Mysterious Island is another made for TV movie based on a Jules Verne novel. In this instance I haven’t read the book yet so I have no idea how closely this movie follows the book; however, experience suggests that it is probably more “inspired from” rather than “based on”.
This 2005 movie was directed by Russell Mulcahy and starred Kyle MacLachlin as Captain Cyrus Smith, a Confederate soldier in a POW camp during the American Civil War. He takes on board a token female / token love interest (played by Gabrielle Anwar - pretty but in this she was frankly one of the most boring heroines I‘ve ever seen), token young male (can‘t even remember who played him), and a few other waifs and strays including the inevitable token rival. Apparently out of nowhere a hot air balloon appears to facilitate their escape, and after an amazingly unconvincing hot air balloon ride they end up on a mysterious island. Fortunately, it picks up a bit from there. Well… a bit.
For this island is no ordinary island - which is of course why it’s called mysterious island... There be giant beasties here, in particular enormous insects (which look… well, less than completely convincing). Salvation seems to be at hand when a mysterious stranger is found - Captain Nemo, played by Patrick Stewart. He can offer the stranded escapees protection; however it soon turns out that he may be even more dangerous than any of the gigantic beasties on six legs. Nemo also shows a lot of interest when he finds out that Cyrus has an engineering background…
There are a lot of silly subplots regarding long lost treasure, visiting pirates, marooned former pirates, and suchlike things. There’s a lot wrong with this film in all honesty, but a couple of good things about it can be found. Patrick Stewart was a superb choice for playing the intense, unbalanced Captain Nemo, whose ideals are laudable but his methods less so. MacLachlin tries really hard to inject some gusto into his character though is hampered by some pretty insipid acting by those around him. Vinnie Jones turns up as a pirate and obviously has a lot of fun doing it… but he’s just terrible. In a way this is quite good - it’s one of those so-bad-it’s-good things. He is obviously trying to create a character with the type of swagger Johnny Depp had in the first Pirates of the Caribbean film (still had it in the second film but lost it rather in the third, I thought). Former footballer Vinnie completely fails to capture it in any way though, and just ends up being laughably bad. In an effort to compensate there were one or two commendable performances, but they were definitely in the minority.
Still, despite the above and the sometimes rather awful special effects, it is quite an entertaining movie. Much hinges on the star power of Patrick Stewart but even he can’t save it. Despite everything though Mysterious Island was strangely entertaining, in the same sort of way that the old Godzilla movies were. They were so badly made and illogical that they ended up being very watchable, if only because they were so awful.
Though the film lasts 163 minutes in total (rated PG), there’s really not much more to say about it. I can’t recommend it because it really isn’t very good at all (how it got a nomination for a Saturn Award shows either a shocking lack of competition that year or that someone had been bribed into nominating it!). However, in a guilty pleasure sort of way, I enjoyed it purely because it was so bad. If that makes sense to you maybe you’ll enjoy it… otherwise steer clear!
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Patrick Stewart also starred in X-Men, X-Men 2 and of course was Captain Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Vinnie Jones appeared in X-Men 3: The Last Stand, which Stewart appeared in fleetingly before presumably making his getaway from a vaguely entertaining but lamentably poor follow up to the two excellent X-Men films that preceded it.
Other films or TV series based on Jules Verne’s novels:
Journey to the Centre of the Earth - this one was an entertaining though not very faithful version of the book, staring Treat Williams as the intrepid explorer. Nothing amazing, but quite fun.
Around The World in 80 Days (film version starring Jackie Chan and Steve Cooghan) - not exactly faithful to the book, but I found this movie to be a lot of fun.
Around the World in 80 Days (mini-series starring Peirce Brosnan) - a slightly weird version of events which was entertaining enough but never really got out of second gear.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Kirk Douglas gets his shirt off (now there’s a surprise) in Disney’s screen version of the film that has wonderful sets but doesn’t do the book much justice, though children are likely to enjoy it much more than adults.
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