Fantasy Island (2020) Review

"Once a fantasy begins, you must see it through."

-Mr. Roarke

Five guests arrive on Fantasy Island, a mysterious place, run by Mr. Roarke (Michael Peña), that makes you're wildest dreams come true.  However, the island isn't all it seems and the dreams quickly become nightmares.  The guests now have to find away to survive and escape the island.

This movie will be very hard to critique without spoilers.  This is a mess of a film with a few interesting moments and ideas.  Don't waste your time watching it.  Spoilers ahead!

What Works:

By far the best part of the movie are the early scenes in Melanie's (Lucy Hale) fantasy.  It's pretty reminiscent of Hostel with Melanie torturing her high school bully only to realize it's the real person, not a hologram.  It's a tense sequence with the creepiest character in the movie, Doctor Torture (Ian Roberts), and a clever escape.  It's a shame it ends so early.

Another point I will give the movie is that I genuinely didn't know how it was going to end.  It was obvious there was some sort of big twist coming, but I had no idea what it was until about 30 seconds before the reveal.  Granted, it's because of the sloppy setup that I was constantly guessing, but it's something...

Finally, most of the actors do a fine job.  Lucy Hale, Maggie Q, Jimmy O. Yang, and Portia Doubleday all do their best with the material they are given.  It's not their fault the rest of the movie sucks.

What Sucks:

There is one actor that doesn't really work here and that's Michael Peña.  I'm not sure what the issue was.  Either he didn't fit the role or he didn't give a crap and phoned it in.  Beats me.  I think it would have worked better with an older actor.  Antonia Banderas would have been great, but Peña just didn't fit.

The movie is a really hodgepodge.  There are four different fantasies happening at once and all of them are very different and it gives the film tonal whiplash.  I think this probably would have worked better as a mini-series, but trying to have this much variety in a film just felt jarring.

Apart from the aforementioned revenge fantasy, none of the other stories are all that interesting.  This island can make your wildest dreams real.  They should have dialed this movie up to 11 and had some fun with it.

Finally, the big twist, though interesting for a moment, makes no sense if you put any thought into it.  It's revealed that Melanie is actually the villain of the story and behind everything.  Most of her interactions with the other characters make zero sense through that lens.  Why was she hitting on Patrick (Austin Stowell)?  Why did she play dumb when she was alone torturing her bully?  Why was Michael Rooker involved at all?  He didn't play into Melanie's fantasy one bit.  And the way they defeat her by allowing Sloane (Portia Doubleday) to have a fantasy overrule Melanie's doesn't make sense either.  It's like they wrote a first draft and never went back to make sure everything fit together.

Verdict:

Fantasy Island has one sequence I really liked, an unexpected twist, and some decent acting, but Michael Peña was not right for the role, the tone is all over the place, the fantasies aren't that interesting and the story doesn't make any sense.  This movie is nobody's fantasy.

 3/10: Really Bad