensory experience. The sound field activity is nicely balanced with lots of panning effects which do not detract from one another. Composer Gary Change’s score is exciting and complements the onscreen action, and yet it is not a memorable score.

FEATURES

The star bios are for actors Marlon Brando, David Thewlis, Val Kilmer, Fairuza Balk, and Temuera Morrison. The original theatrical trailer (which is better than the movie itself) is widescreen, DD 5.1, and runs 1:58. There is an international trailer that is also widescreen, DD 5.1, and runs 1:08. There is a behind the scenes featurette (full frame, stereo) that is your typical HBO style documentary. It is highlighted by interviews with Brando, Thewlis, and Kilmer. Also, Side 2 of the DVD contains an inferior full frame version of the film.

CONCLUSION

So H.G. Wells is spinning in his grave. You know there is a problem when the monstrous characters in a movie act better than the human cast. The movie fails to live up to the Wells legacy, but if cheesy, unintentionally funny sci-fi is your bag, there is no shortage of laughs in THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU. Maybe one day we’ll be saying that this film was ahead of it’s time, much the way people treated Jess Franco’s early works, which actually turn out to have some cult value in today’s society. Maybe not. Anyway, you can’t deny the quality job done by New Line. Great visuals, audio, and some decent extras. Though the movie is terrible, the DVD presentation is superb.

THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU is available at DVDEmpire

THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU (1977) is available at DVDEmpire

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