I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Island of the Dead is not on the list of the worst movies ever made, as it's too innocuous to be offensively bad. However, I can honestly recall few films which have bored me as much.A millionaire (Malcolm McDowell), a couple of cops and three convicts are trapped on Hart Island, where deadly insects are spreading a disease. Every time a character dies we see him gesturing excessively, usually from afar, as he is attacked by insects. After a couple of seconds he gets sick, then dies and quickly decomposes. Everyone else worriedly contemplates the aftermath. Repeat.A slow build-up is usually a sound approach in horror movies, but when things move slowly there must be SOMETHING to capture the viewers' interest - a compelling premise, luscious visuals, crisp writing, strong performances, an impending sense of dread. Island of the Dead has nothing of this. Just flies. And people gesturing excessively. Again. And again.Worth mentioning is a surreal sequence filmed in slow-motion, with an absurdly out of place "Yo-ho! Yo-ho!" song as the main characters pose for the camera; a bizarrely kitsch, creatively ugly note in a mire of tedium.2/10

A bunch of people--including evil industrialist Malcolm McDowell, policewoman Talisa Soto and prisoner Bruce Ramsay--are on Hart Island--an actual island off the coast of NYC where unidentified dead people are buried. While there they desecrate one of the graves. You would expect by the title that the dead would come to life and attack. Wrong! They instead are attacked by...flies. If the flies bite you, you die and almost immediately begin decomposing.This sounded pretty promising--not in a good way but a bad camp movie sort of way. Unfortunately this is just bad. The soundtrack has annoying rap songs which don't even fit the movie; the dialogue and characters are all clichés that you've seen and heard before; the fly POV shots are hysterical; in one shot it's daytime--a minute later it's pitch black night (shades of Ed Wood Jr.!); lousy makeup and boring CGI effects and a stubborn refusal to be scary even once! I was so bored I dozed off for about 10 minutes (I didn't miss anything). It really boggles the mind that anyone would think this would ever work.Some good performances make this bearable--Soto is beautiful but wooden however Ramsay is surprisingly good and McDowell is just great--he's obviously enjoying himself and his enjoyment rubs off (a little). Still this is a stupid, dumb, boring and completely illogical horror film. Right down there with "House of the Dead". A must miss.

Let me start out by saying that I'm glad I saw this one for free on cable. The opening credits were done very well, showing an eerie view of the cityscape, making it look like a ghost town, and actually built hopes for an okay movie. That's really what bumps this one up from a one to a two.I'll also say that the acting was better than the movie warranted.After that, we are treated to cardboard cutouts of characters, who would have been okay in the standard over the top gore flick, but that's not what we have. No, this one tries to shove a social message and some semblance of substance down our throats. There is some gore, but nothing to phone home about.For the baddie of the film, we get flies. This could have worked out well, but the action lacked tension and dread. Again, it's probably because I did not care the characters. They did whatever they did simply because the script told them to.Island of the Dead is watchable, but don't pay to see it.

Watched this tripe last night. I heard supposed good things about it when they were making it. BAD BAD BAD movie! Children of the Dead level of bad.First off, Talisa Soto is one fine looking specimen, but she's aged to a point where she can't pull off either Lara Croft or Vampirella, both of which were modeling gigs she had when she was younger. She even played Vampirella in the horrible movie version with Roger Daltrey as the heavy.I don't know what they thought they were doing when they made this movie. The locale, Harts Island, is sufficiently creepy. A million bodies, mostly of the indigent have been buried there and should make for a good creep fest, except it isn't used much. The bad guys are flies which are never seen clearly, although sometimes their perspective is employed by jerky camera moves that detract very strongly from the story. These jerk action moves are very obviously done on a tripod as all the jerks are across one direction or span. Whats more, the actual cinematography is poor. Sometimes, there would be a sweep across abandoned buildings (which we are told in an interesting story onc e housed the quarantined sick and then, later, the mad. This plot line is never brought up again) that goes right to left and then, inexplicably reversed halfway. Bad filming.The flies themselves are laughable and there is no gore worth watching.We should have a separate discussion about any movie starring Malcolm "If-Theres-A-Check-Involved-I-am-So-There" McDowell. He phones in his performance, pretty much like he's done in every movie since Tank Girl (last decent performance from him that I saw).It has NOTHING to do with the Dead Universe, despite the title. Some people do die but their deaths are ridiculous.The only person worth watching was the island manager, who actually was kind of interesting. I've never seen him before, have no idea what his name is, but he was pretty cool.Mos Def is also in the movie, for the inane rap music connection.