Tuesday, March 8, 2016

THE ISLAND (1980)

Journalist Michael Caine travels to Miami to investigate the 600+ boats and 2,000+ people(!!!) that have gone missing in the last three years in the Bermuda Triangle.  For whatever reason (it had something to do with his ex-wife), he brings along his annoying 12-year-old son.  Ugh!  I hate this kid.  Anyway, the story drags along at a snails pace until finally at the 33-minute mark they run into some...wait for it...pirates!  What the hell?  That's right.  This group of like 50 or so pirates have been living undisturbed on a uncharted island for the last 300 years.  Well, "undisturbed" except for the thousands of people they've somehow managed to kill over the years.

Anyway, whatever, so there's bloodthirsty pirates on the island.  Caine and his annoying son are captured.  The annoying kid is brainwashed into thinking he's a annoying pirate and Caine is used as a sex slave of one of the women.  That idea is definitely promising, but unfortunately outside of two awesome scenes the rest of the film is pretty boring.  The first highlight scene is when the pirates attack a drug smuggling boat and they fight a martial arts dude.  The other highlight scene is when they attack a Coast Guard cutter.  (Fun fact: the Coast Guard cutter used in the film is the USCGC Dauntless which six years later was the first ship on site of the space shuttle Challenger disaster.)

Mild violence, mildly interesting (and ludicrous) story that wasn't executed properly, average acting, annoying pirate language, annoying kid who I hated, lackluster topless scene and a covered bottomless scene, open-ended story, a fake as hell looking head getting hit with a ax, nice scenery and a interesting cast of lesser-known actors who've been in a ton of movies.

Worth a watch for action-adventure fans, but it's nothing to get too excited over  A remake could be interesting.