NekoHomey
Purely Joyful Movie!
Reptileenbu
Did you people see the same film I saw?
Comwayon
A Disappointing Continuation
Portia Hilton
Blistering performances.
Leofwine_draca
RETURN TO THE BLUE LAGOON, made 11 years after the successful first film, is one of those movies that's happy to reprise the plot of the original while adding a few twists and tweaks of its own. It's an entirely superfluous kind of film that sees yet another couple of kids washed up on a desert island and having to fend for themselves against nature and their fellow man.There are a few differences here - the adult with them is a woman, the boy is the son of the couple from THE BLUE LAGOON, they're staying in the same place so make use of the already-there house, etc. - but none of them make a difference. Once again the film is all about puberty, isolation, love and family, except as it's not original it feels like a lukewarm rehash of the first movie.The acting doesn't really sit right either. The age gap between Milla Jovovich and Brian Krause is too obvious, and Krause is as equally wooden as Christopher Atkins before him. Jovovich definitely has something feral within her, but less use is made of that as in THE FIFTH ELEMENT, which handled her unique qualities perfectly. Director William A. Graham made a career of TV movies and although RETURN TO THE BLUE LAGOON had a theatrical release, it feels very much like a second-rate outing in every respect.
Desertman84
This sequel to the surprise box office hit The Blue Lagoon.It mimics its predecessor's romantic adventure formula of a lush tropical locale inhabited by scantily clad, nubile teens discovering their sexuality. This romance and adventure film stars Milla Jovovich and Brian Krause.It is produced and directed by William A. Graham. The screenplay by Leslie Stevens was based on the novel The Garden of God by Henry De Vere Stacpoole.The film tells the story of two young children marooned on a tropical island paradise in the South Pacific. Their life together is blissful, but not without physical and emotional changes, as they grow to maturity and fall in love.Spotted adrift in a boat with his deceased parents Richard and Emmeline, a baby boy is rescued by a passing ship. Adopted by the widow Hargrove, infant Richard is soon at sea again after he, his new mother and her baby daughter Lilli abandon ship in the face of a cholera epidemic. Washing ashore on the same island populated by the first film's heroes, Hargrove protects and raises her young charges until a disease also claims her life. Years pass and both Richard and Lilli become young adults. While Richard discovers his manhood by racing a lagoon shark and spying on the island's dangerous natives, Lilli becomes a woman with her first period. Eventually their raging hormones lead the two into each other's arms. Marriage and a pregnancy follow, but Richard and Lilli's union is threatened by the arrival of a ship carrying a lovely captain's daughter with eyes for the loincloth-clad Richard.The Fijian background looks pretty, but there's no escaping the fact that the tropical flowers and trees seem smarter and more appealing than the people.The visuals are the only good thing about this movie. And nothing else. A testament to that is the Razzie nominations it received which are the following:Worst Director - William A. Graham Worst New Star - Milla Jovovich Worst New Star - Brian Krause Worst Picture - William A. Graham Worst Screenplay - Leslie Stevens Young Artist Awards: Best Young Actress Starring in a Motion Picture - Milla JovovichAlthough it never won any award,it still reflects how poor this sequel was to a dumb classic movie.
TxMike
In 'Blue Lagoon' the movie ends with the young couple and their baby adrift at sea as a boat approaches. We don't really know what happened or if they survived. This movie, "Return", takes up where that one ended, somewhere in the Pacific, in the late 1800s.As a small party from the ship board the small boat, they find the parents no longer alive, but the baby boy is fine. On board the ship are a mother and her daughter, and she decides to care for the baby boy. But on board the crew soon begin to come down with an illness, Cholera, so the woman and the two small children are put out on a lifeboat, it is their only chance to survive.The story that results is very similar to the first movie, in that an adult and 2 small children are stranded on an uncharted island, in fact the same uncharted island, and there the children grow into young adulthood.Milla Jovovich, who was only 14 or 15 during filming, is very suitable as Lilli, the girl the baby grew into on the island. Brian Krause, who was 20 or 21 during filming, was Richard, the boy that the baby boy grew into. As the story progressed and they entered puberty we see them facing many of the behavioral issues the teens in the first movie faced, and mirror what teens in our own society face.No, by no means is this a great movie but it is interesting. It is too much like the first one so not much new is explored, but interesting to see anyway.MAJOR SPOILERS: As the 4 are initially out to sea in the small boat the seaman sees they are running short of water and wants to throw the two small crying children overboard. As he begins to the mom takes a harpoon and knocks him out them dumps him into the ocean. The remaining three of them come ashore and soon find the home that the boy and his young parents had left not long before. As the children grow, and are maybe 8 and 10, the mom gets pneumonia and instructs them how to bury her and carve a memorial after she dies. As they get to be teenagers they decide to marry and have their own ring ceremony, then basically behave as if they are on their honeymoon. A ship shows up and a small crew comes ashore looking for fresh water, and the captain's daughter, Sylvia, tempts Richard, tries to seduce him but he spurns her advances to stay true to Lilli. A rogue crewman tries to violate Lilli, eventually tries to shoot Richard, but gets eaten by a shark as he chases Richard into water off the reef. After all these experiences Lilli and Richard decide to stay on the island and have their baby there, instead of going back to "civilization."
jonathanruano
I can only think of one thing more incomprehensible than making a movie from a bad script and that is for a filmmaker to base his idea for a movie on another movie that is terrible. Normally directors try to rip off good movies, like the guy who directed "The Italian Connection" based on the "The French Connection" (good thinking because sometimes Americans confuse the French and the Italians), or the other fellow who directed the porno "American Booty" based on Sam Mendes' "American Beauty." And if all else fails, do a sequel like "Jaws II" based on the good "Jaws" or "Exorcist II" based on the great "Exorcist." I could go on, except I will be going off track and forgetting to tell you about the time when they decided to make the terrible "Return of the Blue Lagoon" based on the terrible "Blue Lagoon" which must have had the makers of sequels and rip offs scratching their heads.The problem with "Return to the Blue Lagoon" is the same as the last film. It is not about anything. It seems that the filmmakers felt, in spite of the bad critical reception of the first Blue Lagoon, that an exotic island and two teenagers discovering sex and then fornicating (though we see none of that) was enough to create an entertaining film. Of course, the filmmakers did a little tweaking for this film. There is the sad background story which explains how the two kids got stuck on the island, like the last two kids. Who says that Carl Orff's Carmina Burana does not have any influence over film-making. There is also an egg competition, an encounter with a native, a seductive English girl from the outside and a lascivious sailor. But other than that, Lilli (Milla Jovovich) and Richard (Brian Krause) go through the same motions as Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins as though they were destined to live the exact same lives as the previous couple on the island. What "Return to the Blue Lagoon" really is, if you think about it, is an unsexy pornographic movie for kids; a stage for kids to go through before they see the softcore and hardcore porn films. But even based on that sordid criteria, "Return to the Blue Lagoon" fails because even the sleaziest, worst acted pornos at least do something to your libido. "Return to the Blue Lagoon" does nothing because it has all the bad acting you would expect from a porno without any of any of the great sex (not least because the actors are underage). So if you are interested in a movie where a couple have lots of great sex on a deserted tropical island, watch Lina Wertmueller's "Swept Away by a Mysterious Destiny in the Blue Sea of August" instead. It has gorgeous pictures of a tropical paradise, far better acting, and you won't feel dirty and guilty by the end of the film because the actors, Giancarlo Giannini and Mariangela Melato, were both in their thirties (though they look like in the their twenties) at the time of filming.