The Blue Lagoon of 1980 spawned a sequel some 11 years later - Return to the Blue Lagoon, but by this time around, this desert island franchise was running out of steam.
Despite the presence of the alluring Milla Jovovich, the sequel is really just a tired recycle of events, with new faces and slightly altered plot-line.
It starts where the first version left off - with the two original desert island lovers found floating in a boat, near-death, with their little baby at their side.
But where in the earlier movie the two child-lovers and their baby are rescued, here the plot takes an abrupt twist. The two children are now found dead.
The little baby has survived. But then things move from bad to absurd. The rescuers' boat founders, and the baby to be swept onto that same old desert island, along with a surrogate older brother and, for a short time only, a surrogate mother.
This repeat of history is too ludicrous to be taken seriously, and that's true of the entire movie. The most absurd aspect of all is the clothing - from where does Milla find enough white cotton to bind her body quite so tightly in all her scenes?
She has more wrappings bound round her than the average Egyptian Mummy - so much wrapping, in fact, that they recycled it for her early scenes in The Fifth Element.
This is a sequel we didn't need. It lacks all the charm of the original; there seems to have been no logical reason why it should have been made at all. Give this flick the flick.
This is an exemplary transfer; the source print seems immaculate and the transfer quality is at the same level as its companion movie, The Blue Lagoon.
It's encouraging to see such attention being paid to pretty routine movies - all movies, even relatively mediocre ones such as this, should be given highest possible quality releases.
The Dolby Digital two-channel sound is clear and the soundstage is realistic. There are no special effects to worry about; the setting is nature and the sound is clean and natural.
It's odd that there was no attempt to give a degree of surround-sound, as was done with The Blue Lagoon, but the benefit, if any, would have been slight.
For completists only - definitely a case of rent before you buy. Having rented, I doubt you'll want to own it - this is a very slight effort indeed; a sequel which just recycles the original and which has no logical reason for having been made.
