Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Spoonixel Amateur movie with Big budget

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

inspectors71 That's what I was thinking when I saw The Island on HBO 35 years ago. I have almost no memory of this thing except for a bunch of Coasties or pirates getting mowed down by a .30 caliber machine gun. My clearest memory is wondering how Michael Ritchie and Caine and Peter Benchley could produce something this bad. Well, that's easy enough. Benchley was an awful novelist. Michael Ritchie did some great work--The Candidate and The Bad News Bears come to mind. Prime Cut is a disgusting piece of dreck that I love to watch for its very yuckiness. He did a number of fairly good movies, too, but my impression of Ritchie is one of journeyman skill.Why he did this thing makes no sense. Why Michael Caine, a force of nature, has done so many crappy movies along with the good ones makes dollar sense only.If you happen upon The Island on TV--or on the bottom left of the movie section of the library--my suggestion is to watch it if your time is of absolutely no value.

grantss Probably one of Michael Caine's worst movies, if not his worst.. Could have been an interesting and gritty movie, but some of the direction is plain bizarre. Basic plot was good, and the initial set-up was quite gritty, however, from a point it becomes rather frivolous. One moment the pirates are the bad guys, killing people in cold blood, next moment we're almost expected to like them and sympathise with them. From that point, every time the pirates attack a ship, a rather jaunty soundtrack is playing in the background, as if this is a kid's movie, or a comedy! But then they go and kill people, rather graphically.Plot does become rather random towards the end, too.Caine's performance is OK, especially considering what little he had to work with. Some of the pirates are a bit over-the-top though.

Neil Welch Blair Maynard, seeking to reconnect with his young son Justin, takes him on a Caribbean cruise to research Bermuda Triangle disappearances. Unfortunately, they discover an explanation - a lost band of descendants of 17th century pirates who take Blair into slavery as a breeding source of fresh genes, while Justin is brainwashed into becoming the "son" of the pirate leader.After Jaws became a massive-selling book and then a box office movie smash, Peter Benchley was flavour of the month for a while. The Deep followed, less successfully, and then The Island, which more or less put paid to Benchley's career as a source of movie ideas.It's not entirely clear why. The idea is not a bad one and, in Michael Caine as Blair and David Warner as the pirate leader, it has two potentially good leads (albeit Caine was going through his phase of taking any part as long as there was a decent pay cheque attached to it).Although the film is a fairly good adaptation of the book, it is no fun at all. It is very violent and purports to be adult (as was the book) but doesn't feel credible. Had it been played as a family-oriented adventure rather than almost-horror, it might have worked better.

tomgillespie2002 Oh, Peter Benchley, did you ever write a narrative that didn't involve the ocean in some manner? Well, no! After the huge success of his fishy saga, Jaws (both book and the massively superior film), his output was generic to say the least. The Deep (1977) was a story of deep sea divers, Hunters of the Reef (1978), is self-explanatory, and The Beast (1996), also incredibly obvious. And here, The Island, is a story of the high seas, of quasi-seventeenth century pirates, living in obscurity in modern-day Bahamas. A promising opening sees a crew of boat-dwellers being attacked, with all the gruesome and graphic horror of axes plunging into heads (reminiscent of the opening of John Carpenter's The Fog (1980 - Review #268) - but without the supernatural elements).The opening sequence turns out to be a spate of mysterious "boat" disappearances, much like the Bermuda triangle enigma. Blair Maynard (Michael Caine), a New York journalist (of "Limey" origin), sets out for the island of Navidad with his son Justin (Jeffrey Frank). After a dramatic entrance to the island, they charter a boat for a father-son fishing trip, where they are kidnapped by pirates, headed by John (the always watchable David Warner). The son is bizarrely indoctrinated into the gang immediately, and he becomes instantly suspicious of his father (?). Did daddy not take you to Disneyland? Typical civilised children!It's a pretty banal affair that becomes tiresome and predictable. Warner does bring his usual charm to the screen, but even he struggles with a tedious script. His pirate gang is littered with familiar faces (Dudley Sutton, Frank Middlemass, Don Henderson), and there are even some relatively humorous dialogue. For example, after the boarding of a boat, the female pirate, Beth (Angela Punch McGregor), asks what the white powder on the floor is. Blair answers: "It's medicine called cocaine." Beth: "What does it cure?" Blair: "Insecurity." However, this does not save a dubious affair, despite some competent direction from Michael Ritchie, who had previously worked on The Candidate (1972).www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com