This movie stinks. There's no getting around that. I can think of nothing positive to say about it. I've watched a lot of terrible movies made for the SyFy channel, and this one ranks among the very worst. It's right up there with that awful version of KING SOLOMON'S MINES that looked like it was filmed in a city park.
I don't object to films adapting works of classic literature in ways their original authors never imagined, but I do object strongly to attaching the original authors' names to the often unrecognizable results. Such is the case with this virtually unwatchable atrocity. It has little to do with Jules Verne's original story, which is set in the time of the U.S. Civil War, when five Yankee prisoners escape from Confederate captivity in a balloon craft and are blown by an immense storm all the way to an uncharted South Pacific island. That's the essential premise of this film, though the geography is vague. Beyond that premise, however, the film has little to do with the novel. In fact, I'm willing to bet it was based not on Verne's novel but on the 1961 film of the same title that was itself a major departure from the novel. Like that film, this SyFy stinker adds several similar characters not in the novel–namely a Confederate soldier and two women. This version differs mainly in having the female characters arrive on the island in a airplane after–apparently–being blown through the Bermuda Triangle. Is the ensuring story now set in the mid-19th century or in the early 21st century? It's impossible to say, but I doubt the creators of this film themselves knew–or cared.
Like the 1961 film, this one moves the action along far more swiftly than the novel does. It has the characters leave the island within days of their arrival there. By contrast, in the novel the castaways are on the island nearly four years, during which time they raise extensive crops, breed animals, mine minerals, make tools and machines, and build houses, bridges, and boats. One of the chief points of interest in the novel is how they meet the many challenges they face, while dangers posed by harsh weather, fierce animals, pirates, and a volcano make for frequent thrills. The novel is a robust, fascinating book that might be thought of as like THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON on steroids. In this SyFy movie, nothing interesting happens. The chief questions one has while trying to watch it is this: Did someone actually write a screenplay for this mess? Or, were they making it up as they went along? What does this terrible SyFy movie have to do with Verne's novel? Not much, aside from its undeserved title. If the SyFy channel wants to produce lousy movies, that's fine. They'll always find an undiscriminating audience that will enjoy them. I have no problem with that. However, if they must do that, it would be far better if they would come up with totally original stories and not pretend they are producing adaptations of classic works that can only serve to give real science fiction a bad name.
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