The Island of Dr. Moreau Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

The Island of Dr. Moreau Blu-ray Movie Review

The horror! The horror!

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 27, 2012

It takes some real chutzpah to “out eccentric” Marlon Brando, especially in Brando’s later career, but evidently Val Kilmer found it to be a not very big challenge during the filming of the 1996 version of The Island of Dr Moreau. This iconic H.G. Wells tale, which first found life as a film as Island of Lost Souls in 1932, seemed in the 1996 version to be, much like the horrifying animal-human hybrids which are at the heart of the story, to have been born under a dark star. Virtually everything that could go wrong with a film did go wrong with this one, including huge fights between the actors and the director(s) (there were two of them, but more about that in a moment), a script that was undergoing so many rewrites that Brando reportedly had his lines literally phoned into him via an earpiece, and a generally confusing ambience that left New Line with a decidedly different property than they had gambled on. The general critical consensus about The Island of Dr. Moreau is that it is an unmitigated disaster, but I would like to put forward a slightly different thesis, namely that while the film is indeed disastrously flawed, it’s an absolutely fascinating piece in both the John Frankenheimer and Marlon Brando oeuvres, and it deserves a reexamination now that the PR dust has settled and the film can be appreciated on some perhaps slightly more objective criteria. The fact is, The Island of Dr. Moreau is, despite its many missteps, a fairly riveting piece of film craft, one that doesn’t shy away from the eccentricities of either Kilmer or Brando, and indeed seems to celebrate these decidedly peculiar actors, for better or worse. The film is moody, disturbing and at times incredibly visceral—and those are all good things for a modern day science fiction tinged thriller to aspire to. Is the film at least partially sunk by the shenanigans of its two headlining stars? No doubt But for anyone who’s ever seen this Island of Dr. Moreau, there are a number of unforgettable moments in it, beyond the mere carnival like scenes of Brando in white face or blasting through a two piano duet of Chopin with a midget playing a toy keyboard.

Much like Jules Verne, H.G. Wells is often thought of as a visionary who presciently predicted various elements which have become part and parcel of our modern world. If Verne’s contributions in this regard tend to be more about actual inventions (like the submarine), Wells was perhaps a more conceptual “idea” man, offering up everything from the cataclysm of world war (alien or otherwise) to, in the case of The Island of Dr Moreau, the idea of tinkering with Mankind’s genetic makeup to create new species. Christine O’Donnell, the Tea Party favorite who made headlines for proclaiming in an infamous political ad “I’m not a witch”, is perhaps a little less remembered for another astounding statement she made (one which has been regular fodder for comedians, including some funny bits on The Daily Show) where she insisted gene splicing had created mice with fully functioning human brains. As silly as it sounds, that’s more or less the exact idea behind The Island of Dr. Moreau, albeit colored ever so slightly with a Darwinian subtext that includes both evolution and devolution. The basic concept of Moreau was probably downright shocking in 1932 when Island of Lost Souls came out, but by the late nineties, it should have seemed like an idea positively “ripped from the headlines”, which gives some of the more cartoonish elements of the film an unfortunate feel.

The film actually starts off very well, with a riveting sequence featuring United Nations diplomat Edward Douglas (David Thewlis, in the role reportedly originally cast with Val Kilmer) adrift on a life raft after his plane has crashed in the ocean. Also on board the inflatable are two none too subtly animalistic survivors who are engaged in a fight to the death over the last canteen of water. It’s an obvious ploy to show us the more vicious side of human nature, but it’s a decidedly compelling little sequence and it sets up a mood of ominous foreboding that carries through at least the first part of the film. Douglas is soon found by a passing cargo ship whose only American passenger is the enigmatic Dr. Montgomery (Kilmer, who evidently matriculated to this role because he wanted less—yes, less—screen time). Montgomery nurses the badly dehydrated Douglas back to health and then (in a move that really isn’t well explained) lets Douglas accompany him onto the titular island of the film, where Douglas slowly but surely becomes aware of the horrifying experiments Moreau and Montgomery have been conducting far away from any meddling by governments or media.

