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Paradise More at IMDbPro »

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25 reviews in total

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26 out of 35 people found the following review useful:
There are two reasons to watch this movie, 29 April 2001

Author: pattersonsmith

The only two reasons to watch this movie are on Phoebe Cates chest. This is better than the movie it copies "Blue Lagoon", but that is saying very little. The best way to watch this movie is to have your finger on fast forward. There is a lot of wasted time that will put you to sleep. Unless you are specifically interested in seeing the the reasons previously mentioned, don't bother with this mess.

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13 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
The title says it, 8 March 2003
Author: Shari (AfricanVenus84@aol.com) from United States

I liked this movie when I first saw it. It seems like a Blue Lagoon offspring, but it had it's own elements. I like the element of adventure when the Jackal is chasing them. I'm a sucker for movies about people falling in love without society's interference. The movie was more upfront about a teen's growing interest in sex. Sarah is intrigued by the pictures of naked men, which young chicks do as well for those who don't think so. It wasn't trying to be innocent like The Blue Lagoon. It was more upfront and real to me. This movie seriously kept it real, but it realized that alone would be lacking. The chases and the kidnapping were needed to push the movie along. I found the monkey absolutely adorable. Animals are often used in movies like these to almost guide the two people into the expected. Blue Lagoon had many animals having sex while the two kids were. It's a necessary element in a "paradise" or "adam and eve" type movie. They have no one else to teach them necessarily, so they take a look around. Other than that, Paradise was great and the ending was agreeable. Phoebe Cates was a really adorable girl and Willie Aames was an odd choice, but acted like you would expect any young actor in the 80's would...badly. They couldn't help it. The time called for it. All in all, it was a good film.

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11 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
Phoebe Cates is my favorite actress., 14 April 1999
Author: anonymous

I saw this film in 1982 when I was 14 years old (purpose: to see the much publicized full frontal nudity of the aptly named co-star Willie Aames.) The short scene (pun intended) did not impress me, nor did Aames' acting. However, Phoebe was such a strong confident actress she became my favorite actress. She followed with a terrific list of credits, most notably Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Private School (so-so movie but she was great in it), Lace I and II (excellent TV pictures), Gremlins I and II, Date With An Angel, Bright Lights Big City, Heart of Dixie, Shag, Drop Dead Fred, and Bodies Rest and Motion. Paradise is a Blue Lagoon rip-off but there are not too many films in that specific genre (Blue Lagoon 2, Castaway, Paradise 2) so I am glad they made the film. Besides, despite it's lack of originality, it is a good film. I think women young and old will enjoy the film (14 years and up due to tasteful appropriate nude scenes) because of it's romantic fantasy and strong female role, and I think guys will as long as they like a beautiful woman cavorting nude on a lost isle.

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15 out of 25 people found the following review useful:
Mind-Numbingly Bad, 17 May 2005

Author: gftbiloxi (gftbiloxi@yahoo.com) from Biloxi, Mississippi

A teenage boy (Aames) and a teenage girl (Cates) are lost in the desert but eventually find their way to an isolated oasis, where they fight off illness, desert bandits, and growing lust for each other. Okay, so it's a rip off of BLUE LAGOON, an excuse for the two stars to run naked and presumably titillate viewers with the sight of their young, nubile bodies.

Now, God knows Aames and Cates are young and nubile. But there is a price to pay for the sight of them running naked: you have to sit through one of the worst movies ever made.

I actually saw this on the big screen, and I can report that about fifteen minutes into the movie people began to leave, talking loudly about what an incredibly bad movie it was; those of us who remained were treated to an increasingly mind-numbing boredom so ponderously heavy that we were shocked into immobility. No amount of teen age nudity could make this turkey watchable. Miss it!

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
enjoy the cinematography and settings, 4 September 2009

Author: thesiouxfallskid from United States

After reading the comments here, I hesitated on this one but glad I went ahead and saw it. Yes, the story has problems, far-fetched and cheesy, but the cinematography, costuming, and settings were fantastic. I don't consider myself too generous giving the film a 7 despite certain shortcomings. The locations - desert, oases, Arabic architecture were well chosen, costuming very stylish, camels, ocean, underwater photography were well done. The actors/actresses did a decent job despite the script. And since when was any paradise on this planet anything but far-fetched? Blue Lagoon does not own youthful awakening. Dream a little and enjoy the visuals.

