Rapa Nui (1994) User Reviews

Trouble in paradise

[tomsview · 7/10 · 22 December 2012]

To judge from the derision heaped on this film, one could be forgiven for thinking it must be totally unwatchable, however, that definitely is not the case. The film was shot on location and despite liberties taken with history, it is an absorbing look at a mysterious culture that has virtually disappeared.

1400 years ago, Polynesian seafarers settled on the most remote island on earth, Easter Island or Rapa Nui as they called it. Although most of what is known about their history is speculation based on archaeological evidence, it seems the island went through an intense period of statue (moai) building, followed by an equally intense period of tearing them down. In the course of which, Rapa Nui was denuded of trees and its society decimated by warfare and famine. To regulate their dwindling resources, the islanders conducted an annual ocean race with the winner's tribe ruling the island for a year under their leader, the Birdman.

Kevin Reynolds' movie is about these events. In fact, every event in the island's history is in the film. What took over 1000 years to unfold takes place in what seems like a single season. Time compression is one of the major criticisms of the film.

The writers constructed a Romeo and Juliet love story around the characters played by Jason Scott Lee, Sandrine Holt, and Esai Morales. This aspect of the story is quite effective due to their convincing performances. Less convincing are passages of silly dialogue between Eru Potaka-Dewes, and George Henare playing the reigning Birdman and the High Priest respectively. However, these are exceptions; the rest of the script effectively moves the story along and explains why things are happening to this doomed culture.

The making and moving of the moai are highlights of the film as is the birdman competition; an event so gruelling that by comparison, a modern triathlon seems about as difficult as an egg-and-spoon race. The film recreates the event at the actual location: the cliffs at Orongo. Today it is forbidden to scale these cliffs but it seems the film was shot before the restriction existed.

The score by Stewart Copeland, the former drummer of the band Police, features a blend of choral, orchestral and new age elements. A traditional score may have worked but this one is inspired, delivering a sense that time is running out for Rapa Nui.

Much bare skin is exposed in the movie and nearly all the women appear topless. Gratuitousness is another charge levelled at the film, however the alternative would have been Dorothy Lamour sarongs. Historical evidence suggests the costume designers got it right, which probably pleased the marketing people who no doubt had an eye on the box office.

Rapa Nui offers a very different cinema experience. It is not without the odd gaffe, but it is also totally unique and utterly compelling as well.

Gorgeous

[m.cordell · 7/10 · 28 September 2001]

The island itself is stunningly beautiful and the film makes good use of this, especially the race at the end which is compelling in its apparent difficulty for the actors. As for the accuracy of the film it is mainly based on guesswork, so the whole racial element is for the benefit of drama. What surprises me is that some of the other reviewers wonder how an advanced civilisation can be so racist! Take a look at your own society and wonder! As well as a love story there is a competitive element, and an explanation about what happened to the island. If Easter Island interests you this film will entertain. As for the nudity, don't be so prudish!

Uniquely strange and unintentionally funny

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 4 May 2014]

On Easter Island, the tribes are in a ritualized competition. Every year, each tribe sends a warrior to the Birdman competition to see who will rule the island. Noro (Jason Scott Lee) comes from the ruling tribe 'long ears'. His clueless grandfather chief and his ruthless priest demand larger Moai. He is in love with Ramana (Sandrine Holt) from the tribe 'short ears'. His long time friend Make (Esai Morales) is also in love with Ramana. The demand for Moais has eaten up the resources of the island as scarcities and ecological damage rule.

The problem for this movie is the foreign nature of everything. Some of it is laughable even if it's true. Writer/director Kevin Reynolds needed to be especially careful about the unintended comedy. Maybe it's an impossible task given the strange craziness. The story is a mix of Romeo and Juliet and an environmental documentary. There's none like it.

Involving storytelling that forces you to care.

[Champion2k · 4 July 2001]

I have no wish to comment on the historical accuracy or otherwise of this film, as it is the story that held me enthralled, not the attention to fact.