Some would argue The Island of Dr. Moreau starts heading unavoidably off the rails once Marlon Brando shows up, wearing bizarre white face and channeling an equally bizarre English accent that makes his Apocalpyse Now Kurtz character seem like an arch conservative. (Is Brando aping Boris Karloff or perhaps even Charles Laughton, the original Dr. Moreau of Island of Lost Souls? Only Stella Adler and/or Stanislavsky know for sure.) But I would argue that Brando, as weirdly effete as his take on the character is, isn’t actually the main problem. That would be Val Kilmer, and just for one salient example take the moment when the actor thrusts a large purple orchid into his mouth and sits in his chair like a petulant child. What was that about? But there’s no escaping the fact the film just devolves into hysterical melodrama by the time the animal-human hybrids decide to revolt against their maker and the film descends into something that not even the worst sequels to Planet of the Apes ever imagined.

There’s also little doubt that David Thewlis was probably the wrong person to play Douglas. The actor’s weirdly twisted visage just doesn’t lend itself toward a typical hero’s role, nor to the romantic subplot that develops between Douglas and one of the more apparently human characters on the island, the lovely young woman Aissa (Fairuza Balk). Would Kilmer have been more believable in the role? That probably depends on how many large purple orchids were dropping out of his mouth at any given moment. The Island of Dr. Moreau actually starts out quite brilliantly, and there are signs throughout the film of Frankenheimer’s genius (and what better director to helm a story about cobbled together monsters than a man with “Franken” in his surname?). He also elicits a typically wonderful performance from Ron Perlman, once again buried under pounds and pounds of latex as the animals’ “prophet”. But as alluded to above, Frankenheimer was brought onto this project under duress, after original writer-director Richard Stanley was fired after not being able to either get along with or properly corral Kilmer. Unfortunately things evidently only got worse once Frankenheimer came on board, no doubt because he was a much better known quantity and wasn't about to take any upstart's guff.

The Island of Dr. Moreau really isn’t as flat out horrible as it’s been made out to be, and in fact on its own patently goofy terms, it’s really rather enjoyable. It seems to be a case of a valiant director struggling mightily against hubristic actors, and, frankly, failing. Still, even with its abundant flaws, the film is often quite exciting and it certainly contains a showdown of titan sized actor egos where virtually no one is left standing by the film’s end.

The Island of Dr. Moreau Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Island of Dr. Moreau is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of New Line Cinema with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. Fans of the film (and yes, there are actually are some) who have lamented previous home video releases which have featured a murky, muddy image may find this new Blu-ray something of a minor revelation. The image here is remarkably clear and full bodied, with nicely saturated color and very good fine object detail in close-ups, and it has obviously not been digitally tweaked in the slightest. The film still has a certain ragged quality at times, and this transfer is still plagued with negligible shadow detail, as well as some of the seams showing literally and figuratively in terms of the makeup and other special effects, but this is a really major step up from previous releases of the film.

The Island of Dr. Moreau Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Island of Dr. Moreau features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix which is rather bombastic at times, offering a nice reproduction of Gary Chang's percussive score. There's decent if not overwhelming surround activity, especially as the film careens toward its climax and the "animals" are running amok. Dialogue is cleanly presented, and fidelity is very good throughout this presentation. Dynamic range is also quite wide, though the film does tend to be on the noisy side quite a bit of the time.

The Island of Dr. Moreau Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of The Island of Dr. Moreau (SD; 5:43) is a brief vintage featurette that has some quick behind the scenes footage, but which really plays more like an extended trailer.


• Trailer (SD; 1:59)


• International Trailer (SD; 1:08)

The Island of Dr. Moreau Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

As is probably evident from the general tenor of this review, I actually kind of like this Island of Dr. Moreau. Is it silly? Undoubtedly. Are Kilmer and Brando both completely over the top? You betcha. But even with its flaws, the film has a strange hallucinatory quality that isn't easily forgotten after it's been experienced. If Frankenheimer had been able to coax a little more cooperation from his errant stars he may well have had a modern horror masterpiece on his hands, for the pieces are certainly in place. This is undoubtedly a deeply flawed film, but it's goofily enjoyable on its own terms. This Blu-ray offers a major image quality upgrade and also features good lossless audio. The supplements are awfully slim (this film cries out for a retrospective featurette of some kind), but even with that qualm, this release comes Recommended.