mccanlessdesign Wonderful, fun movie I've remembered always.I saw this when it came out; learned that Iceland was the closest place in concept. Finally visited last month - stunning.I stood in Leif Erikson's actual house foundations - how cool is that!

zardoz-13 "Mary Poppins" director Robert Stevenson's fantasy outing "The Island at the Top of the World" has all the makings of an adventurous outdoors saga, but loquacity between the two leading characters, played respectively by David Hartman and Donald Sinden, sabotaged this formulaic epic. Although Ian Cameron authored the novel "The Lost Ones," Cameron's narrative appears to have been inspired by Jules Verne. Interestingly enough, Cameron is a pseudonym for Donald G. Payne, who also has also written novels under another name James Vance Marshall. The son of Sir Anthony Ross (Donald Sinden of "The Day of the Jackal") vanishes during an expedition two years earlier in the Arctic, and Ross invites Arctic expert Professor John Ivarsson (David Hartman of "The Ballad of Josie") to accompany him on a journey to the North Pole. Although they cannot ply the frozen waters of the Arctic to reach the area where Ross' son Donald (David Gwillim of "Nostradamus") vanished, Ross has found an alternative form of transportation in the form of an airship piloted by French aviator Captain Brieux (Jacques Marin of "Charade") to take them to their objective. Along the way, our intrepid adventurers pick up Donald's Eskimo pal Oomiak (Mako of "Bulletproof Monk") and take him with them to Donald disappeared. Eventually, our heroes find an evergreen section of the Arctic and a graveyard where whales go to die. The whale graveyard reminded me of an elephant graveyard in African movies. Finally, Ivarsson and Ross find Donald. It seems that he is living with a lost colony of paranoid Vikings who abhor the idea of outsiders entering their society. They call their remote outpost Astragard and they have lived there for a thousand years. No sooner have these Vikings greeted our heroes to their colony than they take them hostage, put them on trial—a kangaroo trial—and sentence them to death by immolation aboard a boat in the middle of a fjord. Happily, Donald's attractive girlfriend Frejya (Agneta Eckemyr of "Blindman") rescues them and they embark on a long, arduous journey with the Vikings nipping at their heels.Most of the time, Sinden and Hartman's characters exchange important points of exposition and it almost seems that the movie devolves into a two man drama. "Island at the Top of the World" improves substantially after our heroes escape from the Vikings and literally turns into Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth." The payoff that enables our heroes to escape from the Vikings is rather cheesy. Sinden is really good as a bulldog of a character and his dialogue delivery is gripping. Hartman delivers his dialogue well enough, but he plays a lifeless character without a shred of charisma. The action seems threadbare and the special effects a rather slight.

Leofwine_draca THE ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD is a Disneyfied version of the globetrotting adventure flicks that popped up in the 1970s - a genre that includes personal favourites like THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT and many other long-forgotten escapades.This one is a Victorian-set adventure, heavily indebted to the works of Jules Verne, which sees a group of characters using an airship to travel to the Arctic circle, where they hope to track down one of their own who has gone missing. Along the way, they hook up with a friendly Eskimo (played by Japanese actor Mako, no less!) and have a stand-off with a long-lost tribe of Vikings who have lost none of their bloodthirstiness.THE ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD is a fun and forgettable family adventure film that passes the time amiably enough. There's nothing here that's controversial, just one old-fashioned adventure after another, and thankfully it's not as twee as I'd feared given its Disney pedigree. Donald Sinden is on good form as a pompous aristocrat along for the ride. Part of the fun of watching comes from watching the ridiculous scenarios, like characters being able to outrun lava flows without ever being affected by heat and the like.

lkw787-445-665328 I loved this film as a kid...I remember being enthralled by its great visual effects and action sequences. Now, of course, when I watch it I'm stunned by how primitive those things look compared to today's techniques (sloppy mattes and shaky blue screen.) The characters are also ethnic and gender stereotypes and the acting very hammy. However, I've shown it to my two year old daughter who finds it enthralling. I recommend it for families who have children under the age of five. Be forewarned, however, some of the sequences are a little scary for that age group. It might also be fun for someone who loves effects films to watch just to see how far we have come.