The first time I saw this film, I nearly had to pick my jaw up from the floor. A hollywood movie.....that doesn't spoonfeed me the plot like some overbearing nanny? An original (for a big studio) plot device? Whew, let me just sit down for a minute. Here's how it normally goes: Hero (young, handsome and likeable) must compete with rival (villanous, evil rogue) in contest of high stakes. Guess the outcome. But in this underrated gem of a story, we find two equally heroic protagonists, all thoughts of friendship lost as they are forced into a dangerous competition of courage and strength. One, fighting for the woman he loves, the other for his life. This forces the viewer to watch in an agonized state of uncertainty. Who do I want to win? Who deserves it more? What will happen to the loser? This was the first film in a long time that truly forced me to get involved with the characters, not in a cliched good versus evil kind of way, but a good versus good "how the hell are they going to get out of this one?" kind of way. Okay, so some aspects of the film do not deliver with the same power, and some of the accents do tend to waver a little, but the beautifully constructed central storyline held me until the end.

I watched it in theaters in 1994

[marno76 · 7/10 · 7 June 2020]

And I can tell the story was compelling and the cinematography was great. Historically accurate? I don't think so but that is beyond the point since we do know anything about for sure about Easter Island. My opinion is that anyway the screenplay gives a plausible explanation of why the island became as such. It's bit like Apocalypto before apocalypto with less violence.

Among the ancient, gigantic carved stone torsos

[jgcorrea · 6/10 · 28 November 2019]

Very interesting film of exotic anthropological adventures, a genre that used to be more typical of Hollywood's Golden Age than of the 1990's. The story concerns the lives of indigenous people on Easter Island, with an ecological message and an exciting series of raiders' exploits.

Overly serious in tone and approach without the dialogue or character to back it up, Rapa-Nui falls short of the mark it aims for but is somewhat entertaining.

[IonicBreezeMachine · 6/10 · 11 July 2023]

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.

May the Better Win

[Tweetienator · 7/10 · 29 June 2019]

Rapa Nui presents us a real strange world indeed - based on the legends of Easter Island, it is a story (or legend) of two native tribes and their competition for power on that remote island, some obligatory romance and drama round off the story of the tribes. I really liked the movie and will re-watch it sometime.

Hidden Treasure Hollywood Gem

[beobnoxious · 8/10 · 16 December 2011]

After watching this movie one can only wonder why hasn't anyone heard of this what was happening in 1994 the overshadowed this movie. Was it a lack of promotion the presumably R rating?.

I found this to be an excellent film all the characters main and supporting are very intriguing the setting is breathtaking , and the actors all played their roles superbly and with passion.

I did not find a problem with the English speaking actors I feel the director wanted to get the point of the movie across without tiring the audience out by having to read subtitles.This is a movie after all not real life, one cant expect things to be exact.

This movie is far different then most of what Hollywood churns out the plot is simple as the time the movie takes place the story is very believable and understandable with some historical elements thrown in.

As one watches this film they will come to see that's there's no simple answer to the protagonist problems they will have to take them selves back to that time and place.

As far as a love story goes i feel its an epic one easily as touching if not more so then Star Wars or Titanic, Also similar to 10,000 BC. Its shame that such a good movie seems to have gone virtually unheard of.

A weird mix here: deadly-serious story with wacky comedic touches

[KFL · 6/10 · 6 March 2003]

There seems to be some doubt among posters here as to the broader outlines of this story--the religious motivation for building the statues, and the environmental disaster this wrought. However, in broad outline this agrees with the best educated guesses of recent anthropology; see for example Chapter 1 of Clive Ponting's _A Green History of the World_. After noting that by the time of the first visits of Europeans to Easter Island in the 18th century the island had been stripped of all its trees, and that some of this lumber would have been used for building, cooking and the like, Ponting continues: "The most demanding requirement (for lumber) of all was the need to move the large number of enormously heavy statues to ceremonial sites around the island. The only way this could have been done was by large numbers of people guiding and sliding them along a form of flexible tracking made up of tree trunks spread on the ground between the quarry and the (site). Prodigious quantities of timber would have been required and in increasing amounts as the competition between the clans to erect statues grew. As a result by 1600 the island was almost completely deforested...."

Thus in its broadest outlines the story told here is correct, and there must have been a kind of apocalyptic dread among the more enlightened of the residents, as the island was inexorably denuded.

This portrait of a dying society, if done well, would have alone been enough to make Rapa Nui a highly interesting movie. But unintended comedic elements prevent us from taking it very seriously.

On being presented with a huge statue, the result of months of work, the chief simply says "not big enough! Build another one!" ...he couldn't be bothered to vet the project in the design stage? Lines like this, and "don't bother me, I've got chicken entrails to read", and other idiotic plot twists that would constitute spoilers, dash cold water on this film as the tragic if formulaic reenactment of the final days of a doomed civilization.

