Paradise (1982)

Waste of time

Very well executed

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

If crappier films were made at the time, they didn't hit your local theatre. But this one probably did. Yes, the dirty old man in me appreciates Phoebe Cates in full nude. I'll be honest about that. (Perhaps there's a fan edit that qualifies a good soft-core porn?) But there is no other justification for watching this. Take my advice and use your bandwidth more wisely.

I don't know where to start. It's like they saw Blue Lagoon and someone said "Let's make a comedy version of this!" The dialogue is, at times, inane to the point of making you guffaw with laughter and the acting - Aames in particular - is painful to endure.Add in the comedy chimps (I only wish I were joking, sadly) and the terrible music (which varies from plinky-plonky comedy piano tunes to over-the-top "Danger Will Robinson!" theme.That said, this is mostly about naked bodies and there's plenty of that. There's even full frontal Chimpanzee nudity! There's little to recommend this film. Poor acting, and a poor script, along with the plethora of stupid on display, make this seem like it was intended to be light-hearted and aimed at kids. The nudity, however, is definitely not family friendly and aimed squarely at adults.And about the stupid...Things I learned from this movie, contrary to common sense: 1. When lost in the desert, don't despair! There are circus-trained chimps everywhere, and they will help you! 2. Seeing a chimp masturbate on screen is perfectly acceptable and funny. It's not at all disturbing, no, no, no! 3. Said chimps can mate and produce a monkey baby! 4. In the blink of an edit, having arrived at an oasis the scene before, you can build a house and a love swing covered with goat furs.5. In the blink of a following edit, having built a house and, apparently hunted goats successfully, our hero is seen unable to fire an arrow from his bow.6. After having shown you a chimp masturbating, it was apparently considered improper for the chimps to be naked, so they are dressed in tiny loincloths after that.SUMMARY: Sub-standard Blue Lagoon clone which irritates more than tittilates. Bad everything, really. Not worth the effort.

This movie is NOT a rip-off of The Blue Lagoon as most of the reviewers seem to think. The setting is entirely different, as is the plot. The Blue Lagoon is about a couple of very young kids who get stranded on a Pacific island and not found until many years later when they are "grown up", with a child of their own. In Paradise, the time span is much shorter; the young couple start the movie as teenagers in North Africa, and get lost in the desert after their caravan is attacked by Arabs. It is not long before the rescuers arrive. Paradise is way better than The Blue Lagoon, and the nudity is honestly portrayed -- if you watch The Blue Lagoon, you will notice that you never see Brooke Shields' face andbody in the same shot -- she used a body double for the rare nude scenes in that movie. I'm not sure what's up with the reviewer who had the Korean copy with only Willie Aames full frontals censored -- I bought what was meant to be an uncut DVD of Paradise through Amazon marketplace and ended up with a Korean rip-off in which ALL the full frontal scenes were censored -- I'd gladly do a swap -- as it is, I'm hanging onto my VHS copy until I can get a DVD containing Phoebe Cates' wonderful nude scenes in their entirety. After all it is Phoebe's beauty which makes this movie worth 10/10 for me!

As to the previous comment that the movie is not worth seeing, any movie showing a half-naked, young Phoebe Cates IS worth viewing, (at least for a straight male or gay female). Just get it on DD and fast forward through the boring parts.Admittedly, the story is silly and predictable. ALso, for me, I identify W. Aames with Charles in Charge, where he was the perpetual dummy. I realize it's just a role, but it's hard for me to see him as a woman's version of a sex symbol.But the story aside, the photography and surroundings are beautiful, as of course is P. Cates. And since most of us can now get movies for free from the local library, or virtually free from the usual sources, it's worth an hour, just don't have unrealistic expectations. (BTW, it's not as if Blue Lagoon was an artistic masterpiece either, just a little less silly than Paradise.