Directed by:
Cy EndfieldCinematography:
Wilkie CooperComposer:
Bernard HerrmannCast:
Michael Craig, Joan Greenwood, Michael Callan, Herbert Lom, Gary Merrill, Percy Herbert, Beth Rogan, Dan JacksonVOD (1)
Plots(1)
The fantastic Captain Nemo (Herbert Lom) once again inspires the spirit of adventure in another Jules Verne classic. Captain Cyrus Harding (Michael Craig) leads three Union soldiers in a daring escape from a Confederate prison camp in a seized Confederate balloon. A raging storm forces the balloon over the ocean toward a Pacific island on which the group becomes marooned. The shipwrecked women share in the dangerous encounters the castaways have with a host of gigantic beasts (courtesy of Ray Harryhausen's special effects). Their fight for survival is aided by the mysterious Nemo of the submarine Nautilus, who, in an attempt to increase the world's food supply, helped create the strange animals. When a volcano erupts and threatens to destroy everyone, can Nemo save them? (Shock Entertainment)
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Reviews (3)
An adorably naive and visually solid adventure spectacle with the unmistakable signature of visual effects legend Ray Harryhausen. Simple techniques, rear projection, painted sets and animatronic puppets in the form of a giant crab, giant bees, some kind of ostrich-hen hybrid and a gigantic octopus, all of these are hallmarks of Harryhausen's work, which was unchanging, clear and impressive from The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms to Clash of the Titans. I haven't read Verne's novel “Mysterious Island”, so I can't judge to what extent they stuck to the source material, but it's a nice film packed with special effects.
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The opening with the flight in the balloon lured me, while the rest of the film was rather disappointing. True, thanks to Ray Harryhausen, everything in it is (literally) big - the crab, the bees... But this time it wasn't enough for me. I was looking forward to Verne's story, which I know from the book, and the filmmakers literally forgot about it. Not even Herbert Lom as Captain Nemo could save the day. Four stars for the special effects, but two and a half stars for everything together.
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It seems like there are quite a lot of special effects here, but in the end, there are unfortunately not that many, which is definitely a shame. Ray Harryhausen deserved maximum space due to his abilities, but the film simplified things a lot at times, which is a shame. It's a very Americanized version of the classic Jules Verne story. Without the stunning special effects sequences I expected more of, the film isn't really interesting at all, which is incredibly unfortunate.
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