As others here have said, Easter Island itself is breathtaking; the beauty of the setting is one of the better things about Rapa Nui. And the story had great potential. But this movie is impossible to take seriously, and that is a shame.

Grade B All The Way

[ccthemovieman-1 · 2/10 · 4 May 2007]

I had two actors in here I usually enjoy watching: Jason Scott Lee ("Map of the Human Heart") and Sandrine Holt ("Black Robe"). It had also had beautiful Easter Island scenery and it had a bunch of pretty half-naked women.

What's not to like? Well, the stupid story, for one thing.

The dialog was straight out of a Grade B flick, and that's being generous. The characters also were totally unbelievable, thanks to the terrible dialog and fake accents. I couldn't enjoy the beautiful Holt because she was sent to a cave early on and wasn't seen again until near the end of the film.

How people, including one of the few national film critics I like - Michael Medved - could rave about this film is totally mind-boggling. It was horrible.

If you missed it, it is well worth a rent !

[jake-87 · 9/10 · 17 January 1999]

I am saddened that so few people seem to have seen this film; It is worth watching for the lush photography alone.. It takes some getting used to the accents of the actors, and many lines may not be clear on first viewing.

I have read many books about Easter Island and the mystery surrounding its statues.. This film attempts to answer some of these mysteries (how the statues were moved, why work stopped so abruptly on then, what happened to all the trees on the Island, etc.) First read up in an encyclopedia on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and then watch history (or at least a good guess at it) come to life. Film making and story telling at it's best, along with an athletic competition at the end unlike any you have ever seen.

Nudity without sex? Incredible!

[Bouteloua · 7/10 · 30 January 2001]

I have never seen so much nudity or near-nudity in a film where it isn't sexualized. It's quite refreshing. We just get to enjoy seeing the beautiful (and also ordinary) bodies of the characters going about their business, like you might see in an old National Geographic magazine. Okay, there is one love scene, but it's tame by Hollywood standards and it happens early in the film. The violence is mild compared to a lot of PG movies. This could be a good movie for young people to watch with an adult, if only to see people treating each other normally when their skin is showing.

The plot is a bit comic-bookish, but it makes for an easy-to-follow story and good entertainment. You even get to learn a little bit of true stuff about Easter Island.

Rapa Nutty

[tantrarubs · 1/10 · 24 December 2015]

The inhabitants of Rapa Nui forged one of the great cultures of antiquity. They settled a small, utterly remote island in the South Pacific and developed a unique, centuries-old way of life known worldwide for creating monumental stone statues to evoke and venerate their ancestors. There is nothing like their astonishing achievement in the annals of civilization.

Writer/director Kevin Reynolds distorts and insults the noble heritage of this island and its proud people with this tawdry epic. RAPA NUI seizes on lurid myths—ecocide, internecine warfare, starvation, cannibalism, and genocide--to depict past life on the isolated isle as a dismal, dog-eat-dog existence of bottomless despair and cruelty.

Not so. To wit:

-There is no archaeological evidence of cannibalism on Easter Island.

-The Long Ears and the Short Ears, supposedly separate races or clans, probably never existed, and thus never engaged in genocidal warfare. On the contrary, Rapanui society must have been highly cooperative to carve, transport, and erect the colossal statues, as well as to cultivate crops given the island's harsh winds and challenging growing conditions.

-The infamous cutting down of the 16 million trees that originally covered the island was to clear space for agriculture and grazing. Once cut, wood was put to many uses. Rolling the gigantic statues on logs was not the sole or main purpose of clear-cutting, which took place over centuries.

-The religious/political cult of the birdman replaced the veneration of ancestors when the prodigious feat of making statues was no longer sustainable. Statue-carving and the birdman race were not contemporaneous.

-Likewise, the statues were not being toppled as they were simultaneously being manufactured. Probably 200 years passed between the end of statue production and deposing statues in clan rivalries.

Okay, viewers may not care about historical accuracy but just want some rousing entertainment. Alas, with RAPA NUI, they are still out of luck.

It's supposedly a love story, but the heroine is out of sight, shut up in a cave for most of the movie. She looks hideously disheveled when she finally emerges. Yum.

The Short Ears' seemingly voluntary enslavement makes no sense. Why do they put up with brutality and suffering to make statues for the priestly class? How accommodating they are! The Long Ears' power rests on the religious imperative to appease the ancestral spirits. But such moral suasion hardly offers a compelling motive for the Short Ears' elective servitude.

