The Island starts as English magazine reporter Blair Maynard (Michael Caine) convinces his editor to let him go to Florida to investigate the Bermuda Triangle area where 600 ships & boats have vanished in the past 3 years alone, he agrees & together with his 12 year old son Justin (Jeffrey Frank) Blair drives down there. While flying out to one of the 100's of remote Caribbean islands the plane crashes & Blair & Justin are stuck, to pass the time they decide to go fishing but are captured by modern day pirates who are descendants from 17th Century buccaneer's who lived on an isolated island & attack & loot any unsuspecting ships or boats that stray too near. Blair is taken & held prisoner while his son Justin is being groomed to become one of them & add fresh genes to the inbred pirates who are having trouble breeding, Blair isn't keen on the idea though & desperately tries to find a way to escape the island...
Directed by Michael Ritchie I rather liked this overblown horror action flick even though I probably shouldn't have. The script by Peter Benchley was based upon his own novel of the same name, after the enormous success of Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975) producers David Brown & Richard D. Zanuck decided that another Peter Benchley sea-bound adventure would be a good idea even after The Deep (1977) which was also based on a watery Peter Benchley novel didn't exactly set the box-office on fire so they turned their attentions to his 1979 novel The Island which flopped at the box-office. I must admit I rather liked this fun & sometime rather gory action adventure, I like the story which is pretty cool, the character's are pretty good apart from the kid but luckily he isn't in it much, I especially liked Michael Caines dry British humour like the line in my summary or when he turns to his son Justin & says 'Don't forget to tell your mom you went to Disney World'! It moves along at a nice pace, it certainly never bored me & has some agreeably violent scenes in it. One thing I didn't like though was the annoying hard to understand at times broken English spoken by the pirates, while giving them their own language probably seemed like a good idea & in theory it was it doesn't quite work on screen as a lot of what they say seem to make little sense.
Director Ritchie does OK but I'd have liked to have seen a bit more style here, this had a pretty big budget by 1980 standards & while the costumes, the location filming & cast are very good it's a struggle to see where all those millions of dollars went. While nowhere near as tension filled or as scary as Jaws The Island has some surprisingly gory set pieces including slit throats, axes in peoples heads, slashed stomachs, peoples throats cut with razor wire, stabbings, torture & a fantastic ending where Michael Caine uses a huge deck mounted machine gun to blow all the pirates away in an incredibly satisfying scene! If your tired of the 'family friendly' Pirates of the Caribbean (2003 - 2007) series & want something which is a little more representative of how pirates actually acted then The Island makes a refreshing change with it's cold blooded brutality.
With a supposed budget of about $20,000,000 The Island had a big budget back then & I have to say it's hard to see where the money went, it's well made but that's the least one would expect. It was shot in Antigua & Miami which make for pleasant enough locations. There's a good cast here, Caine is pretty good & makes for a likable hero, David Warner makes for a suitably unlikable bad guy.
The Island is a throughly enjoyable horror action adventure film, it has pirates, it has gore, it has Sir Michael Caine & it's a lot of fun if your in the right mood, what more do you want? Not to be confused with Michael Bay's mega budget sci-fi action flick The Island (2005).
Directed by Michael Ritchie I rather liked this overblown horror action flick even though I probably shouldn't have. The script by Peter Benchley was based upon his own novel of the same name, after the enormous success of Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975) producers David Brown & Richard D. Zanuck decided that another Peter Benchley sea-bound adventure would be a good idea even after The Deep (1977) which was also based on a watery Peter Benchley novel didn't exactly set the box-office on fire so they turned their attentions to his 1979 novel The Island which flopped at the box-office. I must admit I rather liked this fun & sometime rather gory action adventure, I like the story which is pretty cool, the character's are pretty good apart from the kid but luckily he isn't in it much, I especially liked Michael Caines dry British humour like the line in my summary or when he turns to his son Justin & says 'Don't forget to tell your mom you went to Disney World'! It moves along at a nice pace, it certainly never bored me & has some agreeably violent scenes in it. One thing I didn't like though was the annoying hard to understand at times broken English spoken by the pirates, while giving them their own language probably seemed like a good idea & in theory it was it doesn't quite work on screen as a lot of what they say seem to make little sense.
Director Ritchie does OK but I'd have liked to have seen a bit more style here, this had a pretty big budget by 1980 standards & while the costumes, the location filming & cast are very good it's a struggle to see where all those millions of dollars went. While nowhere near as tension filled or as scary as Jaws The Island has some surprisingly gory set pieces including slit throats, axes in peoples heads, slashed stomachs, peoples throats cut with razor wire, stabbings, torture & a fantastic ending where Michael Caine uses a huge deck mounted machine gun to blow all the pirates away in an incredibly satisfying scene! If your tired of the 'family friendly' Pirates of the Caribbean (2003 - 2007) series & want something which is a little more representative of how pirates actually acted then The Island makes a refreshing change with it's cold blooded brutality.
With a supposed budget of about $20,000,000 The Island had a big budget back then & I have to say it's hard to see where the money went, it's well made but that's the least one would expect. It was shot in Antigua & Miami which make for pleasant enough locations. There's a good cast here, Caine is pretty good & makes for a likable hero, David Warner makes for a suitably unlikable bad guy.
The Island is a throughly enjoyable horror action adventure film, it has pirates, it has gore, it has Sir Michael Caine & it's a lot of fun if your in the right mood, what more do you want? Not to be confused with Michael Bay's mega budget sci-fi action flick The Island (2005).