MILS: Movies I'd Like to See

While Neurotic Wonder Boy sees fit to use this blog as a place to post reviews of soft drinks I'm pretty sure don't exist, I would like to take this opportunity to provide a brief review of a film I'm pretty sure should exist. So here it is:

Marlon Brando in "The Island of Dr. Foucault"


Brando as Dr. Foucault, lecturing his man/animal hybrids about the relationships between power, knowledge, and discourse.

Marlon Brando stars as Michel Foucault in this theoretically-charged sci-fi fantasy flick. The premise of this film is that the "real" Michel Foucault did not die of an AIDS-related illness in 1984, but rather secretly relocated to a Mediterranean island with his lover, Daniel Defert (portrayed by Val Kilmer), in order to spawn a super-race of man/animal hybrid creatures and lecture them on such topics like post-structuralism and sociology to have them help him finish the final three volumes of The History of Sexuality. But things get complicated when a Vietnam veteran's plane crashes on Foucault's fantasy island. The veteran, named Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen in his best role since his appearance in Broadway's Apocalypse Wow! ), while at first won over by Foucault's philosophy, eventually discovers that the evil Dr. Foucault hypocritically rejects Enlightenment values while secretly relying on them. Willard plans to expose Foucault as a fraud, overthrow his reign with the help of the Manimals, and institute a new form of governmentality that emphasizes more responsible scholarship.


Val Kilmer as Dr. Foucault's sex slave...


...and his transformation into Porcupine Boy.

Much action ensues, most of which is watchable. The director of the film, Morton Chavez, includes too many scenes that focus on the blossoming relationship between Willard and Porcupine Boy (Kilmer again! Where was the Oscar?) that ultimately detract from the film as a whole. Brando towards the end of the movie really chews the scenery with a lengthy speech about prison food, which is finally getting interesting when Willard strikes his death blow in Foucault's heart of darkness.


Willard (Martin Sheen) emerging from the ass of Dr. Foucault. The horror! The horror!

Although not a cohesive film (Chavez's never are, in this reviewer's opinion), it certainly lives up to (and thoroughly contributes to) the lasting legacy of Michel Foucault.

My rating: **. Just because I'd like to see the movie doesn't mean I have to like it.