Paradise (1982)

Redundant and unnecessary.

Best movie ever!

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

(this movie doesn't deserve even a 3, but I'm taking into account the cave shower scene... and the pool scene... and the dip in the ocean... and the romantic love-making... but the movie itself is simply awful!)Of course, I am here for Phoebe Cates. Young Phoebe Cates. Would you believe that she was a mere seventeen during the filming? And she is wonderful, even if she is not really in touch with the part at all, as she doesn't come across as a damsel in much distress, she is more suitable for FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, where perhaps something bad happened at school, maybe boyfriend trouble, because here she is more "oh golly, I dropped my ice-cream cone" than any real reaction to being pursued by murderous Arabs intent on enslaving her. She is, of course, only too cute with her brown bunny eyes so I am not going to complain too much.She disavowed the movie immediately after filming it. I can see why. There's very little of any real worth if you take away her input. She even sang the theme song, and it's kinda cute. Lots of nudity. Not all of them the young stars. They opted for less nudity, and scenes were shot afterward with extras providing body parts for the love-making scenes which were edited in. There is a lot to see of the long-legged teen however.Which is best, PARADISE or BLUE LAGOON? BLUE LAGOON, it at least doesn't have the chimps. But play it safe and go for RETURN TO THE BLUE LAGOON, with Milla Jovovich.Brooke Shields or Phoebe Cates? I haven't seen BLUE LAGOON in years, but fresh off PARADISE, I think Phoebe Cates is serious competition for Brooke Shields.Something I'm most definitely not going to shut up about are those chumps, er, chimps. They ruin everything! The movie is dorky enough already, but when the chimp appears, I feared the little beast might show up again, but whew! it was gone, only to reappear shortly before the halfway mark and really cause it all to capsize under the weight of all that corniness. Then, inexplicably, there's a second one, and they run about in stereo, any semblance of a real movie goes out the window, the ship was already beleaguered, but now it is truly sunk.The mood of the movie goes from romance to action to slapstick comedy, with a gory corpse thrown in really out of place in here. Kind of bi-polar, very noticeable in the structure.As for woolly Willie Aames, the poor man's Tarzan, well, long way off from EIGHT IS ENOUGH, huh? Kinda a stretch having him here. Little guy would be eaten for breakfast. But don't blame either of the kids in the slightest, they did their best, but the script, what an inane clumsy clod wrote that childish chimpanzee-ridden junk?How utterly convenient that these resourceful kids can lose everything in the desert, and, then, moments later, can come up with anything they need, clothing, cooking utensils, bedding, even a fishing rod. And when the plot demands a romantic setting, they are suddenly out of the desert, in somebody's back yard, how expedient.And as for The Jackal, somebody like that would hardly come charging out all alone, where were his men? Ooh what a lame corny script!Nothing you could take seriously. Except the beauty of the female star.

After reading the comments here, I hesitated on this one but glad I went ahead and saw it. Yes, the story has problems, far-fetched and cheesy, but the cinematography, costuming, and settings were fantastic. I don't consider myself too generous giving the film a 7 despite certain shortcomings. The locations - desert, oases, Arabic architecture were well chosen, costuming very stylish, camels, ocean, underwater photography were well done. The actors/actresses did a decent job despite the script. And since when was any paradise on this planet anything but far-fetched? Blue Lagoon does not own youthful awakening. Dream a little and enjoy the visuals.

This movie is NOT a rip-off of The Blue Lagoon as most of the reviewers seem to think. The setting is entirely different, as is the plot. The Blue Lagoon is about a couple of very young kids who get stranded on a Pacific island and not found until many years later when they are "grown up", with a child of their own. In Paradise, the time span is much shorter; the young couple start the movie as teenagers in North Africa, and get lost in the desert after their caravan is attacked by Arabs. It is not long before the rescuers arrive. Paradise is way better than The Blue Lagoon, and the nudity is honestly portrayed -- if you watch The Blue Lagoon, you will notice that you never see Brooke Shields' face andbody in the same shot -- she used a body double for the rare nude scenes in that movie. I'm not sure what's up with the reviewer who had the Korean copy with only Willie Aames full frontals censored -- I bought what was meant to be an uncut DVD of Paradise through Amazon marketplace and ended up with a Korean rip-off in which ALL the full frontal scenes were censored -- I'd gladly do a swap -- as it is, I'm hanging onto my VHS copy until I can get a DVD containing Phoebe Cates' wonderful nude scenes in their entirety. After all it is Phoebe's beauty which makes this movie worth 10/10 for me!

Like most of the others, I found a lot of this movie rather trite. I don't blame Aames or Cates for this; I thought they were good actors who did their best with terrible material. The plot is something straight out of a trashy romance novel, which could have worked with better writing but the script is a mess. However, lost in this mediocre feature film is a great 30 minute soft-core porn. The sex scenes are highly erotic, and the nude scenes are done with much better camera work and production than you would typically have in a skin flick. I'm particularly fond of the cave shower scene, where Phoebe Cates positively scorches the camera with her hotness.