45 years later, Paul Freeman almost certainly remains best known as the villainous Belloq in 1981’s classic Raiders of the Lost Ark. With 1990’s The Last Island, though, he gets a starring – and ostensibly heroic – role.

A plane crashes onto a remote island. This leaves seven survivors: five men and two women.

As this group deals with their predicament, they eventually come to believe they may stand as the only folks left alive after a global calamity. This leads to a mix of conflicts during attempts to survive.

In other words: Lord of the Flies with adults. Of course, the concept of strangers stuck together in difficult circumstances and a need to band together seems neither new nor unique to that famous William Golding novel.

The question becomes whether or not Island manages to do anything clever or interesting with the premise. Given the semi-well-worn nature of the idea, this feels like a challenge.

However, Island delivers an unusual POV, mainly because its two main characters – Sean (Freeman) and Joanna (Shelagh McLeod) – come as unusual protagonists. In a normal movie, they would become lovers, but Sean’s homosexuality means we don’t follow that predictable thread.

Given that the only other surviving female - Mrs. Godame (Joanna Hayes) - is elderly, this means clear tension among some of the other males. Not all actively compete for Joanna’s sexual favors, but enough push in that direction to add sparks.

This all exists mainly as metaphor, especially since the movie’s logic makes no sense. With Joanna as apparently the only fertile female on the planet, how could the world repopulate without unavoidable inbreeding?

Though Joanna does make token mention of this issue, Island doesn’t care about that, primarily because it just wants to make obvious social points instead. At its core, the film tells us that male chauvinism destroys everything it touches.

Which may well be true, but the film depicts its themes in such a clumsy manner that these concepts flop. Island loses points due to some heavy-handed characters, especially the loutish, overly macho Jack (Ian Tracey) and the oppressively religious Nick (Kenneth Colley).

All of this links to the impression Island exists more as a piece of commentary than an actual film. It occasionally grinds to a halt so the characters can monologue these points.

For the flick’s first half, the scenario creates some intrigue. Unfortunately, it fades as it proceeds, largely because it loses all forms of subtlety as it goes.

Island pushes its agenda too hard and suffers for it. Matters turn more and more hamfisted along the way, and this prompts eye-rolling.

Throw in an ending without an ounce of subtlety and Island turns into a problematic exercise. While it maintains intrigue for a while, it eventually digs too deeply into its own cartoony social notions to satisfy.

The Last Island appears in an aspect ratio of :1 on this Blu-ray Disc. At the start, a disclaimer warns us that “this film has been restored from the only existing English-language 35mm print, which had heavy scratches and dirt. As a result, be aware there may be some imperfections in the image and sound due to the condition of the original source”.

That leaves the impression Island will offer a poor experience. That failed to become true, though the image certainly held up much less well than one might expect from a movie produced in 1990.

Unsurprisingly, print flaws turned into the most obvious issue. Though large parts of the film passed without any concerns, other segments suffered from lots of specks and marks as well as tears, lines and other debris.

Otherwise, the movie looked pretty good. Sharpness usually satisfied, as only a smattering of soft shots materialized. Aided by the prevalence of sunny daytime sequences, most of the flick brought appealing delineation.

No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects occurred, and I saw no edge haloes. Light grain manifested through the film.

Colors veered toward yellows, with blues for night elements. The disc rendered the tones as bright and lively.

Blacks seemed fairly deep and dense, and outside of a few thick nighttime shots, low-light elements felt pretty well-depicted. Really, outside of all the source defects, we got an attractive image, but those flaws seemed severe enough to result in a “C-“ for visuals.

Though the Blu-ray’s menu claims the movie comes only with mono audio, instead the included DTS-HD MA 2.0 track brings us a surround mix.

This made sense given the film’s age, though no one should anticipate a killer soundfield. Still, the track kicked to life when necessary.

Much of the time, the soundscape emphasized general environmental material, with an emphasis on the sounds of the island’s surf. A segment in which the survivors head to sea brought better engagement and turned into the movie’s most active sonic experience.

Music brought good stereo presence, and occasional examples of localized speech took place. All of this left us with a pretty good soundfield for a movie from 1990.

Audio quality also worked fine, with speech that seemed concise and distinctive. Music boasted smooth, lush tones.

Effects avoided distortion and showed solid accuracy and range. As for concerns related to the flawed print, some pops stemmed from abrupt cuts in the image but no issues with the basic soundtrack occurred. All in all, this was a more than adequate mix for a 36-year-old flick.

We can watch the movie with or without an introduction from producer Dick Maas. It runs 28 seconds and tells us little beyond his basic interest in the property.

The disc includes an audio commentary from film scholar Peter Verstraten. He offers a running, screen-specific look at story and characters, cast and performances, genre, themes, sets and locations, music and various elements,

Verstraten delivers a pretty solid view of the flick. He mixes notes about the actual production with broader introspection to turn this into a worthwhile chat.

An Interview with Politician/Columnist Annemarie Grewel goes for 11 minutes, 37 seconds. Part of a 1990 TV broadcast, Grewel discusses her reactions to Island and makes this a reasonably insightful little conversation, even if a lot of the running time consists of movie clips.

Next we find a Behind the Scenes featurette that runs 16 minutes, 51 seconds and shows basic candid footage from the set. Despite the odd decision to accompany the material with bouncy pop tunes, this turns into a decent compilation.

A Promotional Gallery delivers 16 stills. These show ads for the movie.

In addition to the Dutch trailer for Island, we get more promos under Cult Epics Trailers. This domains features ads for A Question of Silence, Pastorale 1943, The Debut, Mysteries and Julia.

Essentially a piece of social commentary with a story built around it, the first act of The Last Island comes with intriguing elements. Unfortunately, it sputters after that, as it turns into too much of a cartoon to succeed. The Blu-ray brings iffy visuals along with decent audio and a few bonus features. Parts of the movie show promise but it fizzles in the end.