I think perhaps I am one of the few sci fi/action pulp fans immune to this movie's charm. Ray Liotta snuffed his post GOODFELLAS career by accepting the role of "Mr. Robbins", a man with a quest to rid the world of corruption and injustice by shooting a superior officer during a drill review for a Haliburton like future armed forces. He is sent to the movie's Devil's Island, a wasteland south seas location where violently dangerous political prisoners are sent to be eaten by the Outsiders, a MAD MAX styled group of prisoners bonded together by their will to do evil. I know the intentions of the filmmakers was to portray Lance Henrikson's "Family" group as the good guys, but frankly they looked like a bunch of monks. The bad guys have all the fun in this movie, as evidenced by the outrageous scene where the leader of The Outsiders (Stuart Wilson, who deserves lifetime free beer for agreeing to be in this movie) tosses the severed heads of his opposition party delegates aside with a joke about having just one head from now on.
How shall I put this ... the movie is derivative and self-important. We have excellent, brutal scenes of action countered by quiet, soul searching discussions where various characters discuss the human condition with Lance Henrikson while trying to look sensitive but not gay. The Outsiders all dress like Kiss and live to hack apart anything that isn't part of their sect. Meanwhile, it turns out that not only is Ray Liotta a Universal Soldier who can kick anybody's ass on the island, but he is also MacGuyver and helps the good people advance their plot to get off the island, which turns not to be a plot to get off the island at all but just a way to give everyone a chance to all get along. Aww.
The movie rips off PAPILLION, SPARTACUS, a hundred Italian Peplum movies, DELIVERANCE, THE EMERALD FOREST, ROBOCOP (yes, ROBOCOP) and every other big budget high tech action film or survivalist yarn that came before it. The film counters brutality with understanding and tries desperately to be inclusive, with minority members of each tribe and even a couple of fat guys. One interesting note is the complete absence of any homosexual subtext beyond a crass line about Liotta's little bunk boy Kevin Dillon: With what, 2000 guys all shackled together on a deserted, woman-less island in the middle of nowhere that are encouraged to revert back to an atavistic animal like state, not one of them ever drops the soap? Nonsense. Put men of any character in such surroundings and they will start to have relations -- not because they are gay, but because if there are no women to be had a certain percentage will inevitably have each other. Sadly the movie was made at the height of the AIDS epidemic, which combined with the rampant hypocritical homophobia of pre-BROKEBACK Hollywood meant no gay survivalist scenes. Too bad: it would have loaned a touch of realism to the village sets of perfect huts, which have as much realism as the supply hut from Gilligan's Island.
I refuse to believe that none of the population succumbs to those inclinations of our human nature within some of us to have sex with whatever is handy, and also refuse to believe that Ray Liotta and his outrage at having been duped into committing a war crime can bring down a global hegemony. But this movie asks us to believe it, and paints a convincing backdrop onto which the events are projected. If they had a whiff of originality or substance to them I might be willing to buy into it, but unless you are about 14 (in which you should be too young to watch this gory R-rated film) and never seen a big budget action adventure film before this movie will seem strangely familiar, rather hokey, and much longer than it's stated duration.
Nice sets though: somebody must have dug up those old plans from Gilligan's Island for the village design.
3/10
How shall I put this ... the movie is derivative and self-important. We have excellent, brutal scenes of action countered by quiet, soul searching discussions where various characters discuss the human condition with Lance Henrikson while trying to look sensitive but not gay. The Outsiders all dress like Kiss and live to hack apart anything that isn't part of their sect. Meanwhile, it turns out that not only is Ray Liotta a Universal Soldier who can kick anybody's ass on the island, but he is also MacGuyver and helps the good people advance their plot to get off the island, which turns not to be a plot to get off the island at all but just a way to give everyone a chance to all get along. Aww.
The movie rips off PAPILLION, SPARTACUS, a hundred Italian Peplum movies, DELIVERANCE, THE EMERALD FOREST, ROBOCOP (yes, ROBOCOP) and every other big budget high tech action film or survivalist yarn that came before it. The film counters brutality with understanding and tries desperately to be inclusive, with minority members of each tribe and even a couple of fat guys. One interesting note is the complete absence of any homosexual subtext beyond a crass line about Liotta's little bunk boy Kevin Dillon: With what, 2000 guys all shackled together on a deserted, woman-less island in the middle of nowhere that are encouraged to revert back to an atavistic animal like state, not one of them ever drops the soap? Nonsense. Put men of any character in such surroundings and they will start to have relations -- not because they are gay, but because if there are no women to be had a certain percentage will inevitably have each other. Sadly the movie was made at the height of the AIDS epidemic, which combined with the rampant hypocritical homophobia of pre-BROKEBACK Hollywood meant no gay survivalist scenes. Too bad: it would have loaned a touch of realism to the village sets of perfect huts, which have as much realism as the supply hut from Gilligan's Island.
I refuse to believe that none of the population succumbs to those inclinations of our human nature within some of us to have sex with whatever is handy, and also refuse to believe that Ray Liotta and his outrage at having been duped into committing a war crime can bring down a global hegemony. But this movie asks us to believe it, and paints a convincing backdrop onto which the events are projected. If they had a whiff of originality or substance to them I might be willing to buy into it, but unless you are about 14 (in which you should be too young to watch this gory R-rated film) and never seen a big budget action adventure film before this movie will seem strangely familiar, rather hokey, and much longer than it's stated duration.
Nice sets though: somebody must have dug up those old plans from Gilligan's Island for the village design.
3/10