SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

calvinnme Based on the 1874 Jules Verne novel, the film starts in a Confederate prison camp in 1865 Richmond. Four Union prisoners manage to escape via a Confederate weather balloon. They crash several days later on a seemingly deserted island and discover they have company - giant crabs. If only they had waited awhile longer Lee would have surrendered. I mean, the fact that Richmond was under siege by the Union had to be a good sign that they would soon be liberated. But I digress.The acting isn't the main attraction, and the cast knows it. The script gives them stereotypes to play, and they don't overcome the script. Greenwood and Merrill are the two who fare best, Greenwood by satirizing her role as a Bored English lady, Merrill by getting laughs out of old jokes.Harryhausen's special effects were the main box-office draw, and he comes through pretty well. The visuals vary from OK to spectacularly effective. The set painted backdrops are terribly obvious, especially when the island is first sighted. Wilkie Cooper did the mostly effective photography, and there is an excellent score by Bernard Herrmann.This is not the best of Harryhausen, but it is far from his worst.

classicsoncall I couldn't get over how Confederate Sergeant Pencroft (Percy Herbert) put one over on the entire band of Union soldier escapees by stating he could fly the balloon. The only control a balloonist has over his aircraft is when to release the tether rope, and after that, just up and down depending on the amount of hot air forced into the envelope of the balloon. And this balloon didn't have any means of propulsion for lifting it off the ground!!! Oh well, a lesson in balloon physics isn't what your average viewer would be tuning in for anyway. Personally, I thought the Mysterious Island would be home to all manner of dinosaurs for some reason, so it was rather a surprise to see all those otherwise normal looking animals blown up to monstrous proportions. I believe the giant crab scene was the basis for one of those Dell Comic Book covers back in the Sixties, and if it wasn't, it should have been. The mega-chicken was pretty cool too, but for some reason I expected an even larger mother hen to come blazing around the corner.Captain Nemo (Herbert Lom) turned out to be an interesting guy. I get a kick out of characters who's idea of championing world peace involves killing off unsavory competition like those pirates approaching the island. Sure they might have deserved it, but how does one responsibly become an arbiter in this sort of equation? The movie certainly looks dated from the standpoint of 2016 as I write this, but there's a certain charm and mystique in films like this from a half century ago. They might be saying the same thing about the "Star Wars" films some day too. Check this one out for another excellent example of Ray Harryhausen's handiwork. His prior films featured creatures filmed using the 'dynamation' process, this one upped the ante by going for 'super dynamation' according to the picture's opening credits.

MartinHafer This movie must have looked great back in 1961, though the special effects today look pretty dated. Now I am not trying to be nasty--I can respect the work Ray Harryhausen did with the film but in this age of incredible CGI work, his stop-motion work does look pretty quaint. Plus, the superimposed backgrounds and other effects just seem to have aged poorly. HOWEVER, the film still looks good and is entertaining--making it sort of a 'turn off your brain and enjoy' sort of film.It begins at a Confederate prison camp during the US Civil War. A group of Union soldiers have a remarkably easy time escaping and seizing an observation balloon. But, once in the balloon they hit a huge storm that takes them way out over the Pacific Ocean. After many days, they arrive at an odd island--odd because there are some HUGE creatures there and also because oddly fortuitous things keep happening. First, some ladies conveniently land there as well (yet the island is supposedly in the middle of no where). Second, when pirates or giant animals attack, Captain Nemo suddenly appears and saves the day. Third, when the island decides to explode and kill them all, they manage to create a means of escape.Now you might think this would make for a silly film, but the overall effect was actually pretty cool. The acting, while most of the actors are relative unknowns, was quite good. The only really familiar faces I saw were Herbert Lom (who played a nice Captain Nemo) and Gary Merrill (one of Bette Davis' many husbands and a very underrated actor). I think kids, fantasy and Harryhausen fans will enjoy this. However, if you are a person who only watches DVDs from the Criterion Collection or the latest and most up to date films, you probably won't enjoy this film nearly as much. I liked it because it was charming for its kitsch value--plus it was pretty fun.By the way, although there are several silly effects in the film, the one that made me laugh is one I see all the time. At one point the folks find a skeleton and it is fully articulated--in other words, all the bones are connected like you'd see in a skeleton in a science classroom. Well, despite seeing these all the time in movies, once the flesh is removed from a skeleton, the ligaments and tendons become disconnected from the bones and the whole thing falls apart. In other words, you'd just find a pile of bones. That's your biology lesson for today, kids!

Claudio Carvalho In 1865, during the siege of Richmond, Virginia, the union soldiers POW Captain Harding (Michael Craig), Neb (Dan Jackson) and Herbert (Michael Callan) escape in a balloon during a storm with two confederate prisoners, Sergeant Pencroft (Percy Herbert) and the journalist Spilett (Gary Merrill). The uncontrollable wind takes the balloon to a mysterious island in the South Pacific in the area of New Zealand. Captain Harding self-proclaims the leader of the group and they look for food; sooner they discover that they are stranded in an island. Further, they are attacked by a giant crab that becomes their first meal. Along the days, they build a shelter and finds that the island is inhabited by giant animals. A couple of days later, they find two castaways on the beach, the aristocratic Lady Mary Fairchild (Joan Greenwood) and her sexy niece Elena (Beth Rogan). Later they find a trunk with weapons and instruments like sextant and shelter with a journal of a man left alone in the island by pirates. When the pirate vessel arrives in the island, they are helped by Captain Nemo (Herbert Lom) of the Nautilus, a submarine that had supposedly sunk in the coast of Mexico eight years ago. Nemo is famous as the man that tried to end strike among man. When the volcano begins activity, they need to leave the island to save their lives."Mysterious Island" is a fantastic and enjoyable adventure from the 60's that recall many films that I used to see in my childhood. The naive story has great special effects for a movie of almost fifty years ago, excellent music score and still is a wonderful family entertainment. While watching this movie, the costume of the sexy Ms. Beth Rogan called my attention and I glanced in a review an humorous comment from an IMDb User about the dress of this actress. Unfortunately in the modern world of satellites and communication, there are no more space for movies about lost worlds; maybe the exceptions are the TV series "Lost" and M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village". "Mysterious Island" is a highly recommended voyage to not only a lost world, but also to a time that has gone by. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "A Ilha Misteriosa" ("The Mysterious Island")