Richard and Emmeline Lestrange die leaving their son Paddy as the sole survivor. The rescue ship is overwhelmed with suspected cholera. Mr. Kearney, Mrs. Sarah Hargrave with her daughter Lilli, and Paddy renamed Richard are cast off in the lifeboat. Kearney threatens the toddlers and Sarah kills him. The trio ends up back at the original island. After Sarah's death, Lilli (Milla Jovovich) and Richard (Brian Krause) are left to themselves.

The story gymnastics are annoying as heck to make the sequel basically a repeat of the original. I'm sure anybody would be laughing with derision at the silly plot repeat. The original has the possibility of being a guilty pleasure. This is an unforgivable embarrassment for anybody who actually likes the sequel. I have nothing against the two young actors. Milla obviously has more acting abilities than the usual model. However, there is simply no point to this sequel for an unworthy franchise.

Although the same character names are used for the two kids, this is by no means a sequel to the Blue Lagoon film that Christopher Atkins and Brooke Shields made a decade earlier. A lot of plot changes but this is the same story of kids growing up on their own on a south sea island.

This pair who grow up to be Brian Krause and Milla Jovovich have a bit of bringing up from a woman who is cast adrift with them played by Lisa Pelikan. They learn their ABCs from her if not the birds and bees. In a lot of ways Pelikan is the best in the flm with her portrayal of motherhood.

When civilization comes calling finally it's not quite to their liking. That makes the biggest difference in plot.

Return To Ther Blue Lagoon is not near as good as the 1980 fim, but it wasn't deserving of all the Razzie nominations it got.

RETURN TO THE BLUE LAGOON, made 11 years after the successful first film, is one of those movies that's happy to reprise the plot of the original while adding a few twists and tweaks of its own. It's an entirely superfluous kind of film that sees yet another couple of kids washed up on a desert island and having to fend for themselves against nature and their fellow man.

There are a few differences here - the adult with them is a woman, the boy is the son of the couple from THE BLUE LAGOON, they're staying in the same place so make use of the already-there house, etc. - but none of them make a difference. Once again the film is all about puberty, isolation, love and family, except as it's not original it feels like a lukewarm rehash of the first movie.

The acting doesn't really sit right either. The age gap between Milla Jovovich and Brian Krause is too obvious, and Krause is as equally wooden as Christopher Atkins before him. Jovovich definitely has something feral within her, but less use is made of that as in THE FIFTH ELEMENT, which handled her unique qualities perfectly. Director William A. Graham made a career of TV movies and although RETURN TO THE BLUE LAGOON had a theatrical release, it feels very much like a second-rate outing in every respect.