Paraíso

At the end of the19. Century, two youngsters - an attractive heiress and a good-looking son of a missionary couple - are the only survivors of a massacre in Baghdad by a bloodthirsty sheik, who wants the girl for himself. Then they cross the desert to reach Damascus, but the sheik is after them.

Has-been, limply acted, dramatically empty and totally unconvincing period piece derived from "Blue Lagoon"; a curiously halting succession of Asian adventure and adolescent sex in breathtaking locations. Only for lovers of antique teenage romance and beautifully photographed pictures of tropical nature.

I liked this movie when I first saw it. It seems like a Blue Lagoon offspring, but it had it's own elements. I like the element of adventure when the Jackal is chasing them. I'm a sucker for movies about people falling in love without society's interference. The movie was more upfront about a teen's growing interest in sex. Sarah is intrigued by the pictures of naked men, which young chicks do as well for those who don't think so. It wasn't trying to be innocent like The Blue Lagoon. It was more upfront and real to me. This movie seriously kept it real, but it realized that alone would be lacking. The chases and the kidnapping were needed to push the movie along. I found the monkey absolutely adorable. Animals are often used in movies like these to almost guide the two people into the expected. Blue Lagoon had many animals having sex while the two kids were. It's a necessary element in a "paradise" or "adam and eve" type movie. They have no one else to teach them necessarily, so they take a look around. Other than that, Paradise was great and the ending was agreeable. Phoebe Cates was a really adorable girl and Willie Aames was an odd choice, but acted like you would expect any young actor in the 80's would...badly. They couldn't help it. The time called for it. All in all, it was a good film.

As to the previous comment that the movie is not worth seeing, any movie showing a half-naked, young Phoebe Cates IS worth viewing, (at least for a straight male or gay female). Just get it on DD and fast forward through the boring parts.

Admittedly, the story is silly and predictable. ALso, for me, I identify W. Aames with Charles in Charge, where he was the perpetual dummy. I realize it's just a role, but it's hard for me to see him as a woman's version of a sex symbol.

But the story aside, the photography and surroundings are beautiful, as of course is P. Cates. And since most of us can now get movies for free from the local library, or virtually free from the usual sources, it's worth an hour, just don't have unrealistic expectations. (BTW, it's not as if Blue Lagoon was an artistic masterpiece either, just a little less silly than Paradise.

Like most of the others, I found a lot of this movie rather trite. I don't blame Aames or Cates for this; I thought they were good actors who did their best with terrible material. The plot is something straight out of a trashy romance novel, which could have worked with better writing but the script is a mess. However, lost in this mediocre feature film is a great 30 minute soft-core porn. The sex scenes are highly erotic, and the nude scenes are done with much better camera work and production than you would typically have in a skin flick. I'm particularly fond of the cave shower scene, where Phoebe Cates positively scorches the camera with her hotness.

Okay, I admit it. The only reason I rented this film was to see the gorgeous Phoebe Cates and those nude scenes which seemed to have gained more fame (or infamy?) than the actual film itself.

As many others have pointed out, this film borrows heavily from the Blue Lagoon but somehow manages to strip the emotion and warmth out of the formula.

I wandered through this movie totally oblivious to the death of the parental characters and I audibly yawned when Joffrey the minder died. Too much time is spent wasted on ridiculously stupid chimp scenes which one could over-intellectualise and proclaim as being a raw and uninhibited metaphor of the lives of Sarah and David, but in reality are there for cheap gags. As a result the movie seems too short even though you get the distinct feeling you have been sitting, watching it for a long time.

The continuity and time-span of Paradise seems horribly distorted. By the end of the movie you would swear that the two "cast-aways" had been lost out in the desert sea for no more than a couple of weeks. However, when Sarah conceives a child (towards the end of the movie) and she feels it kick in her womb (perhaps 20 minutes later) , you realise that the time span of the movie has been horribly compressed. As a result, I was left feeling baffled and rather surreal. There was no sense of extended isolation, self discovery or sincere empathy towards the characters as they never really seem to be in danger. Similarly, Paradise does not, nay cannot emulate the irony of Return to the Blue Lagoon, where Civilization is portrayed as the great destroyer or unmaker. The characters in The Blue Lagoon are wholly dependent on their little island, where as the oasis in Paradise seems like nothing more than a stop-over enroute. It's sad that it is nothing more than a rip off of The Blue Lagoon that misses the critical factors that made The Blue Lagoon so good.... but that's what it is.

In reality there is only one reason why you would want to watch this movie, and that is for the nude scenes of Phoebe Cates.. and trust me, they give the movie legs.