Rapa Nui's troubles are often regarded as a microcosm for the dangers of reckless exploitation of the environment. But the film's depiction of class struggle within an enclosed society with finite resources so lacks subtlety that it is hard to take seriously as a cautionary tale for today's world.

This picture contains one of the most preposterous deus ex machinas in film history. Everyone on the island wants to escape, to sail over the horizon to find a better, happier land. Ah, but there is no wood left to build boats. The answer for the delusional high priest and his gullible followers? Board an iceberg that suddenly appears.

An iceberg.

Really.

At latitude 27 degrees south--nearly tropical waters—they might just as well have found mermaids to carry them away.

As for the cast, the acting is on the see-and-say level. Everyone runs around in skimpy costumes, which at least makes for eye candy. Only Gordon Hatfield, as the heroine's father, creates a character with some depth who appears to possess emotions beyond rage, fear, and longing. His performance is the best part of the film, along with the birdman race, which seems quite authentic (except historically, the race was over when the first sooty tern egg was found on the offshore islet. The finder did have to bring it back up the cliff intact, but doing so was not part of the race).

Despite being filmed entirely on location, there's a sense of artificiality about the statues. The bogus meter starts running early withthe opening credits as the camera tracks up the cliffs of the Ranu Kau volcano to three statues (nonexistent in real life) standing high on the narrow crater rim. Ridiculous. That's the last place the islanders would ever have dragged them. Statues stood on low ground, facing inland on wide platforms. These Hollywood replicas teeter on lofty heights gazing out to sea. Makes for a dramatic shot but absurd archaeology.

Statues the Short Ears carve in the film look fake, big props lacking the contours and color of the originals. When the biggest one is vengefully toppled, the film cuts away the instant before it crashes. Styrofoam just doesn't shatter like rock when it hits the ground.

Production of this $20 million flop in 1994 has had lasting effects for today's inhabitants of Rapa Nui. The sudden influx of film money into a hardscrabble sheep ranching existence brought about a startling transformation in island life, shifting the entire basis of the economy to tourism with remarkable swiftness.

In a rather eerie redux of past ecological disasters, the island's resources now strain to accommodate 90,000 visitors per year. Discotheques rock until dawn and internet cafés dot the streets of Hanga Roa, the only town, which 30 years ago was a dirt road lined with shacks where there wasn't even a telephone. Now luxury hotels charge $1,000 per night. The standard of living in what was formerly a very sleepy place has improved exponentially.

RAPA NUI, this violent, almost sadistic movie that debases the island has, ironically, presumably made it a more livable locale. Producer Kevin Costner and Warner Brothers join smallpox-carrying European explorers, Peruvian slave traders, Chilean colonialists, rapacious sheep ranchers, missionaries, and archaeologists to create the latest turning point in this fascinating island's tumultuous history.

An overlooked gem of a film

[LuvsFood · 27 November 1998]

Rapa Nui is more than just a bunch of Polynesian (and Hispanic!) actors running around half-nekkid. It's an allegory about the dangers of theocratic government, and a tale of class struggle. Rapa Nui is the Polynesian name for Easter Island, that famous dot in the Pacific Ocean with the mysterious statues. We get to see how these things were carved - and why. The Long Ear tribe has effectively subjugated the Short Ear tribe, forcing them to carve Moai (statues) in order to placate the gods. Director Kevin Reynolds uses the island and the carving of statues as an effective backdrop to illustrate the enmity between the tribes, as well as a power struggle for eventual spremacy of the island. The film is driven by visuals and ideas. The writing hardly ever rises above so-so, and it's jarring to hear Polynesian-looking people with British, American and Latino accents. But the film has a certain power to fascinate, and for that alone I recommend it highly.

I have visited Rapa Nui

[lnery · 8/10 · 6 May 2011]

... and I am very glad I did.

I had not seen the movie prior to going there 6 months ago, for two reasons: people told me it was boring, and when I started watching it, I was bothered by the orangey hue of the movie.

I'm glad that this time I persisted. By no means a classic, it certainly is entertaining, and the actions scenes are genuinely GOOD.

I went to Rapa Nui because I was mesmerized with the idea of an ultra-isolated island where an ecological tragedy happened because of huge stone heads. In fact, I read extensively about the island before visiting it. The reading I recommend the most is Jared Diamond's book "Collapse", which draws from reputable scientific sources and Mr. Diamond's encyclopedic knowledge of geography and biology.

