If a mystery exists in Jules Verne’s Mystery on Monster Island — one does not — the characters are not cognizant of it. Please forgive them, for they are very, very stupid.
And so is their movie, for which Pieces auteur Juan Piquer Simón pillow-smothered Verne’s 1882 adventure novel Godfrey Morgan into a live-action cartoon. Don’t get your hopes up when the names of Star Wars’ Peter Cushing and Superman II’s Terence Stamp topline the opening credits; both distinguished thespians bookend the film like veritable Cryptkeepers. (Expect even less from Spanish horror icon Paul Naschy, who croaks in the first scene.) That leaves the heavy lifting of the featherweight narrative to no-names Ian Sera and David Hatton.
Simón’s four-time leading man, the Screech-like Sera (Pod People) plays Jeff Morgan, one of those aristocratic sorts who wishes to see the world before settling down. His uncle (Cushing) bankrolls a yearlong, not-so-extraordinary voyage for the young man aboard his ship, and orders the fussy etiquette professor Artelect (Hatton, The Pirates of Penzance) along as Jeff’s slave, more or less. It’s as if Jeff were traveling with Sesame Street’s Mr. Noodle.
Rather quickly, the ship gets wrecked after an attack by walking fish creatures, leaving Jeff and Artelect stranded on an island where, despite a language divide, they befriend a native man (Gasphar Ipua, Simón’s Sea Devils) in a loincloth and constantly encounter title-hencing monsters, including dinosaurs, seaweed heaps and giant caterpillars that spew God-knows-what. No matter the critter, Artelect quakes in fear and screams, “Monsters! Monsters!” (He also shouts this upon spotting a pig and a fully stationary skeleton; in other words, he redefines “annoying.”) Eventually, our heroes get wise enough to Home Alone the hell outta that jungle by crafting such defense mechanisms as banana cannons and coconut catapults.
The monsters are laughably cheap and unconvincing, seemingly with fewer points of articulation than a corncob voodoo doll. Simón attempts to justify it through a story “twist,” but since Verne’s book was beast-free, I’m not buying what Simón is selling there. At the same time, I wouldn’t want him to change a thing, especially with regard to the creatures’ appearance; the more “real” they would look, the less entertaining Mystery on Monster Island would be. As is, it’s another Simón disasterpiece. Dig in! —Rod Lott