FANTASY ISLAND (2020) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

fantasy island (2020) movie

Genre              |   Thriller

Classification   |   M

Running time   |   109 minutes

Released         |   13 February 2020

cast

Lucy Hale ... Melanie
Michael Peña ... Mr. Roarke
Kim Coates ... Devil Face
Parisa Fitz-Henley ... Julia
Jimmy O. Yang ... Brax
Nick Slater ... Greg
​Ian Roberts ... The Surgeon
​Michael Rooker

director

​Jeff Wadlow

writer

Jillian Jacobs
Christopher Roach
Jeff Wadlow

cinematographer

​Toby Oliver

music

Matthew Margeson ​

film editor

​Sean Albertson

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box office result

Worldwide               $? million

Australia                 $? million

North America        $? million

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movie minutiae

The film is described as being a tonal mix of WESTWORLD meets THE CABIN IN THE WOODS, centering on a group of contest winners who arrive at an island hotel to live out their dreams, only to find themselves trapped in nightmare scenarios.

​In October 2018, Michael Peña, Jimmy O. Yang, Dave Bautista and Lucy Hale joined the cast. In November 2018, during an interview, Wadlow disclosed that Maggie Q, Portia Doubleday and Ryan Hansen had joined the cast, as well as suggesting Bautista may no longer be able to appear in the film.

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FANTASY ISLAND (2020) MOVIE IMAGES

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FANTASY ISLAND (2020) STORY SYNOPSIS

​The enigmatic Mr Roarke makes the secret dreams of his lucky guests come true at a luxurious but remote tropical resort, but when the fantasies turn into nightmares, the guests have to solve the island's mystery in order to escape with their lives.

FANTASY ISLAND (2020) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 26 February 2020

Pop ​Movee Rating

When a distributor doesn’t offer a reviewer or preview screening of a new release film, that’s normally a sign that there’s an awful lot wrong with the movie in question...

It’s seldom that Blumhouse Productions shoot so wide of the mark, but FANTASY ISLAND is, arguably, the worst film they’ve been associated with.

Like any cinematic “epic fail”, the root cause of the myriad problems plaguing FANTASY ISLAND lie in a poorly developed, unimaginative story. Compounding this are performance problems that have not been able to be fixed during the film’s editing. The editing itself is also a reflection of the film’s overall confusion and the manner in which scenes have been assembled don’t make a great deal of sense...

Director Jeff Wadlow, who also helped co-write the film, is an experienced filmmaker. KICK-ASS 2 (2013) has its fans, while TRUTH OR DARE (2018) is another Blumhouse-backed film that performed well above expectations; earning $93 million globally off a reported $3.5 million production budget. 

It’s a surprise that Wadlow can’t massage FANTASY ISLAND into something that offers the viewer some kind of coherent sequence of events that provide some level of viewing satisfaction.

By any normal measure, the longer someone does a job, the better they should become at their chosen profession...

This doesn’t seem to be the case with Jeff Wadlow. 

From 2013 until now, each of his films have been less impressive than the last, to the point where FANTASY ISLAND could have easily been consigned to a home entertainment only release. Other than being distributed by a major studio in Sony, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of sense in going to all the effort required for a theatrical release for such a bad film.

For those familiar with the TV show upon which this film is based, the premise of the 2020 FANTASY ISLAND is remarkably similar to its source material...

From 1977 to 1984, through two made-for-television movies and 152 episodes, Ricardo Montalban played “Mr. Roarke”, the mysterious, enigmatic host for the well-heeled line-up of past-their-prime performers who came to have their innermost desires granted week-in-week-out. 

Throughout the show’s run, “Mr. Roarke” remained an unknown quantity...

At times, he exhibited supernatural abilities. Sometimes, he was Johnny-on-the-spot to rescue a damsel in distress. Other times he was the centre of action. Montalban’s Mr.Roarke was an expositional everyman, capable of being employed by the show’s writers to be the plot-point panacea; an all-purpose character who served more as a script fail-safe than he did as a genuine human worthy of ongoing exploration in and of himself.

