Mysterious Island – Die geheimnisvolle Insel (TV Movie 2005)

Mysterious Island – Die geheimnisvolle Insel: Directed by Russell Mulcahy. With Kyle MacLachlan, Danielle Calvert, Gabrielle Anwar, Patrick Stewart. To escape evils of the Civil War, Cyrus removes his small family and random war prisoners by way of hot air balloon. Once landing on an island, the group finds they are surrounded by danger from giant insects and gold-craving pirates. Turned away by the only safe haven on the island, owned by Captain Nemo, played by Sir Patrick Stewart, the group is forced to find shelter and survive.

“This is indeed an awful production, and it has nothing to do with Verne.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe five castaways in Verneu0026#39;s book are Cyrus Smith (the brilliant military engineer–who for some reason or other is called Cyrus Harding in most of the English-language versions), Gideon Spillett (the newspaper reporter), Neb (ex-slave still working for ex-owner Smith, who freed him), Pencroff (a sailor), and Harbert (youngster, son of Pencroffu0026#39;s late captain, for whom Pencroff is acting as guardian). Verne is very good at sketching these guysu0026#39; personalities and making them come alive for us, and all his careful nuancing is thrown out the window in this production.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhy these female characters? The novel has NO female characters, and it assumes five men can live on a deserted island for three years and never think about women or sex—the subject never comes up. If the producers didnu0026#39;t think that believable, they should have written their own damn story and not pretended to be dramatizing Verneu0026#39;s.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eYes, Captain Nemo does appear in the novel, but heu0026#39;s absolutely nothing like he is in this production.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThereu0026#39;s a reformed pirate named Ayrton in the book, but other than that he has nothing in common with the reformed pirate Blake in this version.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eMy respect for Stewart is a lot less after knowing that he would consent to be in this ridiculous production.”