Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991)

Fresh and Exciting

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Return of blue lagoon tries to act like a sequel, but is nothing more then an ill attempt at a remake with a misleading title.Richard and Em are finally found by his uncle but not in time to save them from heat stroke? Hunger? Thirst? A reason isn't given and pushes aside the fact they were mentioned only to be asleep at the end of the first film.Soon after the ship is hit with a plague that forces a caretaker to leave with Party (Richard renamed) and Lily to end up back to where we started.Now grown the kids lose their caretaker, learn to survive and discover sexuality.What makes this sequel finally different from the original is when the teenagers actually find their way back to what seems a civilized world yet first impressions can be deceiving.They are nothing but pirates who want to ransack the ship and take advance of our favorite couple.It raises questions on who is more civilized? Who has the better life and where would you rather hold up knowing what's out there?Brian Krause and Mila Joviche are no comparison to the original caste. Its not their faults it was just the lacking script.

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."

It goes without saying that the plot device used to get Lilli and Richard to the Island is both preposterous and highly unbelievable. But what transpires once everything is in place makes this flaw forgivable. While Brooke Shields portrayed her character "Emmeline" as truly naive and innocent, Mila Jovovich amps up the sexuality of her character "lilli," playing her coy, teasing, and as someone who is aware of her own seductive qualities. Chris Atkins likewise played on 'Richard's' innocent, almost infantile qualities, which gave the original film a more innocent and sweet feeling. Brian Krause seemed slightly arrogant in comparison. It seems like the world was a bit more naive in 1980 than it was in 1991, i suppose.. Anyway the island is as lush as ever, and Jovovich and Krause rival Shields and Atkins in their physical beauty, so in this sense, "return..." is a highly enjoyable film, especially to someone who is not familiar with the original. But in this sequel, civilization is put "on trial" when a group of civilized travelers invade Lilli and Richard's private paradise. In the end, these two innocents come across as more civil than the visitors, who treat their hosts like pieces of meat, to be ogled, toyed with, even raped and killed! This gorgeous film echoes the same message as the notorious film "Cannibal Holocaust," in raising the question, "Who are the real savages?' Of course this one is much easier on the eye, and the stomach than that notorious cannibal film. "Return to the Blue Lagoon" is pure escapist cinema, that is in some ways, more sexually aggressive and graphic than the original, and does contain a bit more violence as well. For fans of Mila, this is an absolute must-see, as she is absolutely stunning in this, and is not as shy with nudity as Brooke Shields, who insisted on a body double. Sadly the DVD in North America is the horrible "pan & scan" format, which chops out some beautiful scenery, but for fans of this, the Euro DVD is in widescreen format. Not a great film, but certainly a pretty one.

Picking up where "The Blue Lagoon" (made about 11 years prior) left off, but changing the ending somewhat in order to facilitate the new story, this sequel made barely a ripple at the box office. When the original boy and girl are found dead in their boat by a small ship, their still-alive son is rescued and put in the care of young mother and widow Pelikan. However, soon afterwards, the crew begins to contract and spread cholera and so Pelikan, her new son and her infant daughter are put out to sea in a dinghy in the hopes that they can avoid death from the disease. Eventually, she and the children wash up on the same island from the first film and are conveniently able to live in the same elaborate tree house. The years go by and the children grow into tan, athletic Krause and nubile beauty Jovovich. With Pelikan having died before they reached puberty, the kids are left to figure out most of the facts of life themselves, all set amidst beautiful island scenery and backed by lush music provided by Basil Poledouris. Much like the first film, the kids fish, bathe, argue and make love while the threat of headhunters on the north die of the island looms. Where this film differs is in the arrival of civilization, so to speak, in the form of sea captain Blain, his precocious daughter Coburn and a crew of grizzled sailors. Krause and Jovovich soon learn that sometimes civilization is not as civilized as life in the wild. Pelikan bears most of the weight of the first half of the film and does a reasonably good job of it. She's given the unenviable task of acting most of her scenes either alone or opposite a couple of small children. Krause and Jovovich do not appear until nearly 45 minutes into the movie. Krause, who bears quite a likeness at times to Heath Ledger, is appealing enough, but suggests nothing beyond a neatly coiffed, California beach boy playing Lord of the Flies. He doesn't really get to cover any territory that wasn't already handled by his predecessor Christopher Atkins. Jovovich is stunning to look at, and performs admirably as well, but, again, is stuck redoing what Brooke Shields already did. Thus, the film, despite a few tweaks in the formula, comes off as an imitation or remake of the previous one. People who never watched the first film will likely be able to enjoy this one more than those who are fans of the original (not even counting the versions filmed in 1923 and 1949!) Coburn is appropriately snotty and manipulative, perhaps too convincingly so since she was scarcely heard from again after this! Entertaining enough on its own terms, it is certainly no classic and is fairly preposterous, but is also not the dog some people have made it out to be. It's basically a rehash, made in an attempt to wring a few more bucks out of a concept that worked well the first time.