Mysterious Island is set during 1865 & at the height of the American Civil War, in Virginia four captured Union soldiers escape from prison & use a Confederate observation balloon to make their getaway. Unfortunately the balloon is caught in the worst storm in American history & they drift helplessly for miles across land & ocean, eventually the balloon comes down just off the coast of a mysterious island. There lead by Capatin Cyrus Harding (Michael Craig) they find shelter & food & start to make a boat with which to leave the island but their plans aren't helped when they are attacked by all manner of giant sized animals as the stranded humans fight for survival on all fronts...
This English American co-production was directed by Cy Enfield & was apparently made in part due to the success of the similarly themed Swiss Family Robinson (1960) made by Disney the previous year, in fact legend has it the film was originally going to be filmed as a straight survival story & not feature any monsters or fantastical elements but luckily someone (probably the money men) decided that would be boring & added the sci-fi & monster stuff. The script by John Prebble, Daniel Ullman & Crane Wilbur was based on the Jules Verne novel L'Île Mystérieuse, or Mysterious Island in English, which he wrote in 1875 as a sequel to his Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Verne's novel doesn't contain any monsters at all & no sci-fi elements apart from Captain Nemo & his submarine & is pretty much a serious survival story in the vein of the Tom Hanks film Cast Away (2000) & it's fairly obvious that the monsters were tacked on as they really do have very little connection with anything else, even Nemo's explanation for how he created them is weak. To be fair the film only comes to life when one of Ray Harryhausen's stop motion monsters appear, otherwise it's a fairly slow going & dare I say it even rather dull affair. The character's aren't great, for instance Elena & Herbert suddenly announce they are to marry after not even so much as looking at each other before.
It takes a while for the monsters to show up & even then I don't think Mysterious Island is Harryhausen's best work, the giant crab & the tentacled sea creature at the end are both cool but the giant bird looks silly & the bees are seemingly pointless. None of the monsters really interact with the human cast that much & they are surprisingly static, I certainly don't think they are anywhere near Harryhausen's best creations although he gives it his all & the animation is still impressive. The poorest effect is the bee, if you look closely as it seals the honeycomb up that the two people are trapped in you can see it's antenna's go from being behind the honey wall to in front of it between frames depending on the position of it's head. There is also one huge continuity error at the end, as they approach the shipwrecked pirate ship underwater the whole thing is submerged yet in the very next shot above water on the raft the shipwrecked pirate ship's masts are above the water. The model shots, the matte paintings & stock footage don't match that well, aren't that well put together & look messy.
Technically the film is alright, the Spanish locations are nice but some of the effects are pretty poor. I don't mean the Harryhausen stuff but the model shots, the matte paintings & back projection. The acting is alright, it's a bit stiff here & there but alright. Herbert Lom does OK as Captain Nemo.
Mysterious Island is a decent enough fantasy adventure film, Harryhausen's monsters are the only real reason to see it since otherwise it's a pretty dull survival film. Worth a watch on a lazy Saturday afternoon but not the classic it could have been.
This English American co-production was directed by Cy Enfield & was apparently made in part due to the success of the similarly themed Swiss Family Robinson (1960) made by Disney the previous year, in fact legend has it the film was originally going to be filmed as a straight survival story & not feature any monsters or fantastical elements but luckily someone (probably the money men) decided that would be boring & added the sci-fi & monster stuff. The script by John Prebble, Daniel Ullman & Crane Wilbur was based on the Jules Verne novel L'Île Mystérieuse, or Mysterious Island in English, which he wrote in 1875 as a sequel to his Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Verne's novel doesn't contain any monsters at all & no sci-fi elements apart from Captain Nemo & his submarine & is pretty much a serious survival story in the vein of the Tom Hanks film Cast Away (2000) & it's fairly obvious that the monsters were tacked on as they really do have very little connection with anything else, even Nemo's explanation for how he created them is weak. To be fair the film only comes to life when one of Ray Harryhausen's stop motion monsters appear, otherwise it's a fairly slow going & dare I say it even rather dull affair. The character's aren't great, for instance Elena & Herbert suddenly announce they are to marry after not even so much as looking at each other before.
It takes a while for the monsters to show up & even then I don't think Mysterious Island is Harryhausen's best work, the giant crab & the tentacled sea creature at the end are both cool but the giant bird looks silly & the bees are seemingly pointless. None of the monsters really interact with the human cast that much & they are surprisingly static, I certainly don't think they are anywhere near Harryhausen's best creations although he gives it his all & the animation is still impressive. The poorest effect is the bee, if you look closely as it seals the honeycomb up that the two people are trapped in you can see it's antenna's go from being behind the honey wall to in front of it between frames depending on the position of it's head. There is also one huge continuity error at the end, as they approach the shipwrecked pirate ship underwater the whole thing is submerged yet in the very next shot above water on the raft the shipwrecked pirate ship's masts are above the water. The model shots, the matte paintings & stock footage don't match that well, aren't that well put together & look messy.
Technically the film is alright, the Spanish locations are nice but some of the effects are pretty poor. I don't mean the Harryhausen stuff but the model shots, the matte paintings & back projection. The acting is alright, it's a bit stiff here & there but alright. Herbert Lom does OK as Captain Nemo.
Mysterious Island is a decent enough fantasy adventure film, Harryhausen's monsters are the only real reason to see it since otherwise it's a pretty dull survival film. Worth a watch on a lazy Saturday afternoon but not the classic it could have been.