The TV version of FANTASY ISLAND was a quasi anthology series. It wasn’t quite THE TWILIGHT ZONE, but not so far removed that it couldn’t be mistaken for anything but an exploration of the fantastique, where each week, with the exception of Mr.Roarke and his assistant Tattoo (Herve Villechaize), a different story would be told with a different set of characters.

Jeff Wadlow’s feature film version makes an effort to use the quasi anthology story approach of the TV show, but the execution fails dismally.

Each character has their own story, but as the running time elapses, an ever-mounting number of coincidences accumulate that, eventually, see all of the film’s character arcs crash into one another, creating one almighty wreck of a film.

A group of strangers arrive at “Fantasy Island” via seaplane. Uncertain of what to expect, they engage in almost non-stop speculation about their fantasy, how it will play out and how does Mr.Roarke (Michael Pena) fit into the picture?

Each guest is eventually greeted by Mr.Roarke and soon enough, embark upon their fantasy.

The rules are the same as the TV show…

The guest must see their fantasy through to its conclusion.

Normally, the expression would read “logical conclusion”, but there is no logic of any kind in this film.

Wadlow has enlisted the help of his TRUTH OR DARE (2018) writing duo, Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach, to help flesh his screenplay, but neither writer could say with a straight face that this was their best work.

If anyone ever needed convincing that Reality TV such as BIG BROTHER or Wrestling weren’t tightly plotted, heavily scripted affairs, a glance through Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach’s writing and producing credits will provide all the proof needed to confirm there’s nothing random about what goes on in any of these shows.

Despite their experience in the Reality TV field, Jacobs and Roach can’t help lift the material to a level that’s even close to approaching comprehensible.

Wadlow leans on his TRUTH OR DARE star Lucy Hale, playing Melanie Cole, to help drive the film’s story, but the material she’s provided is so convoluted that her performance struggles to find any kind of balance. One moment she’s ready to settle an old score with a High School bully, the next she’s trying to escape from some kind of zombified Mad Doctor. She’s not without motivation, but the story takes so long to get to where it wants to be that Hale never really gets a chance to deliver anything other than manic reactions to the mayhem unfolding around her.

In some films, the presence of Michael Rooker as a supporting cast member would be regarded as a positive inclusion.

Not so in FANTASY ISLAND.

It’s more like “What the fuck???”

There’s no doubt that Michael Rooker is a character. In real life, he’s  known for doing unexpected things and not sugar-coating the truth.

Damon, his character in the film, might as well have been called “Michael” or “Rooker” or “Michael Rooker”. It’s like he’s not even acting. 

Perhaps Rooker is actually the only one associated with this movie that actually understood how FANTASY ISLAND should play out for the audience…

Appear. 
Do your 15 minute arc.
Jump off a cliff…

It’s interesting to compare FANTASY ISLAND with THE INVISIBLE MAN, another Blumhouse movie that releases at the end of February 2020.

THE INVISIBLE MAN is a four star movie. Great twist on a classic story. Innovative visual approach. Awesome music. Compelling central performance by Elisabeth Moss. Brought to the screen by a talented Writer Director in Leigh Whannell.

Then, there’s FANTASY ISLAND. A one star movie. Lazy writing. Some interesting visuals lost in a stream of made-for-television scenes. Generic music. No great performances; just one really bizarre one. Brought to the screen by people who learned what they know from making Reality TV shows.

FANTASY ISLAND proves, yet again, to reimagine a TV show or movie, it takes more than just the rights to use the name for it to be a success.

FANTASY ISLAND MOVIE (2020) USEFUL LINKS

Fantasy Island (film) - Wikipedia
​Fantasy Island (2020) - IMDb
​Fantasy Island (2020) - Rotten Tomatoes

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