The producers here tried to imitate The Black Stallion (without the horse) and Treasure Island (without the brutality and fear). The net result is a pleasant, if not too thrilling DIsney -type family film about living the fantasy of being shipwrecked. In real life, the protagonist would most likely have been drowned, or died from exposure and starvation. But this is Disney. Those things don't happen in Disney world. A pleasant family film for an hour or so.
The movie holds up very well for the first forty minutes or so, and the introduction of the gorilla is interesting. But as my film school professor would have said; "you should never introduce an interesting character without some type of resolution for that character. It is like leaving a pot of boiling water on the stove without coming back to it." Much of the latter part of the film is just silly, and has no relation to reality, but we bear it because we want a happy ending. No, not that kind of happy ending; don't be disgusting.
The movie holds up very well for the first forty minutes or so, and the introduction of the gorilla is interesting. But as my film school professor would have said; "you should never introduce an interesting character without some type of resolution for that character. It is like leaving a pot of boiling water on the stove without coming back to it." Much of the latter part of the film is just silly, and has no relation to reality, but we bear it because we want a happy ending. No, not that kind of happy ending; don't be disgusting.