Rapa Nui (1994)

Just perfect...

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.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

A victim of razzing when new and ever since. However, breathtakingly filmed, especially the brutal tribal competition. One of 4 films (and the most unclad) that Jason Scott Lee made in a short time, and even more athletic than his Bruce Lee biopic, 'Dragon', although dramatically J.S. Lee's most memorable performance was as the Inuit halfbreed Avik in 'Map of the Human Heart.' Sandrine Holt as his beloved is luminous, while Esai Morales is the villain-- -again. A plot-nudging iceberg is obviously a construct but only a brief story device before it floats away. Sadly, the stateside DVD has been withdrawn, leaving only South Korean copies (in English, however) with some manufacturing glitches fore and aft for collectors unwilling to settle for used merchandise..

I had two actors in here I usually enjoy watching: Jason Scott Lee ("Map of the Human Heart") and Sandrine Holt ("Black Robe"). It had also had beautiful Easter Island scenery and it had a bunch of pretty half-naked women.What's not to like? Well, the stupid story, for one thing. The dialog was straight out of a Grade B flick, and that's being generous. The characters also were totally unbelievable, thanks to the terrible dialog and fake accents. I couldn't enjoy the beautiful Holt because she was sent to a cave early on and wasn't seen again until near the end of the film.How people, including one of the few national film critics I like - Michael Medved - could rave about this film is totally mind-boggling. It was horrible.

Like many, I was jolted to hear a bunch of ancient Polynesians sounding like "valley girls" and their boyfriends, but let it pass since at least they were all speaking the same language as they would have been anyway, unlike movies like "Seven Years in Tibet" where Austrians spoke English to Austrians, Tibetans spoke English to Tibetans, and otherwise people who wouldn't have been able to speak with each other all conversing in perfect English... that movie was frankly too much for me. As for the different accents in Rapa Nui, I assumed it was a way to show class differences (after all, Jason Scott Lee has proved he can handle about any accent): the chief spoke hoity toity British, Lee sounded like a poor little rich boy (which he was in the movie), so it kind of made sense. And as a great Jason Scott Lee fan, it doesn't matter how well- acted or historically correct or whatever else the movie is or isn't (and by the way I found it completely passable in those senses) as long as we are treated to generous footage of Jason Scott Lee showing off his perfect physique -- and in this movie he nary wears a stitch. Most of the other young male actors, incl Elias Morales, are up to the job as well. I understand perfectly how thrilled one reviewer was about Sandrine Holt's "performance" and feel the same way about her leading man. Anyway, to avoid redundancy, I basically agree with the other positive things other reviewers have said about the movie, and believe one reason it didn't do great at the box office was due to its unusual subject matter -- something that John Q Public isn't always great at handling.

The studios should be applauded when they take on a movie that involves an all new setting and topic, and encouraged to do so more often. We have plenty of stupid eye candy car chase movies and murder mystery flicks for those who enjoy that stuff. Rapa Nui goes somewhere else entirely. The road less travelled as it were.Set on Easter Island, isolated as it is literally thousands of nautical miles from its nearest neighbour, the movie fleshes out the most pivital time in that islands history, as we understand it from the archeological evidence available. The residents had every reason to believe they represented the only life in the universe. Those of the population with vision must have been appalled to watch their religeous zealots engineering the destruction of the only habitat in the world. The protagonist seems to be one of those who sees the folly and wants to prevent it. ** spoiler coming?**I am not the first to note that this film weakens its message by allowing, even fostering unintended humour at places where it is not appropriate. The head engineer of statue construction falling to the ground and flailing in a tantrum when the chief glibly states the statue, carved and transported with many months of tremendous labour is dismissed and ordered broken up as being "too small", and that chief, when he complains to his obviously self serving and manipulative with doctor/adviser,"I've been coughing up and vomiting blood lately. Do you think that means anything?" "No, replies the adviser, it's nothing". It seems as though the screenwriter thinks the viewer must have some levity to break up the serious subject matter. The humour takes away much more than it adds to the story however and hearing a couple of audience members guffawing from time to time when we should be sympathising with the frustration of the main character has the effect of pulling the rug out from under the mood. Even the 'last cutting' scene is overblown and rendered campy when this scene, of which perhaps the most empathy might have been drawn of any in the entire film, is played out almost as satire. **End of spoiler**So much for the 'It could have been better' part, the movie does deserve kudos for tackling new ground. The cinematography is beautiful, the love story plausable and the main characters earn our support. Bravo for being daring enough to make this flick. I just wish it had been distributed.