The Mysterious Island is the first adaptation of the Jules Verne classic follow up to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Trouble is, how much can you change the source material before it's no longer an adaptation?
That is the main issue the movie struggles with, it barely resembles the original story at all and is instead a tale that takes pieces from it, it's predecessor and other random concepts pulled out of thin air.
Both a silent film with placards and a talkie, it's a very odd little film. One moment it's the oddly sped up over the top film you'd expect from the 20's and the next it looks ahead of it's time with the cast vocalizing their script.
If you can get past that muddle and the awful super loose adaptation you'll find there really isn't much else on display. It looks the part for a movie made in 1929 and when we have vocalized dialogue it sounds great, but the actual content itself is really quite bad.
The plot is confusing and very poorly paced, I went in assuming it would at least be better than the 1961 version but alas I was mistaken.
Simply not the Jules Verne tale in any shape or form.
The Good:
Visual and audio is great for its time
The Bad:
Far too loose of an adaptation
Story is just a mess
Silent vs audio incorporation just doesn't work
That is the main issue the movie struggles with, it barely resembles the original story at all and is instead a tale that takes pieces from it, it's predecessor and other random concepts pulled out of thin air.
Both a silent film with placards and a talkie, it's a very odd little film. One moment it's the oddly sped up over the top film you'd expect from the 20's and the next it looks ahead of it's time with the cast vocalizing their script.
If you can get past that muddle and the awful super loose adaptation you'll find there really isn't much else on display. It looks the part for a movie made in 1929 and when we have vocalized dialogue it sounds great, but the actual content itself is really quite bad.
The plot is confusing and very poorly paced, I went in assuming it would at least be better than the 1961 version but alas I was mistaken.
Simply not the Jules Verne tale in any shape or form.
The Good:
Visual and audio is great for its time
The Bad:
Far too loose of an adaptation
Story is just a mess
Silent vs audio incorporation just doesn't work