During the Civil War five survivors escape from a prison camp in Richmond, Virginia by hot air balloon and find themselves on an uncharted island in the Pacific. Far from any kind of known civilization, the island is inhabited with carnivorous monsters, bloodthirsty pirates, and mad genius Captain Nemo, who lives on the island for his own secretive ends.
If the story gets dangerously thin, Grant is pretty well flawless. And Collette, always good, is heartbreakingly believable.
Mysterious Island -- an epic in miniature, a fantasy all the more poignant for its moral realities -- makes this a lesson worth learning.
The splendid effectiveness of Mysterious Island lies fully in the precise work of adaptation that the Weitz brothers make of the original text.