Critic's Grade: F

The first modern version of "The Blue Lagoon" wasn't a big enough atrocity forced upon moviegoers everywhere. Now, we have to be subjected to its sequel, entitled (duh!) "Return to the Blue Lagoon," which is basically a carbon-copy of the first film, only with new actors and a different source novel (Henry De Vere Stacpoole also wrote a sequel to his book; damn him). So, whether or not you enjoy this new outing depends on how much you liked the Christopher Atkins/Brooke Shields version; I hated it, and thus I hate this one as well.

Replacing Atkins and Shields are actors Milla Jovovich and Brian Krause, who plays the same little boy who was the son of the two children left to themselves on the island in the Pacific in the first film. Miraculously, he survived his death-by-berries experience, and now finds himself in much the same peril as his mother and father. It's the same story as before: once brought on board a passing vessel, he is taken in by a widow played by Lisa Pelikan, who has a daughter (Jovovich). Then, all of a sudden, a plague is discovered, and to ensure their safety, the captain puts the widow and two children in a boat; three guesses as to where they end up, and two guesses if you figure out what happens to the adult figure.

Now all that is left is for this version to reprise the story of the previous film, and boy, does it ever, with all the weepy melodrama of coming-of-age bliss and growing pains, furtive glances between our two young, nubile adolescents, who, after a nasty experience with some new arrivals from a passing ship, decide they better stick to one another like glue... or something else, if you please. It took me all of ten minutes into the first "Blue Lagoon" to realize that the movie was going virtually nowhere; with "Return," this is a fact you realize head-on. The film is old from the start, becomes ancient by its midsection, and has all but left your memory long before it has even finished telling its second-hand story.

I can't say whether or not the acting on the parts of Jovovich and Krause is more credible than that of Atkins and Shields; they're all supplied the same corny, super-cheesy dialogue and mannerisms, and while this film is rated PG-13, the same methods of sexploitation are at work within the confines of the rating. We get more of the nature, more of the saccharine romance, more of those ridiculous Indians on the other side of the island, and more of everything that made the first film such a dreadful, talky bore. "Return to the Blue Lagoon" is little more than a return to the fires of movie-going hell; enjoy.

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