La isla misteriosa

An adorably naive and visually solid adventure spectacle with the unmistakable signature of visual effects legend Ray Harryhausen. Simple techniques, rear projection, painted sets and animatronic puppets in the form of a giant crab, giant bees, some kind of ostrich-hen hybrid and a gigantic octopus, all of these are hallmarks of Harryhausen's work, which was unchanging, clear and impressive from The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms to Clash of the Titans. I haven't read Verne's novel “Mysterious Island”, so I can't judge to what extent they stuck to the source material, but it's a nice film packed with special effects. (24.09.2004)

It seems like there are quite a lot of special effects here, but in the end, there are unfortunately not that many, which is definitely a shame. Ray Harryhausen deserved maximum space due to his abilities, but the film simplified things a lot at times, which is a shame. It's a very Americanized version of the classic Jules Verne story. Without the stunning special effects sequences I expected more of, the film isn't really interesting at all, which is incredibly unfortunate. (17.12.2013)

The opening with the flight in the balloon lured me, while the rest of the film was rather disappointing. True, thanks to Ray Harryhausen, everything in it is (literally) big - the crab, the bees... But this time it wasn't enough for me. I was looking forward to Verne's story, which I know from the book, and the filmmakers literally forgot about it. Not even Herbert Lom as Captain Nemo could save the day. Four stars for the special effects, but two and a half stars for everything together. (09.07.2011)