‘The Island Of Dr. Moreau’ Would Be Better Left Unexplored

In the new “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” Marlon Brando spends a lifetime trying to turn animals into people.

What an amateur. In a year, his movie’s makers turned a classic novel into a dog.

A howling, mangy mongrel of a movie, “The Island of Dr. Moreau” reportedly saw its troubles begin in 1995, when director Richard Stanley left the set after quarrels with star Val Kilmer. The problems worsened when Kilmer’s co-star, Rob Morrow, followed Stanley into happy exile.

Jungle locations, giant egos and Brando - the whole thing was beginning to smell like “Apocalypse Now,” but with ape-men. The reasonable thing probably would have been for the moviemakers to shrug and walk away right then. But who ever accused Hollywood executives of reason?

So instead the studio, New Line, poured in even more money. They hired pop-eyed David Thewlis to replace the cuddly Morrow. They called up old John Frankenheimer - who hasn’t done a decent theatrical feature since “52 Pick-up” - and asked him to direct. And then he, lord love him, decided to let Brando “explore” the role.

It’s hard to imagine what territory Brando thinks he’s mapping out here, though. Is he doing a parody of Belushi’s parody of him? A tribute to Totie Fields? Swathed in caftans like some Boca Raton matron, he pads around his mansion in Birkenstocks, smiling indulgently at dog-faced boys. In one scene, he puts an ice bucket on his head. Occasionally he rides around the island in a sort of Popemobile, his face Kabuki-white with sun block.

It is an atrocious performance, but after all, this is Brando - he’s earned the right to act atrociously occasionally. It will take a few more Dr. Moreaus before we can completely forget Stanley Kowalski and Vito Corleone.

Val Kilmer, however, has stored up no such goodwill. He’s a gorgeous man, but a shamefully narcissistic actor - he’d much rather go into a pose than give a performance. And his job in this movie makes Brando’s look sane.

For the first half hour of the film, he slides about in a sarong, a hibiscus flower in his mouth, draping himself over furniture like a Playgirl model. For the last half hour, he moves into a monumentally cruel impression of Brando himself, mocking every nasal inflection and mannered snort. This isn’t acting - it’s a grade-school brat making fun of the teacher once he’s left the room.

And where is Frankenheimer during all this? Hard to say. The movie moves - Frankenheimer always knew how to cut - but technically this is just shoddy, blurred and grainy. And the script is a mess, grafting a clumsy religious parable onto H.G. Wells’ old anti-vivisectionist tract.

Most of the other performers, luckily, are obscured under rubber snouts and black fur. As Aissa the cat-woman, Fairuza Balk clunks around without even a modicum of feline grace; as for the usually ferocious Thewlis, he either looks sleepy or shocked, both reasonable reactions under the circumstances.

It’s hard to figure out why anyone filmed this story again. Perhaps now the studio is wondering, too. Released at the end of the summer with the bare minimum of advertising, the movie seems as though it’s being abandoned as the unwanted mutt it always was.

Too bad it wasn’t abandoned 12 months ago.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: “The Island of Dr. Moreau” Locations: East Sprague, Coeur d’alene cinemas Credits: Directed by John Frankenheimer, starring Marlon Brando, Val Kilmer, David Thewlis Running time: 1:36 Rating: PG-13