The Isle

And now, a series of riddles. What’s worse than a slow burn movie that goes nowhere? Answer: a slow burn movie that goes exactly where you think it will. Question: what’s worse than that? Answer: a slow burn movie that subverts your expectations with where it goes, but in doing so, goes somewhere far, far lamer. Question: what’s worse than that? Answer: a movie that does all three. The Isle is a glacially slow, profoundly empty movie. It’s absolutely gorgeous to look at, I’ll give it that, and the Scottish-inspired score and accents are like kisses for your ears. If this had more story, or if it didn’t absolutely fail to do anything good with its build, it would be a joy to watch. But it somehow manages to shamble through a story that barely fills a quarter of its runtime, and somehow managed to both end in a result you see coming from minute one, while also not being entirely what you expect but being dumber than the most obvious outcome too. To top it off, the movie has to come to a grinding halt in the last 10 minutes to accommodate the backstory that fills in the gaps, then has to rush through the two minute finale because it has nothing left. The Isle wants to be this gothic, sleepy, pastoral tale of the old country, like a sinister fairy tale. It has a lovely and unique setting, a gorgeous score, and a cast that is trying to pump life into it. But it fails to understand that to be an effective slow-burn horror movie, one has to actually put a log on the fire from time to time. The Isle is too busy watching the embers sputter out to keep its own flames alive.