[7]

I usually appreciate an interesting mess more than a tidy bore. So sue me: Yes, I like one of the most famous bad movies of the last few decades. You wanna fight about it?

A man is rescued from a plane crash at sea only to be brought to an island where a mad scientist is turning animals into human beings. This is the third big screen adaptation of the H.G. Wells story and all of them have their problems, but I have always loved this story — so much that I can overlook quite a few shortcomings. This 1996 version was plagued with production problems. Val Kilmer, who plays Dr. Moreau’s right-hand man, had the original director (Hardware‘s Richard Stanley) fired half-way through filming and then John Frankenheimer was brought in to wrap things up. It’s obvious that both Kilmer and Marlon Brando (as Moreau) were phoning it in. Brando has a tendency to test his directors with absurd suggestions, and apparently neither Frakenheimer nor Stanley reigned the eccentric in on this one. That’s how we get a Moreau covered in white sun screen with a mini-me clone of himself for comic relief.

On one hand, shame on Brando and Kilmer for allowing their egos to wreck the production. On the other hand, if you can overlook Kilmer’s nonchalance, Brando’s whacky decisions are actually somewhat interesting. I mean, Moreau is crazy, right? Leading man David Thewlis puts in a solid performance as the plane survivor, as does Fairuza Balk (Return to Oz, The Craft) as a romantic interest who begins regressing into a cat when she goes too long without the good doctor’s medicine. The late Daniel Rigney puts in a terrific pantomime performance as the leading antagonist of the film, a creature called the Hyena-Swine, and Ron Perlman makes an appearance as the mutants’ religious spokesperson, the Sayer of the Law. Effects wizard Stan Winston provides many great-looking creatures to populate Moreau’s island and Gary Chang serves up a moody score.

There are a few questionable uses of computer-generated characters (thankfully not many) and I could do without the pretentious epilogue, but you know what? I like this Island of Dr. Moreau. The horrors of transmogrification may be undercut a little by sporadic camp and dark humor, but for me, the subject matter is just too interesting to ignore. I love it when scientists pay God and reap the whirlwind, and when the thin line between human and animal is mined for dramatic potential. No version thus far (including the 1977 version starring Michael York and Burt Lancaster, and 1932’s Island of Lost Souls) has explored Wells’ provocative themes as deeply as I’d like, but I find all three movie versions interesting nonetheless.