The Island of Dr. Moreau

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The Island of Dr. Moreau
out of 4

Starring: Marlon Brando, Val Kilmer
Director: John Frankenheimer
Rated: PG-13
RunTime: 96 Minutes
Release Date: August 1996
Genres: Horror, Sci-Fi/Fantasy
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*Also starring: David Thewlis, Fairuza Balk, Temuera Morrison, Ron Perlman, Marco Hofschneider, William Hootkins, Daniel Rigney, Nelson de la Rosa



Review by Steve Rhodes
3 stars out of 4
From the opening credits where the type dances to Gary Chang's music with a heavy percussion beat, director John Frankenheimer's THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU boldly announces that it is a movie not to be ignored. Not since SEVEN have I seen such impressive opening credits.
That the movie turned out to be as much a religious allegory as an H. G. Wells science fiction story, I would have never guessed. I asked several of the other critics after the press screening if they knew if the book had the religious aspects in it, but having not read the book in years, none of them had any idea. Personally, I have no problem enjoying stories that are very loose adaptations of books, but still I wondered. I love Wells, and this is the first book of his to be made into a movie in twenty years, the last being EMPIRE OF THE ANTS.
At any rate, as soon as the credits subside, William Fraker's cinematography makes a dramatic zoom to reveal a boat adrift in a vast ocean. The narrator, David Thewlis playing Edward Douglas, tells us that his plane crashed, and he has been drifting in the South Pacific in the lifeboat for six days. You may remember British actor Thewlis from his many recent roles including DRAGONHEART, RESTORATION, and BLACK BEAUTY, which is still his best.
Douglas, half dead, is picked up and treated by the strange Montgomery (Val Kilmer). When Douglas comes to, he asks Montgomery, "Are you a doctor?" Montgomery shrugs and tells him, "Well, I more of a vet." These turn out to be quite prophetic words.
Montgomery takes Douglas to an island where Montgomery wears a sarong and has a flower behind his ear. He is one handsome guy in this getup, but I still do not know why Norma Moriceau chose this costume for Kilmer. Even stranger, but somewhat more appropriate is the all white outfit and gloves along with the white pancake makeup that Marlon Brando wears as Dr. Moreau.
When Douglas comes upon a birth operation on a beast that is part human and part animal, he realizes that all of the "doctors" are also human and animal hybrids. He begins to see animals of every type on the island that are part human and humans on the island that are part beast, depending on your point of view.
Douglas is confronted by Montgomery who explains to him the reason Dr. Moreau has moved here to conduct his experiments. It seems that "Animal rights activists drove him out of the States. Got so bad you couldn't cut a rat without reading him his rights."
Douglas finds Dr. Moreau's daughter Aissa (Fairuza Balk) attractive. She wants to help him escape so she takes him to an animal conclave where the lead animal is standing on a rock serving as his pulpit and preaching to his congregation, "We are all men, are we not because the father has made us?" Yes, Dr. Moreau is indeed their father and their god. By the end of the show the word father is beginning to be replaced by the god reference.
The doctor tries to reassure Douglas that, "I have seen the devil in my microscope, and I have changed him." He explains the ultimate purpose of his experiments to Douglas, whose sole purpose is to ignore the doctor and get off the island as quickly as possible. Montgomery scoffs at Douglas when he tries to use their radio equipment. He taunts Douglas with, "What are you going to say, 'Mayday. Mayday. I'm being held by a pig lady.'"
I vacillated between being absolutely fascinated by this story and wanting the animals to eat Brando and Kilmer because their acting is so bad. Given all of the drugs used and give the look of the cast, another title for the film could have been PLANET OF THE APES GETS STONED.
Notice too that the doctor is clearly playing the role of the pope. The carriage he rides in, his robes, and his staff are all straight out of the Vatican's closet. He has an electronic way to control his wayward flock, however, that the popes have never had. As the animals put it, "if there is no pain, there is no law."
The makeup and creature effects by Stan Winston (both TERMNATORs, JURASSIC PARK, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, and ALIENS among many others) will certainly win him an Academy Award nomination. They are unique and imaginative. The creatures carry the story. The script by Walon Green, Michael Herr, Ron Hutchinson, and Richard Stanley is quite involving. If you like, or at least can ignore, the heavy religious overtones, the script is quite good. It drags some in the middle but it starts and ends strong. Director Frankenheimer and editor Paul Rubell know how to craft a high energy presentation that most of the time keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Without Brando THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU would have been much better, but I liked it, flaws and all. The tacked on epilogue message is a lame attempt to justify the religious aspects of the film. They need no justification. You can like them or not, but the epilogue adds nothing and is trite.
THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU runs a little over an hour and a half. They did not have a information package available at the screening so I am at a lost for some of the details. The film is rated PG-13. There is no sex or nudity. The language is mild and the deaths are not very graphic. It would be fine for most kids over say eight. I recommend the picture to you and give ***.
Copyright © 1996 Steve Rhodes




