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33 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not as good as the original, December 15, 2004
The first Blue Lagoon was daring and a bit controversial. It showed two children growing up without adults in their lives, growing up without inhibitions, without guidance, and learning some fundamental truths without help. It dared to show full-frontal nudity (carefully!) because that seemed natural. It had the courage to confront things like child birth for child-adults who had no idea of what was going on. That's some of what makes it a classic film, one which holds up even today.
This film, for all that it is a sequel, comes across as a revisionist attempt to "clean up" the original. It starts where the previous film left off, with a small boat being seen by a sailing vessel. Unlike the end of the previous film, where all three occupants of the boat are pronounced alive, in this film the parents are dead, and only the child survives. He is taken aboard the sailing vessel and entrusted to the care of a recently widowed woman who has an infant daughter. The woman, Sarah Hargreaves (Lisa Pelikan), and the two children, are cast adrift in a lifeboat a short while later because the ship is infected with cholera (a virtual death sentence for all aboard) - they are cast adrift in the hope they may survive. By pure happenstance (alright, by a piece of not-very-clever script-writing) they happen to arrive at an island that is supposed to look awfully familiar.
This time the children grow up with Sarah to teach them right and wrong, and all about God (she was a missionary), and so forth (all the things that were "wrong" in the first version). Eventually Sarah contracts pneumonia and dies, but not before she has time to explain how she'd like to be buried. Time passes and we get to see the new teenagers, Lilli (Milla Jovovich) and Richard (Brian Krause - best known as Leo in the TV show Charmed) doing the same sorts of things as we saw in the first film.
All in all, I cannot recommend this poor-quality remake. Buy the original, certainly, but leave this one sitting on the shelf. Perhaps the one good reason to watch this film is as an object lesson, to see what the original film could have been like, had the makers not taken the risks that they did.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Blue Lagoon 2 - interesting twist, June 22, 2005
I've also seen both Blue Lagoon stories, and like everybody else, was quite concerned with the lack of continuity and form between the two . . the child was older, the parents were sleeping/dead. . and whatever happened to the loyal dad floating around at sea that found his kids finally sleeping in that little dinghy?
However, I was able to suspend reality and enjoy the second film by altering the first in my own mind. I have to say that as far as the berries were concerned, I always DID think that Paddy (the baby) had a better chance of survival as he only swallowed a berry or two. His parents each masticated (chewed) 20 - 25 berries each and swallowed them down. Much more opportunity for poison to openly enter the blood stream. But I digress...
The second movie, while not as "brave" as the first in terms of "raw" sensuality was still quite enjoyable, I thought. I rather enjoyed the idea of two children who had "some" learning from a parent who had adequate time to teach them then left on their own. It combined a different take than the first film. In this film, the children have "some" idea of the values and mores of European civilization, but have to adapt those values to fit within their own experience. In the first film, the children were quite simply too young and alone for far too long to really understand much of anything except what they learned on their own. Because of these differences, I was able to enjoy each film in it's own right.
I think both films are worth a look, but if pressed, I would still have to choose the original as the best of the two . . as originals usually are.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not what a sequel should be, August 15, 2005
Even tough The Return to the Blue Lagoon got me to think the first time that I heard about it that well finally I would know what happened at the end, well I was disappointed. Like most I guess. But explain to me how can you kill to persons whom in the first one where alive. Unless they died of dehydration. But I think the movie would have been more fun if they showed us a Richard and Em in San Francisco or wherever they where going to, trying to adjust to life, seeing Richards face when people explained to him that Paddy was his son, because if you didn't noticed, he didn't have a clue about anything. And then...tatatatannnn Richard and Em return with Paddy to the blue lagoon because honestly they felt like strangers. Wouldn't that be more fun to watch? I think it was cruel to kill them. When it was much fun and creative to let them live. Adjust. The return doesn't even compare. Even the nude scenes on the first can't be called nudity, is art, because they where beautifully done. But what the heck. I still bought both of them so.
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