Popular reviews

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  Review by dinosauroidable ★★★★

  Hobbled by the awkward sound passages and how noncommittal it is toward revolutionary strands I could swear it was looking to foment, but when it finally gets underway way underwater, the little crabs & crocs dressed up as megafauna and the ocean floor congregation of diminutive deep ones, who turn berserk on the divers like humboldt squid, they are all that I hoped for here.

  Blood! Warm blood! The cold depths of the sea -- the bloodless creatures in it -- had never known the like before.

  Blood! Bewildering -- maddening --

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  Review by Lencho of the Apes ★★★ 3

  Steampunk imagery done just about perfectly, a beautiful display of industrial-age fantasy thinking that has fuck-all to do with anything I remember from Verne's novel. Watching this and Woman In The Moon back to back, I'm struck by how much agency is granted to the female characters here, at a time not far distant from the days when dominant ideology was trying to push women back into a slot of being inherently incapable of functioning in any capacity outside of the home.

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  Review by 𝔸ℕℕ𝔸 ★★½

  sci-fi marathon #13

  Based off a novel by Jules Verne, about creatures of the abyss and diving.

  semantic : You'd be forgiven if you were underwhelmed with the visuals in the first half. The sci-fi action beefs up in the second half with diving equipment galore, diving ships, creatures of the abyss, an giant octopus, and even an explosion. It is perfectly adequate for 1929. But they could have done without the lengthy expositional part of the first half, because it did bore to tears. Also, at first it was a silent then Lionel Barrymore got a speaking scene before it going back to being a silent then having random speaking scenes sprinkled here and there. Made it jarring for…

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  Review by Kevin Sukho Lee ★★★

  Thanks to TCM, I've been having a big Lionel Barrymore November. I liked him in this as Dakkar, a benevolent neo-Nemo and I liked the idea of him creating this utopian socialist science-driven paradise/cult on a remote island. I'd love to see a modern stab at this whole thing. It's like the good, heroic version of the usual evil Bond supervillain. Things start out promising with Dakkar showing off his technology and discoveries; seeing that partial fishman skeleton is just cool as hell and it primes you for adventure and fun ahead. Unfortunately, it takes forever to get to the undersea fun. It feels like the majority of the run time is spent with the villainous Baron's forces fighting our…

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  Review by Hatercles

  Over thirty years before Ray Harryhausen tried to trick kids into thinking books were full of wonder and adventure came this loose adaptation of Jules Verne’s novel. And it’s as loose as Paris Hilton in a Conan O’Brien monologue from the 2000s. No castaways here, the island is a utopic land, ruled by the benevolent Count Dakkar, completely divorced from Captain Nemo although he is building a submarine. 

  This is notable for being a big budget Hollywood sci-fi epic, long before those were in vogue. Indeed, it’s failure (as well as that of Just Imagine the following year) scared them off the genre; for the next 20 years, Hollywood sci-fi would be horror hybrids and/or low budget movies aimed at…

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  Review by Lowbacca ★★½

  The Mysterious Island is a fascinating (in the most clinical sense) film in just how much of an odd hybrid film this is. This takes the title from a Jules Verne book and somewhat borrows the end but restructures the entire rest of this (and avoids saying Nemo entirely), it goes back and forth between segments with recorded sound and standard silent film with intertitles, and while I saw a black and white version, this was shot in two-strip technicolor, which appears to have been located in the last decade and so a color version may come in the future. Oh, and there's also a giant octopus (which looks really cool here and has a surprisingly effective sense of scale).…

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  Review by Silversaxophone ★★★

  Unrestored black and white print

  Nothing like the novel, a prequel to Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, or subsequent film versions, this is an entertaining part-talkie (it is mostly silent) with detailed and well-mounted special effects which were cutting edge for the period. It takes a while for the revolutionary plot to give way to the under water adventures and the steam punk hardware, but the slower parts are helped by a fully ambulant Lionel Barrymore. Originally shot in two-strip Technicolor, a release of a restored print would be appreciated.

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  Review by Emily ★★★½

  Kept me interested the whole time! Lloyd Hughes had such a beautiful face.

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  Review by BrianNaas ★★★½

  Considering the troubled production history of this film, it is rather amazing that it came out as good as it did. In theory it started out based on the book of the same name by Jules Verne but over the two years and many delays of it being made it turned into something very different with only a small nod to its source. And what they turned it into is very cool and imaginative. The book is about Confederate soldiers who escape on a balloon and land on an island which after various adventures and mysteries turned out to be the hideout of Captain Nemo. Nemo's real name is revealed to be Prince Dakkar and the story takes place after…

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  Review by Paul Senior ★★

  Attempt at a Jules Verne adaptation that bears little relation to the book.

  Shot silent with sound sections added before release, it's an awkward hybrid of title cards and sound effects.

  There's a submarine and a revolution and a forbidden romance and funny hats.

  The sub sets are kinda fun with the crew earnestly yanking on huge levers and valves. Early miniature work has some evidence of overcranking the camera to make it look more in scale.

  Overall barely tolerable. Gets better as it goes on.

  Film #503 of 2020.

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  Review by La Puerta de Tannhäuser ♘ ★★★

  Traspasando eras sin sonido. Aventuras de ficción atropelladas por la tecnología. Desfile de directores y espectáculo de colores.

  The mysterious island posee historia. Transición a color en tiempos del gris. Parches para camuflar retrasos. La puesta en escena es llamativa. Se siente moderna a pesar de su desfase. Es irregular en la estructura. A los estáticos parches posteriores se les identifica sin esfuerzo. Su reclamo está en su segunda mitad. El interés recae en la maravillosa recreación del mundo submarino.

  90% color, 5% diálogos. Tourneur, Christensen y otro crack en el '29.

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  Review by Dan K ★★★

  "Death is close upon me. In the years to come, I do not wish to be remembered as one who brought into the world an instrument of death and destruction."

  This film has a lot of "of its era" issues, namely it's one of those silent films that was partially converted to a talkie. But I still enjoyed it a lot and the design work is really original and unique.

  I just read that the film was recently restored but it's still completely impossible to see or buy the restored version, what the hell release that shit! What the hell is the point of restoring a film if no one can watch it??