Hunky Val Kilmer seems to be wondering why he agreed to star in the ridiculous Island of Dr. Moreau




See Val Kilmer feed psychedelic mushrooms to the crazed beast-people! See Aissa's forbidden jungle dance! See the terrible white monster who lumbers across the sets in pancake makeup and Bea Arthur's old caftans!

BY GARY MORRIS
At the preview screening, somebody referred to this film as "The Island of Jeanne Moreau," perhaps imagining it might have benefited from the presence of a diva like Moreau. As it happens, the comment was unnecessary — Marlon Brando, who makes his first appearance looking like Bea Arthur, with troweled-on pancake makeup and an elaborate extended veil, out-divas all the divas of recent memory. Fans of low camp will find much to love in this brainless potboiler; others are hereby warned.
The Island of Dr. Moreau is based on the hoary (1896) H.G. Wells novel about a scientist who, like Dr. Frankenstein, exhibits standard mad scientist hubris by conducting gene-splicing experiments that result in a community of half-human, half-beast creatures. Brando plays the Nobel Prize-winning Moreau, assisted by mesmerizing hunk Val Kilmer as Montgomery, a former neurosurgeon turned drugged-out jailer for the beast people. In a gratuitous swipe at groups like PETA, we're told that Moreau was driven out of the United States by "animal rights activists" to an obscure South Pacific island to conduct his research.
The film opens with what appears to be the rescue of shipwrecked Edward Douglas (David Thewlis) near Moreau's island. His savior, Montgomery, exhibits bizarre behavior from the outset, brutally killing a rabbit in front of him and then locking him in his room. We learn that Montgomery's real function is to try to keep a lid on the beast people — using psychedelic mushrooms, sedatives, and a handy remote-controlled implant that sends them into spasms when they begin to act according to their increasingly violent natures. And Douglas has been kidnapped, not saved, in order to provide DNA that will save a woman from being taken over by her beast-self.
At the center of this fragile kingdom is Brando as Moreau, a waddling behemoth who spends most of his time dressing in ornate, flowing caftans and matching do-rags and playing piano duets with a sort of homunculus figure who wears identical outfits. We never see this ballooned-up drag queen doing any actual research; with more costume changes than a Lana Turner movie, he's obviously too busy choosing his gowns. He has little interaction with the other characters, even the beast-people "children" he keeps in his house as servants. He has a beautiful "daughter" Aissa (Fairuza Balk) who catches the fancy of the island's new guest, but she's plagued by the same problem as the other beast-people; the poor dear is reverting to her animal origins.
It's possible to ignore the creaky plot here and toy with the subtexts, of which there are plenty. More interesting than the obvious religious angle — Moreau as God, the beast-people as spiritually inchoate humanity — The Island of Dr. Moreau can be read as a racial parable, with Moreau the ultimate White Man (right down to that pancake) capriciously creating and dominating a little fiefdom of "people of color," whose existence he can easily end with a push of the button. Moreau's "plantation" even has its "house niggers," a slightly better-treated group of three "sons" and one "daughter" who are permitted to personally attend him. And attend him they do — in one scene, he squeals with mock horror when Aissa massages his fat shoulders too hard. Moreau's island also doubles as a Third World country being exploited by the First World — with the inevitable revolt by those who are sick of being so used.

