gizmomogwai Having been a fan of Jurassic Park and Batman Forever as a kid, The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996) looked, from the TV advertisements, like the next big thing. Look at those creatures! On an island! Starring Val Kilmer and some woman (I assumed) named Marlon Brando! In fact, the film was widely panned and derided when it came out. When I saw it with my younger sister, it was more violent than I expected, a bit of a mess, but I definitely appreciated what it was trying to do. My sister totally disliked it; maybe she had better sense in this case.Lost Soul (a title paying nice homage to the original film, The Island of Lost Souls) is an engaging documentary dedicated to studying how the film went so far off track, and it is more insane than I realized. There's some good brief discussion of the novel and earlier film attempts. Then, to the meat of the picture. I'm not even sure if I would have liked Richard Stanley's original vision; the sketches are exceedingly trippy and the thought of the protagonist getting his genitals bit off during bestiality is so far out there. It's still fascinating to see what went wrong.A lot of it is bizarre- the fact that Stanley went to a witch doctor to make sure he stayed on the film, and the fact that he credited it with working, says it all. You can see the injustice in Stanley finally being fired because it was raining, according to this documentary (I heard it was because of Kilmer), but then, there's definite evidence he had broken down, going by this anecdote that he had climbed a tree and wouldn't come down. It's really striking how many people came onto the project, or stayed on, despite not wanting to be there. The gong show goes on- Kilmer and Brando locking themselves in their trailer and refusing to come out until the other does. One person remarks it would be a huge achievement to finally have a film with a beginning, a middle and an end- they succeeded. I think I would have enjoyed this doc even more if I was in total agreement that The Island of Dr. Moreau sucked- but certainly, the making of it was a trainwreck, too fascinating to look away from.

jfgibson73 The appeal of this documentary is hearing how crazy things got during the making of Dr. Moreau. There are some unbelievable stories, many of them pretty humorous, about how out of control people got making this movie. Everyone interview for this documentary agreed that Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando were messing with people, and it sounds like Val did so in a mean spirited way. The stories about Marlon make you wonder more if he was totally deliberate or having some problems with cognition. For anyone interested in the creative process, film making specifically, it's an interesting look at something we usually never get to see. It made me think about how the movie industry invests so much into a film and how a few unprofessional performers can really put a production at risk. Fairuza Balk had the most interesting comments for me, maybe because she was the one person I was familiar with. Thinking back on how wild things got, it's almost surprising the movie wasn't worse than it is.

kateskye This documentary is an engrossing story about unconventional talent, young ambition and the perils of big-budget film making. I recommend watching The Island of Doctor Moreau (1996) before viewing this film. It will give things context, but it's also an example of a so-bad-it's-fun movie.The majority of the documentary is an exercise in sharing war stories from a film set plagued with problems. The strangest events are recalled and people weigh in on how things went so wrong and how the trouble could have been prevented, or at least lessened. There is a good number of interviewees and they range from producers to actors to crew members. Director Richard Stanley, of course, takes center stage.Although it has flaws, such as failing to mention David Thewlis, this is definitely a good watch for fans of similar documentaries like Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991), Lost in La Mancha (2002) and Jodorowsky's Dune (2013).

george.schmidt Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau (2014) *** Well documented behind-the-scenes account of the train-wreck of the fruition to making of the 1996 remake of THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU shows how visionary filmmaker Richard Stanley's brainchild becomes a template in all-that-can-go-wrong-will-go-wrong fiasco of a Hollywood movie with the machinations, egos, failures and ineptitude glommed together as a fable of be careful what you wish for in having a dream project dashed to bits and pretty-much-unrecognizable. While each noteworthy figurehead involved is painted as a villain from crazy Marlon Brando, vainglorious Val Kilmer and bullying filmmaker John Frankenheimer, filmmaker David Gregory also shows how the other flip of the coin - professionalism, partners-in-crime and truth in art - also attempted to counterbalance the toxicity and dark comic failure of an epic flop.