AKA Orang Ikan.
It may be all the review you need when I say that I was very surprised to learn that writer-director Mike Wiluan already had a number of features to his name before Monster Island. This feels very much like a debut. It's a decent enough idea without enough substance to make it bearable for even the relatively short runtime (it clocks in at about 83 minutes).
It's 1942, and viewers are introduced to a Japanese sea vessel that serves as a floating prison for some of the people on board. Dean Fujioka is Saito, a Japanese soldier who has been deemed a traitor. He's chained to a British POW named Bronson (Callum Woodhouse). When the ship is torpedoed, Saito and Bronson end up overboard. They come ashore on an island, quickly figuring out that they need to work together if they want to gain complete freedom, from one another and the island. There's at least one other figure on the island though. A monster who will try to maul and kill you before you can say "I didn't know we were near any black lagoon".
Having only heard about the central concept of this, I was quite optimistic about it. It didn't need a big budget. It didn't need any more added to it. Just put a bunch of people on an island and then have a monster endangering them. Simple. Sadly, Wiluan really drops the ball here. He doesn't have a good enough script, he doesn't have any big surprises in store, and, perhaps worst of all, he decides not to add more than a mere handful of potential victims to the film once the main characters, and the viewers, start to figure out how dangerous the island is.
The real shame of it is that Fujioka and Woodhouse don't do bad at all. The few scenes that work well are thanks to the exchanges between the two leads. They have the expected mistrust and reticence to stick together, but it's not overdone, and it is cast aside believably swiftly once they have bigger fish to fry (no pun intended). The others onscreen aren't very interesting, although I'll also mention Alan Maxson for his fine work in the monster suit.
There are some things to enjoy here. The practical effects are pretty good, and this approach is now appreciated much more than the easier (and cheaper?) option of the kind of computer work that the low budget would permit. There's also pleasure to be had in the moments that have Fujioka and Woodhouse becoming a formidable duo. It's just a shame that Wiluan doesn't fully invest in the potential fun of his premise. Monster Island needed a bit more of everything, but it particularly needed some more genre treats sprinkled throughout it.
4/10
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