The Island of Dr. Moreau

About every two or three decades, somebody in Hollywood decides to do a film version of H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau. It is a peculiar phenomena, much like reports of spontaneous combustion. Nobody can explain why it happens. Instead, movie viewers just find themselves staring dumbly at the devastating results.

How bad can it be? Based upon the most recent outbreak of this pest, the results can be more deadly than the Ebola virus. The new production of The Island of Dr. Moreau manages to combine all of the hackneyed, pseudo-philosophic posturing of the previous versions and then slide into a totally incoherent babble within the first thirty minutes of its run. Then the situation really gets ugly, because the movie still has an hour of screen time to fill and the script has already run out of ideas.

Not that everything in The Island of Dr. Moreau is ghastly. The opening credits are nicely done (a la James Bond) and the makeup work by Stan Winston is extremely well executed. Besides, the movie does provoke a few cheap giggles, especially when one realizes just how many talented people are throwing their careers away in this production.

Take for example David Thewlis, an extremely good actor who desperately needs a better agent. He plays Douglas, a United Nations diplomat who finds himself stranded in the Java Sea after a plane crash. He is suppose to have an idealistic sense of hopefulness for the future of mankind, but he stumbles through most of the film in a numb state of easy despair. Obviously, Thewlis has just read the screenplay.

Then there is Val Kilmer, a gifted but erratic actor with an attitude problem. As Montgomery, he inexplicably rescues Douglas from a watery grave. Also inexplicably, he takes Douglas with him to the mysterious island where he works for an infamous and reclusive scientist involved in some highly questionably research. Even more inexplicable is the fact that Kilmer then hangs around for the rest of the movie. Maybe Kilmer couldn't resist waiting until he got to demonstrate that he can do a better impersonation of Brando than even Brando can do. Or perhaps he was strangely drawn to his character's final line about going to doggy heaven.

Finally, there is the big guy himself. Weighing in at 400 plus pounds is Marlon Brando, an ex-actor turned ex-movie star turned resident crackpot of the silver screen. His Dr. Moreau is part noble idealist and part mad scientist who wants to reshape the human race by genetically altering other animals into semi-human monstrosities under his control. But mostly Brando waddles through the film in a variety of goofy get-ups while behaving as if he were auditioning for a drag version of the Gertrude Stein story. By the time he sticks an ice bucket on his head and calls it his caloric inverter, you know that he is mad (the actor, not the character).

This is as good as it gets on The Island of Dr. Moreau. Which means that the average viewer will spend most of the movie pondering such major questions as: If Moreau is such a pacifist, then why are there so many 9mm handguns and AK-47s available on the island? Did Charles Laughton (who played Moreau in the 1933 version) have more guts? After all, he stuck it out for the whole movie while Brando bails out mid-way through this sucker. Was Kilmer widely reported hostilities during the movie's production caused by his realization that he just signed up for first-mate duty on the Titanic.

Maybe the movie should have added a few rock music numbers, some intentional gags, and cast Tim Curry in the lead. Then it could be retitled The Rocky Horror Picture Show II and eventually score a never ending run on the midnight movie circuit. Film history is chock full of so many missed opportunities.

So why not miss out on this one? You might just feel better for it.