Director: Jeff Wadlow
Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Duration: 109 minutes
Fantasy Island (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
It’s been a while since we first saw the trailer of Fantasy Island, and while it sounded like a children’s movie or Michael Jackson’s playhouse, it actually looked like a new horror experience. When looking at the official IMDB page of the film, we noticed it was classified as action, adventure and fantasy, leaving out the horror portion. While this combination still held a certain potential, we were quickly robbed of those feelings when we had to wade through this abomination of a film. We were disappointed to see something so potentially interesting being discarded for a rubbish-fest that felt like it went on for too long.
The movie’s premise is actually a quite simple one. Guests arrive at what is supposedly called Fantasy Island, to see their fantasies come to life. Some want to be the life of the party and take home all the babes, while others simply want a second chance with a long lost love, others, however, want to exact their revenge on someone from their teenage years. Of course, to every fantasy, there’s a downside and it seems that the participants have to follow through, otherwise bad things will happen.
At times the flow doesn’t really make any sense. It feels like the movie drops certain bombs on you at the beginning, to needlessly slow down and then even don’t take its own concept and/or story seriously anymore. While the beginning of the movie is somewhat interesting, purely because of its concept, the creators didn’t know what directing they wanted to head in, and this actually shows. Fantasy Island feels unclear after the first fifteen minutes and at times just plain stupid when looking at certain choices and even general story writing. Also, the choices of one of the leading characters don’t make sense when she suddenly shifts her focus. This feels like a huge mistake in the movie’s story.
Acting performances are quite alright, but when looking at the writing of the movie, it must have been impossible at times to properly execute certain scenes. Some fighting scenes look like they have been done by a very low-budget production company and this also translates in making the general feel of the movie worse, also diminishing cast members’ performances. A few of the cast members we’ve actually seen in massive productions, such as Michael Peña, who starred in Marvel’s Ant-Man. Michael Rooker, we know from another Marvel production, namely Guardians of the Galaxy 1 & 2. Both these cast members grace this production with their presence. While others also do a great job, such as Maggie Q or Mike Vogel, they are often somewhat stuck in their normal habitat, namely that of smaller productions, and it does show a little.
We are quite used to being treated to a lot of special content on the Blu-ray editions published by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Fantasy Island seems to be an exception to that rule, where we only get a few deleted scenes, commentaries and the choice between the Unrated or Theatrical versions of the movie. It would have been nice to learn a bit more about the creative process behind the movie, especially why and how certain scenes came to life.
Conclusion
There’s no other way to put it, but Fantasy Island is a very bad movie. The concept of the film was great, the potential even greater, but the execution was horrible. This story idea could have been so much more, so much darker, special and not as convoluted as it is now. The story sometimes doesn’t make any sense and just feels stupid at times. If you have nothing better to do, and this one is on TV, it can be an entertaining watch, but actually buying it full price might just make you feel robbed after watching this nearly two-hour lasting ordeal.
Fantasy Island (Blu-ray) - Movie Review,
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