John Frankenheimer's The Island of Dr. Moreau is not a terrible picture, as I had been led to believe by other reviews and an abysmal 3.9 rating on IMDb. It is merely a very mediocre film, with its good moments and its bad moments.

David Thewlis stars as Edward Douglas, a man whose airplane crashed at sea. After the two fellow survivors murdered each other, he became the lone survivor. A boat transporting animals to an island picks up Douglas adrift and an American on board the ship then nurses him back to health, the man being an eccentric doctor (or veterinarian) named Montgomery (Val Kilmer).

When the ship reaches Montgomery's destination, Douglas is persuaded to come ashore and stay on the island while waiting to be rescued and returned home. However, it is not long after the ship is gone that Douglas realizes he is captive on the island as Montgomery locks him in his room from the outside.

After Douglas picks the lock in his room, he starts doing some exploring. He ventures his way into an old military hangar where he finds lots of cages filled with exotic animals. There is also some kind of surgery going on in the center of the room, and as Douglas gets closer he realizes that it is some kind of half-man/half-animal mutant giving birth. Douglas is so disgusted that he allows himself to utter "Oh my God" which attracts the attention of the men performing the operation. You notice that these "people" are also mutations.

Douglas makes a run for it, and he is helped out by Aissa (Fairuza Balk, whom he had met briefly upon his arrival) who tells him that she can get him off the island so long as he doesn't do anything to hurt her father, Dr. Moreau. Douglas agrees, and she leads him through the jungle to a community of these creatures living inside old WWII aircraft wreckage. He is lead to the Sayer of the Law (Ron Perlman), and it appears that the Sayer is going to help Douglas when Montgomery and Dr. Moreau (Marlon Brando) show up in search of him. Douglas is led back to the main compound where Moreau explains to him exactly what his experiment is and how he plans to save humanity with his results.