Taking a sweet, innocent date to see The Island of Dr. Moreau. We had only been out on a couple of dates, mostly stuff she enjoyed, and I wanted to take her to a movie. The problem was that there was nothing good playing. There were a few movies I knew she wouldn't like and a few I knew I wouldn't like - but then there was the mystery choice: The Island of Dr. Moreau. I hadn't heard or read or seen anything about it. This is unusual because my movie radar is always up. I always watch movie trailers when they come on TV, I always read the entertainment section of the paper, and I just always have my ear to the ground when movies are involved. So for me to not know anything about a movie at all was strange. I figured it could either mean disaster or a pleasant surprise.
What I did know is that it had Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer. To me, I thought this was probably a sign of quality. Brando, of course, even though he was in his giant-old-man-weirdo phase, was still one of Hollywood's great actors, and Kilmer was still a semi-leading man. (This was 1996). So I figure, hey, how bad can it be?
Sadly, the answer, my friends, is bad. It can be very, very bad.
Brando was clearly just there for a paycheck. His performance was phoned in and essentially empty. Almost nothing about his character made any sense, and the director was clearly just happy to have a big name in the film. I'm confident Brando dictated his wardrobe of giant, loose fitting mumus just because they would be comfortable to wear. What I didn't know at the time is that Brando was infamously lazy and would do his best to not work if he could at all avoid it. He did some movies purely for the money, and in some cases, negotiated contracts that said he would only be on set for a certain number of days and then he would stall and try not to work while those days ticked away so he could paid without actually doing anything. I didn't know at the time that Brando's name on a movie did not necessarily guarantee anything.
Kilmer had a tiny cameo that he probably spent two days filming. The real leading man was David Thewlis, the guy who played Lupin in the Harry Potter movies. So, not exactly a real leading man type, you know?
The story is based on a novel by H.G. Wells and is about a guy who becomes shipwrecked on an island populated by half-man half-animal people who were created by, of course, the brilliant but crazy Dr. Moreau. So the acting is nothing special, the script is pretty terrible, and the special effects are lame.
But an overall lameness was at least palatable. It was the gigantic animal-person orgy scene toward the end of the film that took the movie from just sort of stupid to the top of my bad-movie-experience list. My date was horrified, I was embarrassed, and we both left feeling like we needed to take a shower.
I didn't go on too many more dates with that girl. We weren't that compatible to begin with, but I think Dr. Moreau and the animal people helped put the nail in the coffin of that relationship even faster than normal. So let this be a lesson to you: bad movies can kill relationships. Choose wisely.
Runners Up for Bad Movie Going Experiences:
Falling asleep in the campus movie theater at Idaho State University while watching slow moving, independent films (Ulee's Gold, Copland, Kundun.) I'm all for slow, meditative movies, but holy crap, those movies were boring.
Sitting in a theater in Pocatello, Idaho with my wife, and it was so hot in the room that a guy down in the front row stood up, tore off his shirt, and yelled, "It's so f-ing hot in here!!"
Trying to watch Bram Stoker's Dracula on a date. To this day, it remains the only movie I've ever walked out on. My date was offended by some of the racier elements in it. After she broke up with me and shattered my heart into a billion little pieces, I rented it and watched it all the way through as my way of telling the universe I no longer cared about her.
Seeing any movie at the Roxy in Ottawa, Illinois.
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