I was hoping to find an island of archaeological interest. What I found was an open-air museum that exceeded all my expectations about archeology, and also a very pleasant and delightful place to visit.

There is no crime. There is no pollution. The only (tiny) beach has white sand and blue water in a perfect temperature. The natives are incredibly nice and even the tourists were interesting (because, really, who goes there?). Now I have a toddler-sized moai in my living room and many wonderful pictures with stones, moai, sunsets, stones, blue sea, volcanoes, moai, and lots of more stones.

And the trees? Around the only town, Hanga Roa, there are many of them! Traumatized with the haunting tale of environment destruction, people are starting to plant crops, and the hotels have beautiful gardens, and the whole town is shady and breezy because of all the trees. It's not all dryness and destruction.

I also believe this movie is underrated. Don't go by the negative interviews! The orangey colors of the movie, though lamentable, don't detract from the overall experience, but if you can find a better copy, by all means do so.

The myth of the aboriginal environmentalist

[Varlaam · 5/10 · 13 June 1999]

Primitive societies often despoil their natural environments. They have no deeper respect for nature than more advanced civilizations. This film shows one classic historical example, the deforestation of Easter Island. Anthropology can cite many others. Pakeha or Polynesian, it's all the same. Communities with more rudimentary technology usually lack the means, not the motivation, to irreparably damage an ecology.

There seems to be some controversy over the accents in this film. It happens that the ones I hear are predominantly Kiwi -- Maoris make up a large part of the cast -- plus American, and of course Canadian, from our putative star who unfortunately spends too much of her time sealed up in a cave.

Easter Island speculation

[detrog · 8/10 · 31 March 2010]

A victim of razzing when new and ever since. However, breathtakingly filmed, especially the brutal tribal competition. One of 4 films (and the most unclad) that Jason Scott Lee made in a short time, and even more athletic than his Bruce Lee biopic, 'Dragon', although dramatically J.S. Lee's most memorable performance was as the Inuit halfbreed Avik in 'Map of the Human Heart.'

Sandrine Holt as his beloved is luminous, while Esai Morales is the villain-- -again. A plot-nudging iceberg is obviously a construct but only a brief story device before it floats away. Sadly, the stateside DVD has been withdrawn, leaving only South Korean copies (in English, however) with some manufacturing glitches fore and aft for collectors unwilling to settle for used merchandise..

Pointless reason to employ body doubles

[Kriston · 1/10 · 7 March 2000]

This movie is well worth the viewing if you're into period films with full frontal nudity, even if it means that Roxine Holt's breasts change their shape whenever there's a close-up. The historical fiction used by this movie try to explain the statues on Easter Island but relies too heavily on the tired theme of the incompetent leader being manipulated by overly ambitious advisors. Surely, if the people were as technologically advanced as the movie suggests, they may have transcended racism and their bizarre class structure.

And yet again we see Jason Scott Lee playing the naive, young aboriginal, a part for which he has been typecast in movies like "Map of the Human Heart."

If you enjoy Polynesian scenery, and have a mute button to squelch the pathetic English/Hispanic/American/Canadian accents that vary from character to character, and you can stomach the pointless love story in between graphic scenes of gratuitous frontal nudity through the efforts of beautiful body-doubles, you still won't enjoy this movie.

Enjoyable

[choatelodge · 10/10 · 31 May 2003]

The studios should be applauded when they take on a movie that involves an all new setting and topic, and encouraged to do so more often. We have plenty of stupid eye candy car chase movies and murder mystery flicks for those who enjoy that stuff. Rapa Nui goes somewhere else entirely. The road less travelled as it were.

Set on Easter Island, isolated as it is literally thousands of nautical miles from its nearest neighbour, the movie fleshes out the most pivital time in that islands history, as we understand it from the archeological evidence available. The residents had every reason to believe they represented the only life in the universe. Those of the population with vision must have been appalled to watch their religeous zealots engineering the destruction of the only habitat in the world. The protagonist seems to be one of those who sees the folly and wants to prevent it.

