Surprisingly NOT an outdoor Gwar concert.
Though
slagged off by critics upon initial release (and by me at the time, if
I'm being honest), the 1996 version of THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU is today
mostly remembered as the movie where a late-career Marlon Brando
finally went full-tilt pants-crapping insane, but I urge audiences to
give it a second chance. I've seen the film several times since its
original release and I have to admit that I've come to love it for a
number of reasons.
Few films capture complete and utter madness
in the way that this one does, as the audience identification character
(David Thewliss) is dragged headlong and unknowing into a remote island
kingdom ruled over by the completely mad Dr. Moreau (Brando). The
not-so-good doctor is a scientist whose unethical and immoral
experiments on animals transform them into sentient, speaking horrors
that simply should not be, while fashioning himself into more or less
their living god and laying down unbreakable "laws" intended to curb his
creations' irrepressible animal natures. The lush island environment is
rendered dark and foreboding as the scientist has crafted an almost
Bruegel-meets-Bosch land of strange, misshapen creatures whom he and his
veterinarian assistant (an extra-loony Val Kilmer) keep happy and
tripping balls out of their minds on injected cocktails of sedatives and
hallucinogens, and other than the welcome presence of Fairuza Balk as
the doctor's most flawless creation, the place comes off like we the
audience were likewise dosed off our tits. Val Kilmer is a singular
standout in a role whose understated yet wholly over-the-top performance
is a masterwork of weird flamboyance — which is REALLY saying something
when paired against the balls-out-crazy Brando as Moreau — and he
utterly steals the movie as the veterinary assistant/"candy man" for the
humanimals. And don't get me started on eerie-eyed Fairuza Balk as
Moreau's daughter Aissa, a sexy woman who is by far the most successful
of Moreau's chimeras, this one being a splicing of human and big jungle
cat.
Anyway,
I was reminded of all of this while recently puttering around my studio
with the film running as background, and it was a lot of fun seeing it
again. Though my pick for the definitive version of this H.G. Wells
story goes to the superlative and downright fucked-up ISLAND OF LOST
SOULS (1932), the 1996 version is a worthy modern take that is deserving
of a fair reassessment well after the fact. Just be sure to have
indulged in copious amounts of alcohol and/or cannabis products before
you dive in.
Poster from the theatrical release.
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