Subtext allows subversion, and Moreau is certainly subverted, if not trashed, by its camp subtext. The apparently extreme tensions between three killer egos — Brando, Kilmer, and director John Frankenheimer — are evident in the performances. The two actors, in spite of having almost no screen time together, seem to be desperately vying for the camp crown. Brando's mincing fashion show and Truman Capote-like complaints about the jungle heat are equalled by the sight of a drugged-out Kilmer in femme lounge-wear and white bandana that looks like it came from Joan Crawford's closet. Kilmer's scenes with David Thewlis have an unmistakably seductive element, with Kilmer constantly invading the latter's "personal space" by conducting conversations an inch away from his nose. Kilmer — as fantastically alluring and extremely fuckable as the young Brando — obviously realized how hopeless this project was and, like Brando, decided to consciously undermine it using the time-tested strategy of camp.
Attempts to update the story with references to Jimi Hendrix and mushrooms and animal activism and gene-splicing only serve to emphasize how archaic the story is. On the other hand, Brando's "big-gal" savoir faire in showing off the jungle's haute couture could launch him on a new career as a model for Calvin Klein. We hear he's looking for the "unusual."
September 1996 | Issue 17
Copyright © 1996 by Gary Morris


The Island of Dr. Moreau
New Line Cinema
Release Date: August 23
MPAA rating: 'PG-13' for sci-fi violence, horror and gore involving mutant creatures


The balance of nature is put to the ultimate test in this science-fiction thriller when a marooned stranger stumbles across an out-of-control experiment that fuses man with animal in The Island of Dr. Moreau. VAL KILMER (Heat), MARLON BRANDO (Don Juan DeMarco), DAVID THEWLIS (Naked) and FAIRUZA BALK (The Craft) star in this film directed by JOHN FRANKENHEIMER and featuring the artistry of make-up genius STAN WINSTON, and special visual effects by Digital Domain.

Based on the haunting novel written by H. G. Wells, the prescient father of science fiction, the explosive storyline fueling The Island of Dr. Moreau has been updated and set in the near future to incorporate recent developments in genetic engineering. While 1996 marks the centennial anniversary of this literary classic, it still remains a relevant warning for our time as Wells' prophetic nightmare edges closer to reality.

In the film, a brilliant geneticist, Dr. Moreau (Brando) and his assistant Montgomery (Kilmer) are on the brink of revolutionizing science when Edward Douglas (Thewlis) becomes stranded on their remote island.

At first glance, this tropical paradise seems idyllic. But deep in the jungle lies a terrifying secret. Moreau and Montgomery have been performing gene-splicing research on animals to create a superior breed of human being, and that experiment has gone terribly wrong. They have ignored the most fundamental law of the jungle: survival of the fittest.

Roaming free, these beast-people are highly intelligent with murderous instincts. Their thirst for blood is pacified through a combination of sedatives and shock discipline. But events triggered by Douglas' unexpected arrival are about to break Moreau's God-like dominion over these resentful creatures.

As the crisis escalates, Douglas find himself caught in the middle of a violent eruption between the doctor and his "family." Douglas must escape the clutches of his captors and find a way off the island before he becomes a part of Moreau's final horrifying experiment.

Production Information
Click Here to view the 'The Island of Dr. Moreau' production information file (51K) filled with facts about the filmmakers & the actors involved with the film.

The Main Cast
Dr, Moreau.............................. MARLON BRANDO
Montgomery.............................. VAL KILMER
Edward Douglas.......................... DAVID THEWLIS
Aissa................................... FAIRUZA BALK
M'Ling.................................. MARCO HOFSCHNEIDER
Sayer of the Law........................ RON PERLMAN

Directed by............................. JOHN FRANKENHEIMER
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