** spoiler coming?**

I am not the first to note that this film weakens its message by allowing, even fostering unintended humour at places where it is not appropriate. The head engineer of statue construction falling to the ground and flailing in a tantrum when the chief glibly states the statue, carved and transported with many months of tremendous labour is dismissed and ordered broken up as being "too small", and that chief, when he complains to his obviously self serving and manipulative with doctor/adviser,"I've been coughing up and vomiting blood lately. Do you think that means anything?" "No, replies the adviser, it's nothing". It seems as though the screenwriter thinks the viewer must have some levity to break up the serious subject matter. The humour takes away much more than it adds to the story however and hearing a couple of audience members guffawing from time to time when we should be sympathising with the frustration of the main character has the effect of pulling the rug out from under the mood. Even the 'last cutting' scene is overblown and rendered campy when this scene, of which perhaps the most empathy might have been drawn of any in the entire film, is played out almost as satire.

**End of spoiler**

So much for the 'It could have been better' part, the movie does deserve kudos for tackling new ground. The cinematography is beautiful, the love story plausable and the main characters earn our support. Bravo for being daring enough to make this flick. I just wish it had been distributed.

Jason Scott Lee in his element

[movietrail · 26 March 2006]

Like many, I was jolted to hear a bunch of ancient Polynesians sounding like "valley girls" and their boyfriends, but let it pass since at least they were all speaking the same language as they would have been anyway, unlike movies like "Seven Years in Tibet" where Austrians spoke English to Austrians, Tibetans spoke English to Tibetans, and otherwise people who wouldn't have been able to speak with each other all conversing in perfect English... that movie was frankly too much for me. As for the different accents in Rapa Nui, I assumed it was a way to show class differences (after all, Jason Scott Lee has proved he can handle about any accent): the chief spoke hoity toity British, Lee sounded like a poor little rich boy (which he was in the movie), so it kind of made sense. And as a great Jason Scott Lee fan, it doesn't matter how well- acted or historically correct or whatever else the movie is or isn't (and by the way I found it completely passable in those senses) as long as we are treated to generous footage of Jason Scott Lee showing off his perfect physique -- and in this movie he nary wears a stitch. Most of the other young male actors, incl Elias Morales, are up to the job as well. I understand perfectly how thrilled one reviewer was about Sandrine Holt's "performance" and feel the same way about her leading man. Anyway, to avoid redundancy, I basically agree with the other positive things other reviewers have said about the movie, and believe one reason it didn't do great at the box office was due to its unusual subject matter -- something that John Q Public isn't always great at handling.

bad and boring

[dcldan · 3/10 · 18 April 2007]

Years before the arriving of the conquerors, the Easter Island lives before a civil war, ancient cults mixed with nihilistic behaviour crash into the island. All mixed with a pseudo ecological message and some stupid jokes. Noro is the son of the chief of Easter Island, he wants to marry Ramana, but, before, he has to win the Egg Race, a race in which he will risk his life in order to chose who will be the chief during the next year. Meanwhile, the slaves are permitted to take part in the race by first time, and the runner wants to marry also Ramana, this will cause the race to be absolutely decisive for the future of the island. It also happens that the current chief lives moaris (mystic meaning) and in the process of building them, they are eradicating the trees that are on the island, and soon there will be anyone and the island will become a desert. With all these plots mixed, it was possible that the movie was interesting, but it results to be very confusing and boring. None of the stories develops correctly and it provokes the movie to be terribly slow and predictable. In addition the actors are not very good, and most of the time you can only see the darkness of the night, as they did not know about fire. To sum up, a long boring film that you should avoid to watch to. The only interesting thing are the precious environment it is filmed.

Elusive history, elegantly sold. Inconclusive mysteries, eloquently told.

[octagonproplex · 9/10 · 15 July 2018]

I love this movie.

Briefly, "Rapa Nui" is the native Polynesian name for Easter Island, and this story is set during a highly speculative, yet resonant, depiction of an end of an era that saw high superstition influence the Long-Ear ruling class to ruthlessly subjugate laborers of the Short-Ear clan for building and erecting ever larger giant stone-carved-statued "Moai" to placate seemingly ambivalent ancestral gods while depleting all their natural resources in the pursuit of this sole aim.

Featuring a great primal adversarial dynamic between Jason Scott Lee and Esai Morales, as former childhood best friends, equally noble but from different social castes - both competing in a breathlessly filmed islandwide triathlon of running/swimming/climbing contested by the various clans to decide who rules them all as "Birdman" overleader - as well as a private wager between the two men for which will win the hand of their lifelong romantic ambition, as personified in the lithely loinclothed Sandrine Holt (at her most naturally rapturious). All this while the only world they know is spinning out of control and collapsing around them.

