Rapa Nui

Kevin Reynolds – 1994 – USA

I really wanted to love this movie, being a sucker for anything having to do with islands, tribal cultures and anthropological history.  But, while it’s an admirable work in a lot of ways, as was Ridley Scott’s similarly troubled 1492 (1992), it was filled with far too many moments that drew involuntary eye-rolling and sighs of embarrassment.  Centuries ago, on the isle of Rapa Nui – (later renamed Easter Island by European explorers) – the Long Ear tribe rules over the Short Ears, forcing them to build those enormous stone faces we all know.  (You know the Long Ears when you see them because they have really long ears thanks to sticking huge discs into their lobes).  As class warfare brews, so does a Montague-Capulet romance between the Long Ear chief’s son (Jason Scott Lee) and a disgraced girl from the wrong side of the island.  People often speak modern-day English in such historical films, but somehow here it feels utterly ridiculous; perhaps it would be less of a distraction if the other elements were stronger.  It was also baffling to me that Reynolds and team went for authenticity by filling the frame with Polynesian actors but then cast obviously Chinese and Latino stars respectively as the two leads, like nobody would notice or care.  (Yes, I know Lee is part Hawaiian and has variously played Eskimos, Arabs and Indians, but all I'm saying is that he looks absolutely nothing like anyone else in the film.)