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6 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Phoebe Cates is hot, 7 December 2006
Author: bdrasin from United States

Like most of the others, I found a lot of this movie rather trite. I don't blame Aames or Cates for this; I thought they were good actors who did their best with terrible material. The plot is something straight out of a trashy romance novel, which could have worked with better writing but the script is a mess. However, lost in this mediocre feature film is a great 30 minute soft-core porn. The sex scenes are highly erotic, and the nude scenes are done with much better camera work and production than you would typically have in a skin flick. I'm particularly fond of the cave shower scene, where Phoebe Cates positively scorches the camera with her hotness.

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6 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Paradise, 8 November 1999
Author: Janos Smal (jsmal@osi.hu) from Budapest, Hungary

At the end of the19. Century, two youngsters - an attractive heiress and a good-looking son of a missionary couple - are the only survivors of a massacre in Baghdad by a bloodthirsty sheik, who wants the girl for himself. Then they cross the desert to reach Damascus, but the sheik is after them.

Has-been, limply acted, dramatically empty and totally unconvincing period piece derived from "Blue Lagoon"; a curiously halting succession of Asian adventure and adolescent sex in breathtaking locations. Only for lovers of antique teenage romance and beautifully photographed pictures of tropical nature.

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7 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Not a Blue Lagoon rip-off, 13 August 2008

Author: warwickbennett_591 from New Zealand

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!

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7 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Better film than the Blue Lagoon, 10 July 2006

Author: uclaomega from Chicago - United States

Paradise stars Willie Aames as David and Phoebe Cates as Sarah. They play 2 teenagers who are traveling with their parents on a caravan to Damascas when their group is raided by a slave trader named "The Jackel" (Tuvia Tavi). Both Sarah's and David's parents are killed in the attack. This forces Sarah and David to escape through the desert with Sarah's family servant Geoffrey. David comes across an underground "paradise" in the desert with running streams, etc. Geoffrey becomes ill which leads to David and Sarah fending for themselves. Since both of their parents were Christians (who were actually on a pilgrimage) the kids are very innocent in the ways of sex, etc. which they discover. They are not of the woods though since the Jackel and other raiders are still out there. This is an OK movie which took its basic premise from the film "The Blue Lagoon" It is not the greatest film and the script and plot is somewhat laughable at times. Cates does a good job though as does Aames. One of the main attractions of the film though are the frequent nude scenes which shows her spectacular figure. If you liked The Blue Lagoon you will like this movie as it is slightly better made. If you are a fan of Phoebe Cates this is a must see.

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4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
A Garden Of Eden Just Made For Two With Plenty To Mar Our Joys, 30 November 2008

Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

Phoebe Cates made her screen debut with TV teen heartthrob Willie Aames in Paradise, a landlocked Blue Lagoon with unfriendly Arabs lurking on the borders of Paradise. It's definitely got some nice nude shots of both young performers to gratify the prurient.

The two young people are in Bagdad of 1823 then part of the Ottoman Empire and governed rather loosely from Istanbul. Cates is with her guardian who is your proper British official and Aames is the son of a bible thumping reverend and his wife. All of these people haven't a clue about where they're at, just an exaggerated sense of western superiority.

But the beautiful and nubile Cates has caught the attention of a sheik who's in the slave trade. He could get some good bucks for her or keep her as private stock. He and his people ambush the caravan, but the kids escape and come to a hidden oasis where they set up and play house.

The similarities to the Blue Lagoon are rather obvious even in the looks of the protagonists. But whereas those kids had been shipwrecked on their island since they were still in single digits in The Blue Lagoon, in Paradise these two young people already know the facts of life, it's just that they have that Protestant Christian upbringing.

The film was shot in Israel and the scenery is magnificent with and without Aames and Cates. Given that Aames is now a born again Christian he probably wants those male nude shots off the market, so hang on to your DVDs and VHSs.

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