Critic's Grade: D-

Richard: What are you looking at?

Emmeline: Your muscles.

Richard: What about them? You're really acting silly lately, Em. Always saying dumb things like that. Always looking at me funny! You're not coming down with something, are you? Don't give it to me.

By the time the two shipwrecked children in "The Blue Lagoon" are old enough to begin experiencing the confusing feelings of sexual attraction, I was so frustrated with having wasted my time on what little of the film I had seen already, that I just wanted to throw my Big Gulp at the television and shout, "Just climb on top of each other and get it over with already!" I've never seen the previous version of Henry De Vere Stacpoole's novel, which I've also never read; after having seen Randal Kleiser's exercise in softcore porn and heavy, heavy (heavy) melodrama, my interest level in the earlier film and the novel is now non-existent.

In the opening, we witness a ship burning at sea, and two young children, Emmeline and Richard, are stranded in a lifeboat with a stocky sailor. As luck would have it, they wash up on a deserted island (seemingly deserted: there's an Indian tribe on the other side, whose purpose I'm unaware of), and to make a long exposition mercifully short, the adult dies, leaving the two children to fend for themselves. Of course, this isn't Neverland, and our two young ones are soon well-tanned teenagers growing through growing pains and experiencing adolescence and puberty. And while I'm no expert on how to make a movie about coming-of-age, I do believe that laughter and giggles weren't exactly the desired reaction that the filmmakers had in mind from their audience.

This is a most joyless and boring experience, one made out of the hope that various angles and shots of young, nubile bodies underwater, hands grazing bare flesh, and multiple glimpses of sexual situations, would provide viewers with enough to sink their teeth into. What I really wanted to start knawing on was Kleiser's neck for leaving us with nary a plot point of any interest, or a performance that was at least serviceable. Christopher Atkins and Brooke Shields are easy on the eyes, yes, but their talent is so completely stretched thin by the weak dialogue and smarmy situations that it's almost unbearable.

For nature lovers, the scenery should provide more than enough enjoyment. This is the film's sole reward, though many times its feels as if you're watching the Discovery Channel Meets Adult Pay-Per-View. The concept is intriguing, but the execution is trite and ridiculous; in the history of movies, few have been as boring and tiresome as "The Blue Lagoon."

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