"Rapa Nui" is a finely acted, well spun, sweepingly romantic historical epic tragedy with stunningly photographed oceanic vistas, harrowing action sequences, and an incredible ethnic music score from Police drummer Stewart Copeland! From the perfectly plausible authenticity of the costuming and sets, to cinematographer Stephen Windon's lush scope complimenting director Kevin Reynold's grand vision, the entire cast and crew sublimely complete a truly intimate and stirring portrayal of social revolution amidst environmental upheaval. It's honestly a gripping tour de force in adventure cinema, with an astonshingly realized recreation of a world lost to time. Firmly planted among my favorite films. And certainly one I am always pleased to expose more people to.

I've heard writer/director Kevin Reynolds subsequently express disappointment with this film. I understand it's difficult for him to have a fair perspective of something he's so intimately involved in the intricacies of attempted recreation of, especially when it doesn't perform finacially after much trouble. I suppose maybe it became a source of brow beating for him that perhaps factored into his immediatly following tumultuous period on "Waterworld"? Just speculating. But he should be extremely proud of his achievement here, because it is quite exceptional.

A new more finely tuned retrospective ought to be commissioned to accompany a long overdue restoration release of this film, assembling original existing behind the scenes promo featuerettes with more candid contemporary interviews. I've always been keenly interested in the making of this particular underseen gem. And I've always been curious about its vaguely alluded to production woes, as well as how hands on producer Kevin Costner was. It's one of my most coveted bluray remaster wishes, as I've never seen it in anything near a pristine presenation ever. It's worthy. Very much so. Anyone who appreciated Mel Gibson's "Apacalypto" - or perhaps Roland Emmerich's "10,000 B.C." or even James Cameron's "Avatar" - should be clamouring to add "Rapa Nui" to their top shelf collection. Classical mythologic hero's journey archetype done to perfection.

Sadly, as of the writing of the review, for some fool reason one of 1994's most beautiful films "Rapa Nui" is not readily availible, not attractively so anyway. I've never even seen a decent presentation of this, just an HBO recording from VCR, then an old pan and scan used rental VHS, and then finally a slapdash foreign DVD rudimentary transfer. Apparently Warner Bros Archive has released what may be a slightly improved presentation. Yet nevertheless, it is blatantly magnificient in every incarnation. So someone in charge please chose to do the right thing and preserve this film properly.

"Rapa Nui" really is deserving of discovery and reassessment. I feel like it's objectively a wonderful film. To me, it's absolutely a classic.

Another misleading piece of malarki

[A-KO-2 · 1/10 · 2 February 1999]

This movie was a complete lie. for starters let me clue some of you in on this, the researchers who study Easter island only have theories as to how these people came to be there, who they were, and how they lived. and none of those hypothesies have anything in common with this ''long-ear'' ''short-ear'' light skinned, dark skinned malarki that the writers dreamt up. one woman said ''this movie gives an in depth look into who these people were, and how and why they built the statues''..i think you might want to make a trip to your local library, use that 5lb hunk of gray matter and read a book instead of believing a so-called ancient legend of history dreampt up by a bunch of crazed american writers and producers. use your mind for just a milli-sec pleeeeease!! if these people made humungous statues, were so smart [they'd have to be to erect those statues] and so spiritually indulgent why would they force one segment of their own people into slavery, exile and force them to erect those enormous statues just becase their skin was dark, and their ears were short!!? it's so funny how so-called histortians contradict each other..they're so full of it,it's sickening. i just watched a documentary of swimming and beaches on THE LEARNING CHANNEL and accoriding to WHITE historians the Romans were the first to swim in the ocean for fun and sport because all other ''savage'' people thought it brought sea monsters and disease. but in RAPA NUI you can clearly see them [the natives] swimming for fun and surfboarding for christ's sake!In short this ranks up there with all the b******t sterotype pieces of fake ethnic b-movies from ''SHAKA ZULU'' the mini-series to ''KUNG FU''they're all taken from the imaginations of complete gits.

Once More About Rapa Nui

[LuvsFood · 7 April 1999]

Actually, I was mostly critical about Rapa Nui - if you read my review carefully, I was referring to the logistics of making and transporting the statues. I neither believed nor disbelieved the stuff about long and short ears. In fact, I read through Thor Heyerdahl's books on the subject, and felt that the filmmakers made some use of his material. What I meant was that the film showed that it was raw human muscle and ingenuity that got the statues built, as opposed to extra-terrestrials or Atlanteans which some fringe theorists believe.