Fantasy Island feels like the longest two hour movie ever

This Valentine’s Day weekend, Blumhouse released their latest horror film, Fantasy Island, based on the TV show of the same name. Is it worth seeing?

Fantasy Island is the latest “darker and edgier” reboot of a classic television series. In this case, Blumhouse decided to turn the classic 1978 fantasy drama series into a semi-teen slasher flick with adventure themes.

The central plot of the film is that a group of young adults arrive at the mysterious Fantasy Island where they’re greeted by the equally enigmatic Mr. Rourke, who promises each of them they will get to live out their ultimate fantasy.

However, they must see their fantasy through to its natural end, even if it goes in a different direction than they anticipate. Of course, things don’t play out like the dream everyone envisioned, and it doesn’t take long for everything to make a nightmarish turn.

If you frequently check the internet and review websites before you see movies in the cinema, then odds are you already know how Fantasy Island is faring with the majority of its audience. Unfortunately, it’s generally a telltale sign when the review embargo doesn’t lift until midway through the day of the film’s release, which was the case with this movie.

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The problem with Fantasy Island is not false advertising; it’s that the movie is somehow — boring.

Before walking into the theater, I knew what I was expecting. I was okay with this being a ridiculous horror movie that might not be “great” but would certainly be fun, nonetheless.

For some of the movie, that is exactly what I got. I loved watching Melanie and Gwen’s storylines play out, in particular, as they were the most interesting parts of the movie, in my opinion. I also enjoyed the entire beginning and the setup.

But then the movie got going and started to lose me with Patrick’s weirdly sincere war story and his reunion with a character I won’t spoil. It was a soap-operatic narrative filled with glycerin tears that I could have done without.

The same when we got to Brax and JD’s fantasy, which started stupid and fun with a typical party and wound up giving me a lame shoot ’em up sequence and Kim Coates with a terrible accent.

Then half the group was playing like they were extras from an episode of Lost, trying to figure out how to get off the island, and several stories were left hanging for long chunks as the film tried to decide which narrative was most important.

They went into a cave and then out of a cave and then back into a cave. Michael Rooker is there for a while. I don’t have much else to say about his character because his characters has almost zero importance to the overall plot.

By the time the film was over, I felt like I had aged ten years. It took us so long to get from point A to point B to point C, and then that wasn’t the end — the movie also had a point D and a point E and a point F and a point G…

I saw a matinee of the film and the run time was about one hour and fifty minutes. Yet I was surprised the sun was still out when we left the theater.

Fantasy Island is now playing in theaters.