Set on Rapa-Nui (what we now know as Easter Island) during the declining days of the civilization that lives there, increasing resource scarcity is building tensions between the ruling long eared tribe and the lower class short ear tribes as the short ears are directed by the high priest Tupa (George Henare) to build the maoi (giant head statues) in the hopes they'll appease they're gods as the figurehead Birdman Ariki-mau (Eru Potaka-Dewes) waits for the fabled "White Canoe" to take him to the gods. Ariki-mau's Grandson, Noro (Jason Scott Lee), is secretly in love with short ear Ramana (Sandrine Holt) unaware his short ear friend Make (Esai Morales) is also in love with Ramana which sets the two men on a collision course while the construction of the maoi decimates the island's environment.
Rapa-Nui is a 1994 historical action-adventure film directed by Kevin Reynolds and produced by Kevin Costner. Following the success of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, both Reynolds and Costner found themselves with the needed clout to pursue passion projects with Costner establishing production company Tig Productions and Reynolds using his newfound success to pursue Rapa-Nui which had been a passion project for Reynolds for nearly a decade. Produced by Costner and distributed by Warner Bros who both benefitted from Reynolds' direction of Prince of Thieves, Rapa-Nui was a hellish production with the film shot on location on the actual Easter Island and the cast and crew often having to rely on weekly supply runs that would sometimes runout between resupplies. Rapa-Nui failed at the box office as Warner Bros. Dumped the film into theaters in the famously slow post Labor Day weekend typically used as a dumping ground for films studios have no faith in, and while its exact opening at the box office (or width of distribution for that matter) aren't documented, it's final domestic haul was around $300,000 against a $20 million budget. Things weren't much better critically with many critics feeling the film was overly heavy handed and silly with a number of critics including Siskel and Ebert calling the film one of the year's worst. While I don't think Rapa-Nui is one of the worst of 1994, it's not nearly as good as its grand ambitions want it to be and at it's core is a pretty trite love story grafted onto a heavy environmentalist theme with clumsy results.
The actual quality of the movie aside, Rapa-Nui is a nice looking film and per the standards set by Kevin Reynolds he knows how to make a film look big and epic with plenty of scenes of the behemoth maoi traversing across the island brought to life in solid detail so you do feel the mass and enormity of these statues. The movie also dives into what you expect from a movie set during the heyday of Easter Island with plenty of bare flesh and brutal scenes that don't hold back from the violence so at the very least, it certainly looks and feels the part of how you'd want something like this to be. But it all comes down to the writing with the dialogue just feeling really off with many exchanges feeling way too contemporary even if we're to give leeway for the fact everyone talks in English. There's something about the delivery of the actors where their performances never sold me they were authentic islanders and instead playing a large scale game of "dress-up" (or more appropriately dress down) and I never became absorbed in this mixture of a love triangle with the environmental subplot in the background. The movie is supposed to have this tragic love story of two best friends now at odds over class and the same woman, but there's so little developed of their relationship it never gives us that emotional resonance you need in a story like this and the characters remain two dimensional as a result. Per the times the film was made, Rapa-Nui has a prominent environmentalist theme and it's hardly the clumsiest from its time (On Deadly Ground probably has that locked), but it's the kind of thing that while well intentioned is (sometimes literally) hammered in and is supposedly based on historically questionable assertions (I'm not an anthropologist so I'll leave details to the experts).
Rapa-Nui is basically a pulpy historical action that aspires to be more than it is and really doesn't. The movie's not bereft of enjoyment as it features Reynolds' reliable direction per the standards he's set for himself, but the screenplay is filled with broad caricatures and clumsy writing that are more likely to elicit unintended smirks than pathos.
Rapa-Nui is a 1994 historical action-adventure film directed by Kevin Reynolds and produced by Kevin Costner. Following the success of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, both Reynolds and Costner found themselves with the needed clout to pursue passion projects with Costner establishing production company Tig Productions and Reynolds using his newfound success to pursue Rapa-Nui which had been a passion project for Reynolds for nearly a decade. Produced by Costner and distributed by Warner Bros who both benefitted from Reynolds' direction of Prince of Thieves, Rapa-Nui was a hellish production with the film shot on location on the actual Easter Island and the cast and crew often having to rely on weekly supply runs that would sometimes runout between resupplies. Rapa-Nui failed at the box office as Warner Bros. Dumped the film into theaters in the famously slow post Labor Day weekend typically used as a dumping ground for films studios have no faith in, and while its exact opening at the box office (or width of distribution for that matter) aren't documented, it's final domestic haul was around $300,000 against a $20 million budget. Things weren't much better critically with many critics feeling the film was overly heavy handed and silly with a number of critics including Siskel and Ebert calling the film one of the year's worst. While I don't think Rapa-Nui is one of the worst of 1994, it's not nearly as good as its grand ambitions want it to be and at it's core is a pretty trite love story grafted onto a heavy environmentalist theme with clumsy results.
The actual quality of the movie aside, Rapa-Nui is a nice looking film and per the standards set by Kevin Reynolds he knows how to make a film look big and epic with plenty of scenes of the behemoth maoi traversing across the island brought to life in solid detail so you do feel the mass and enormity of these statues. The movie also dives into what you expect from a movie set during the heyday of Easter Island with plenty of bare flesh and brutal scenes that don't hold back from the violence so at the very least, it certainly looks and feels the part of how you'd want something like this to be. But it all comes down to the writing with the dialogue just feeling really off with many exchanges feeling way too contemporary even if we're to give leeway for the fact everyone talks in English. There's something about the delivery of the actors where their performances never sold me they were authentic islanders and instead playing a large scale game of "dress-up" (or more appropriately dress down) and I never became absorbed in this mixture of a love triangle with the environmental subplot in the background. The movie is supposed to have this tragic love story of two best friends now at odds over class and the same woman, but there's so little developed of their relationship it never gives us that emotional resonance you need in a story like this and the characters remain two dimensional as a result. Per the times the film was made, Rapa-Nui has a prominent environmentalist theme and it's hardly the clumsiest from its time (On Deadly Ground probably has that locked), but it's the kind of thing that while well intentioned is (sometimes literally) hammered in and is supposedly based on historically questionable assertions (I'm not an anthropologist so I'll leave details to the experts).
Rapa-Nui is basically a pulpy historical action that aspires to be more than it is and really doesn't. The movie's not bereft of enjoyment as it features Reynolds' reliable direction per the standards he's set for himself, but the screenplay is filled with broad caricatures and clumsy writing that are more likely to elicit unintended smirks than pathos.