I stopped in at Walmart on the home the other day and wound up buying this two movie box set for 5 bucks. I couldn't find a picture of the box set. It's not on BluRay. I watched the first of the movies, both of which are based on Jules Verne novels, this morning before the TwinLUG meeting. Mysterious Island starts off like the book, some people escape the Siege of Richmond in a balloon. They drift off to sea and wind up on an island. The island has some big critters, Nemo lives there and there are pirates. There's a lot of other changes, including the addition of women and a bit of romance. That's not surprising, the movie was made for the Hallmark Channel. Kyle MacLachlan as our main hero and Patrick Stewart as Nemo. The New Zealand scenery looks great, as usual, but the CGI monsters they stick in are mostly sad. A guy does gets eaten by a giant praying mantis. Russell Mulcahy is the director. He does a lot of tv now a days. He used to do music videos for bands like Duran Duran and Elton John. His first video,The Buggles - Video Killed the Radio Star, was the first video to be played on MTV. Do you remember that. I had their album, on vinyl. Mulcahy also directed the first two Highlander movies, and Resident Evil: Extinction which I found to be one of the best movies he had done. This one is not nearly that good.
Sadly neither was the 1999 Journey To The Center Of The Earth starring Treat Williams and Jeremy London. It changes Verne's story quite a bit also. Different characters travel to the center of the earth through a different opening in the earth's crust. The characters go for a different reason and there are not one, but two romances, and they both are triangles. Another Hallmark production. It's as sappy as some of their cards. The monsters aren't very good CGI either. There are more dinosaurs in this movie than the first. The underground cavern with the lake is pretty to look at. This version doesn't have prehistoric humans like the book. It has to make due with prehistoric humanoid lizards. Their costumes don't look too good. The first time I saw one? I laughed. Out loud. There are some humans who live in the subterranian cavern also. They have some magical weed that heals wounds when used as a paste and acts like a pain killer when smoked or made into tea. There's some fighting amongst the various groups and a lot of talking. I barely got my 5 bucks worth with those two movies even though they are 170 & 187 minutes long. There is the sales tax.
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