In a Nutshell. Mini reviews of movies old and new. No fuss. No spoilers. And often no sleep.

Wednesday 10 June 2015

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau (2014)

Richard Stanley had a vision. New Line Cinema had cold feet, a sharp knife and a clear view of Stanley’s back. Like frightened animals they struck.
The usurped writer/director is surprisingly calm about the whole affair, perhaps due to time having scabbed over the wounds. He gives viewers access to the amazing pre-production art and storyboards he’d commissioned, on-set photos of the brief time he’d had in the director’s chair and airs his view on some of the disasters that befall the production.
The doc shifts focus for a long time after the middle section, becoming more like a DVD extra about the making of the actual Island of Dr. Moreau (1996) film that did eventually get made with a new director.
There's no guarantee that Stanley's would've been better, but given how visually spellbinding his past films were it sure as hell would've been a lot more interesting to look at and very likely more thought-provoking.

3½ Hollywood hyenas out of 5

2 comments:

cuckoo said...

Watched this first thing this morning because I woke up about 2 hours before my alarm went off.

Decent for the first half and like you said it turns into a DVD extra.

Didn't know Stanley came back in disguise after disappearing. XD A nutter!

I always like the film no matter how bad it was. It struck some sort of chord with me and always stuck around.
'Twas my intro to David Thewlis and I've followed him ever since.

Dr Faustus said...

Severin are releasing a blu of Dust Devil sometime later this year. I'm excited for that.