Steven Spielberg’s Jaws was a massive success. It turned Spielberg into a household name. It almost single-handedly created the summer-blockbuster season. It was based on a novel by Peter Benchley. The book was a big success before Spielberg’s cinematic adaptation, but the movie propelled it into the stratosphere. It was only natural that Hollywood would turn to him again, hoping for a similar success.
Buy The IslandIn 1977, Peter Yates directed an adaptation of Benchley’s novel The Deep, and while it wasn’t nearly the blockbuster Jaws was, it was still quite successful. Benchley co-wrote that film with Tracy Keenan Wynn. He gets sole screenwriting credit on The Island. I suppose it felt like a no-brainer to Hollywood to keep adapting his novels and making big piles of money. But The Island was panned by critics and was a box-office failure. His stories would be relegated to television adaptations ever after.
The Island is a deeply flawed film. It has some interesting ideas, but it fails to do anything interesting with them. Its story is all over the place, and its tone is a mess. It begins almost like a slasher horror film. We find some rich businessmen out on a paid fishing expedition. They clearly have no idea what they are doing, and they’re annoying the boat’s staff. They notice a small canoe floating by and grab hold of it. Under a blanket is a man with a hatchet. He whacks one guy in the head, cuts off another’s leg, and kills nearly everyone on board (except a young boy who we’ll later meet again). It is a brutal, blood-soaked scene. We’ll have a similar one just a few minutes later.
But first, we’ll meet our hero. Blair Maynard (Michael Caine) is a journalist working for a New York City paper. He’s curious as to why so many boats seem to disappear in the Bermuda Triangle and talks his editor into letting him go and investigate. Unfortunately, his son Justin (Jeffrey Frank) has shown up at the office. Turns out his mother and her new lover have decided to have a weekend to themselves, and they dropped Justin off without informing Blair. No worries, Blair tells Justin they are heading to Florida for a vacation, and wouldn’t Disney World be fun?
Of course, they don’t go to Disney World. They fly to Miami, then take a small prop plane which crash-lands on some small island. There they start their investigations. It is these early scenes that worked for me the most in this film. Blair and Justin have a nice rapport. It is clear that Blair hasn’t been the best father, but he’s trying. While in Miami, Justin talks his father into stopping off at a gun shop. They fire rounds at a target, and Justin winds up buying a pistol. This will factor in later in the film, but it’s a fun little scene showing how Justin has grown up independently and is comfortable in the gun shop. While Blaire is a bit more trepidatious, even though he says he fought in Vietnam. The investigative scenes where the two of them wander around the island asking questions are interesting and well done.
Then they get in a boat to do a little exploring and are captured by modern-day pirates. This is a group of people who have been living on an isolated island for centuries without disturbance by society. They are a lost colony. But while the outside world has not discovered them, they regularly attack pleasure boats and steal their supplies. So, they wear modern clothes and are well accustomed to modern weapons, but they haven’t figured out modern technology. They speak in a sort of pidgin English and have created a basic constitution and formed a hodgepodge religion.
They plan to murder Blair straight out, but Beth (Angela Punch McGregor) takes a liking to him. She thinks he’ll make her some fine babies, and since all the other women are incapable of childbirth due to centuries of inbreeding, they let her have her man. Nau (David Warner), the leader of the pirates, takes Justin on as a surrogate son. A little torture and a lot of brainwashing, and Justin starts to believe he belongs with the pirates.
Blair regularly tries to escape and fails. We’re treated to another pirate attack. This one is far more action-oriented than horror-coded like the first two were. There is a goofy moment when one of the passengers does a bit of kung fu on the pirates before getting a sword in his belly. They find a large stash of cocaine on the boat, but the pirates don’t know what it is. Blair tells Beth it is a drug. When she asks what it cures, he replies with “insecurity.” That’s a pretty good line, but then the film never really explores the cocaine angle again. The film does that a lot – it throws out ideas and little moments but then doesn’t explore them.
There is an interesting movie to be made about a lost colony, or modern-day pirates. But this isn’t it. According to the IMDB trivia page, Michael Caine refuses to ever speak about this film. It is easy to see why. There is a certain entertainment value here. At least it is never boring. But it is such a mess I can’t really recommend it.
Kino Lorber presents The Island with a nice-looking 4K restoration from the original camera negative. It comes with a UHD disc and a standard Blu-ray.
Extras include the following:
- Audio commentary by action film historian Mike Leeder
- Audio commentary by film historian Howard S. Berger
- Theatrical trailer (newly remastered in 2K)
- Limited edition reversible art and o-card slipcase
