I was too young for “Fantasy Island.” When the television show first aired, it was on past my bedtime. But I got the gist of it – ordinary people flew to some remote South Pacific paradise where they were greeted by well-dressed quasi-talented ethnic personalities and some supernatural force allowed them to live out their deepest desires, few of those desires being sexual in nature – this was 1970s TV after all. Once indulged, the “fantasies” were all moralistic fairy tales, never quite panning out how the dreamer dreamed, but living up to the censor’s expectations rather well. The same message filtered to dreamer and viewer alike: be careful what you wish for, or better yet, stop wishin’ for stuff altogether. In the late 1970s, just like today, this was an important, if depressing, message.
With that in mind, writer/director Jeff Wadlow and producers enacted their own ill-considered and ultimately failed fantasy: reviving Fantasy Island for the big screen. The result isn’t much of a fantasy, but don’t let that stop you; it also isn’t terribly moral.
White-suited host Mr. Roarke (Michael Peña) welcomes morons to his island paradise where they get to live out “fantasies.” Every fantasy starts ideally and then goes sour and eventually devolves into the guest running for their lives. How you get a decent Yelp review out of this is beyond me. Let’s review individual strands:
Two Idiots and a Crib – J.D. and Brax (Ryan Hansen and Jimmy O. Yang) are two brothers who want to be ballers. Their puerile non-stop party pad fantasy gets interrupted by a rival gang. At least they get to enjoy a night of partying, I suppose. Time elapsed before fantasy regret: Approx. 12 hours.
The Fantasy I Don’t Deserve – Gwen (Maggie Q) has a crappy life. Propelled by the ghost of guilt past, Gwen wants to correct a key error from several years ago to make her present better. But she misidentifies the exact moment her life fell apart, so she pushes a do-over because she can’t stand having everything she ever wanted. And then she misidentifies the moment again. Lady, you’re too stupid to have fantasies. Time elapsed before fantasy regret: Not sure because I don’t remember her enjoying any part of her fantasy.
Grunt Dad — Patrick (Austin Stowell) has a combat fantasy. Never having served, I cannot say for sure what motivates a combat fantasy, but being that Patrick ain’t exactly “Rah! Rah! USA!” nor a second amendment blowhard, he doesn’t seem like the guy who has death-by-insurgency as #1 on the fantasy list, huh? Oh, I see, he has a dad to live up to. Well, this is gonna be quite a fantasy when it’s clear that the city cop has no idea how to behave in a jungle. And what war is being fought of Fantasy Island? Never mind. Time elapsed before fantasy regret: However long it took to travel to “Venezuela.”
High School Retributional – I think this is my favorite stupid fantasy. Not only is it a immature as a Trump tweet, our heroine (Lucy Hale) gives up on it within two-and-a-half minutes. Melanie (Hale) was bullied in high school and wants revenge. Instructed to retreat to a dungeon basement, she finds rival Sloane (Portia Doubleday) strapped to a chair. Now you might ask, “How did they get Sloane there?” I know I did. The island ain’t exactly served by Delta, knowhatI’msayin’? They get like 1 flight a month and it’s a seaplane. Was Sloane knocked out and stored in baggage? Anyhoo, the point is that Meanie, who has dreamed of this very moment for at least a decade, enjoys the li’l torture devices for about the length of a movie trailer and then decides it’s too much when some sadist butcher gets involved. Really? Time elapsed before fantasy regret: Two minutes, thirty-seven seconds.
You won’t believe this, but there’s a meta at the end of this, and it makes even less sense than the fantasies. The best comparison for this film is the first Scooby-Doo, where the gang battles ghosts on an island retreat to the delight of none. I won’t say none will be delighted by Fantasy Island. Oh yeah, this was a bad film, but I found it resting on the entertaining side of bad where you knew it was stupid, but you kinda wanted to see what would happen next. That’s about as high praise as this film is getting, and for good reason. So congratulations, Fantasy Island. 1.5 stars from steelfrogblog; your fantasy is granted.
An island of supernatural bend
For the sake of amusement, we’ll pretend
That this trash is treasure
With mere seconds of pleasure
My fantasy is for this film to end
Rated PG-13, 109 Minutes
Director: Jeff Wadlow
Writer: Jillian Jacobs, Christopher Roach, Jeff Wadlow
Genre: Demonizing dreams
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The dude who originally pitched the idea for the TV show in the 1970s
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who fantasize
