Fantasy Island centres around five people: Gwen, Melanie, Patrick, and brothers Brax and J.D., all of whom have won a contest to stay on Fantasy Island. They are enticed to stay by the man who runs the island, Mr. Roarke (Michael Peña), with promises of living out their true fantasies. The rules are simple: one fantasy per person, and the fantasy must be concluded.

“Anything and everything is possible!” says Julia, Mr. Roarke’s assistant upon their arrival. It’s true: on this island, everything is possible, to the point where it all becomes too much. Everything about Fantasy Island is a little too much: this is a supernatural horror film with several subplots, all of which amount to nothing. There are ultimately seven protagonists comprising the guests, Mr. Roarke and Sloane, who was forced onto the island. This means that there are seven different storylines all fighting to evoke an emotional response in the viewer at once, which leads to an exhausting experience rather than a satisfying one.

Fantasy Island relies on the viewer caring about the stakes for each person but gives us characters that are more caricatures than real people, further emphasized by poorly written dialogue. Additionally, their fantasies are filled with clichéd, overdone plots. There is an attempt to mask this recycled feeling and to keep the viewer on their toes by inserting multiple twists, but this just falls flat and fails miserably.

This Fantasy Island reimagining is exactly what you would expect it to be. There is simply nothing interesting about the characters or the plot, as hard as it tries. This isn’t even a film that is entertaining enough to say it’s so bad that it’s good. In the end, it’s just bad.

RATING: 1/5

INFORMATION

CAST: Michael Peña, Maggie Q, Lucy Hale, Austin Stowell, Jimmy O. Yang, Portia Doubleday, Ryan Hansen, Michael Rooker, Parisa Fitz-Henley, Mike Vogel

DIRECTOR: Jeff Wadlow

WRITERS: Jeff Wadlow, Chris Roach, Jillian Jacobs

SYNOPSIS: Five people win a contest to stay on an island where they are promised to live out their greatest fantasy, but soon experience their fantasies turn into nightmares.