I saw this movie's trailer some time ago and felt it looked like an interesting one. Despite having few scenes that seemed to be supernatural-ish, my wife was still willing to accompany me seeing the film last night when it premiered. Well I will get down to the movie now.
Brief Story Line
In an island known as the Fantasy Island where everything is possible, a group of people just arrived on the plane where they were given the opportunity to fulfill their fantasy. The group consisted of Gwen Olsen (Maggie Q - Nikita series, Live Free or Die Hard etc), Patrick (Austin Stowell - Colossal, Battle of the Sexes etc), Melanie (Lucy Hale - Truth or Dare, Katy Keene TV series etc), JD (Ryan Hansen - Veronica Mars TV series, CHiPs etc) and Brax (Jimmy O. Yang - Crazy Rich Asians, Silicon Valley TV series etc).
The island itself was managed by the mysterious Mr. Roarke (Michael Peña - Dora and the Lost City of Gold, Ant-man and the Wasp etc) with his assistant Julia (Parisa Fitz-Henley - Midnight, Texas TV series etc). And as promised, he was able to fulfill each person's fantasy but with only one catch that they have to see the fantasy through. What the people did not expect was their fantasy might not be exactly what they hoped for and it could even be life threatening. So how would the story conclude? Find them all in this surprisingly full of twists movie.
End of Brief Story Line
At first I was having the feeling that the movie's title sounded familiar. However, I did not look into it in more detail and just went with the flow. But somewhere towards the end, I was suddenly reminded that it must have been based on really old TV series that I watched few times in my childhood years. And when I read more info on this film, it was indeed a movie adaptation of that series. But one thing that I thought was enjoyable was the many twists which was a pleasant surprise (though I cannot say for every one as multiple twists if not done carefully might ruin a perfectly nice plot and instead of entertaining became annoying).
Anyway, this movie was having quite significant amount of drama and each character was given sufficient screen time to develop properly. We got the chance to familiarize ourselves with all of them. Obviously one or two characters would stood out more than the rest, but overall I thought they were adequate. Maggie Q did not manage to show her fight skills here, while Ryan Hansen and Jimmy O. Yang provided the humor side. Michael Peña was so so as Mr. Roarke (FYI, Mr. Roarke was previously portrayed by Ricardo Montalban and I remembered he was mysterious but charming, while Peña was very serious). Aside from those main cast, there were also support roles like Michael Rooker and Portia Doubleday (Mr. Robot series etc).
The main premise in here was the way each individual given their fantasy and how it was unpredictable plus did not turn out the way they wanted. There was also a bit of mystery element related to the island, though I thought this part was not really that required. The multiple plot twists were quite nice as there was one which my wife and I did not guess. The supernatural elements were OK but not the main focus here, but it would not be entertaining for viewers nowadays if there was no jump scare scenes (one or two still managed to surprise me and my wife and the rest of audience).
I said above that this was a movie adaptation of the Fantasy Island TV series which ran from 1977 - 1984 and was remade in 1998 for 1 season only. However, because I did not have complete memory on that original series, I could not really compare it with this movie. All I can say is that I think this one is fresh and entertaining enough as modern horror adaptation but probably not amazing enough to have good word of mouth to promote it. My wife and I did enjoy the movie though it did not really wow-ed us. Oh and this film did not have any mid or post end-credit scenes.
So if you are looking for a quite creative supernatural movie (but not a horrifying one), you could give this a try and probably could enjoy it. However, if a terrifying supernatural horror movie with nonstop horrific moments is more to your liking, then this one is not going to satisfy you. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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