Treasure Planet Disney Read-Along

Rating:
Summary: Not dreadful, but not underrated
Review: Certainly a much better film than I had anticipated, I thought it was gonna be awful from the look of the trailer. But I was very surprised. I actually didn't mind it in the end, but unlike the previous release, Lilo and Stitch, Treasure Planet lacked the urge to make me want to buy it or watch it again. I love to watch any Disney film that's designed to make people laugh, except for Finding Nemo-that was rubbish, so this film lacked humour, and B.E.N. was more irritable than funny, especially his voice. The rest of the cast is good though, the animation is visually great, as is the soundtrack. But unfortunately, I loved Lilo and Stitch, and this wasn't nearly as good. But I doubt this was ever going to be in the first place.
Lilo and Stitch: Excellent, worth buying now!
Treasure Planet: Entertaining, worth a rent, but not worth watching more than once.

Rating:
Summary: ITS AWFULLY DARK & GLOOMY UP THERE!
Review: In Brief

The legendary loot of a thousand worlds inspires an intergalactic treasure hunt when fifteen year old Jim Hawkins (Joseph Gorden-Levitt) stumbles upon a map to the greatest pirate trove in the universe. Based on Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island Classic novel, the film follows Jim's fantastic journey across a parallel universe as a cabin boy aboard a space-galleon. Blossoming under the guidance of the cyborg cook John Silver (Brian Murray), Jim and the alien crew battle supernovas, black holes and ferocious space storms on their quest for the gold, but none of this can compare to deadly dangers that lay ahead.

Review

One can't help but recall the surrealism of Yellow Submarine when watching this film, as the characters and even the concept of wooden Galleons with engines large enough to put the Millennium Falcon to shame fill a universe of oddly proportioned aliens and robots. Indeed, ignoring the insanity of an open decked ship in the vacuum of space, one can't help but think the romance of a feline captain and a scientist with canine origins is a little more than disturbing. Yet this is Disney, and all is pure and good when it comes to cross breeding of two species.

Seriously, Treasure Planet is an enjoyable romp through Stevenson's original classic, and while purists may have palpitations at the liberties that have been taken with the source material, the bottom line is that it is a thoroughly enjoyable family film. Martin Short's portrayal of B.E.N., a robot with a short circuit, is hilarious and recalls memories of Robin Williams turn as the Genie in Aladdin. David Hyde Pierce, making his second outing as a vocal talent in a Disney Film following A Bugs Life, is perfectly sardonic and draws knowingly from his successful performance as Niles in the TV sitcom Fraser. While Levitt, who made himself famous through his portrayal of Tommy in Third Rock from the Sun, is refreshingly straight as the teenage hero Jim.

Its the roughness of the animation that in my opinion really lets this film down. While it isn't bad by any standard, it doesn't have the flair of a Disney film, and near the introduction of Thompson's feline captain there are some glaringly obvious vocal-sync problems in matching the voice to the characters mouth. Indeed, this just doesn't have the magic of a Disney theatrical release and will more likely become a popular home video classic, as it lacks the grandeur and set pieces of some of their better know products.

The Verdict

Treasure Planet is a good film that lacks something at its core. It will make a great half term treat and adults will enjoy it as much as their children, but Disney needs to refill their salt shaker of Magic if this is all that they can muster.

Rating:
Summary: What the hell were they smoking?
Review: Somebody over at Disney needs to put down the crack pipe - you can't stick model rocket engines on a 16th-century spanish galleon and expect it to travel across the galaxy in 20 seconds. This movie's whole production design was so incredibly ass-backwards, it made my head spin. It's sad really, because the story is a damn good one, and this movie had a lot of potential. If those stoners at Disney had been spending less time taking acid trips to outer space, they would have done the reasonable thing: make realistic-looking spaceships and settings like in Titan A.E., and at least pay attention to whatever laws of physics you know about when you're sober. Instead, we get the most warped unreality ever seen on the big screen: There's breathable air in space, and the ship is rocket-powered, meaning that traditional sails would slow the ship down - so, of course, this ship keeps its sails unfurled at all times. Excuse me, but what team of clown-college flunkies decided that this would be a cool idea?

My advice? Either read Treasure Island, or watch a movie that doesn't insult your intelligence. This one makes Jimmy Neutron look like Shakespear.

Rating:
Summary: Sci-Fi Voyage for Adventure & Treasure...
Review: Treasure Planet is Disney's science fiction version of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island where a teenager Jim Hawkins is pulled into an adventure through a treasure map. The map comes with a warning of dangerous pirates who destroy Jim's house in search of the map. The quest for the treasure begins with the escape of the evil pirate and continues with a voyage on a space galleon that rides on winds of the universe. As the story develops there are many moral lessons to be learned through Jim and the characters that he encounters on the voyage to Treasure Planet. Treasure Planet is a film that keeps both young and old entertained with both humor, drama, and suspense leaving the viewers with a good film experience.

Rating:
Summary: Flawed?
Review: Who says this movie's flawed? Watch it yourself,you'll see
what I mean. Not even Lion King or Finding nemo or not
even spirited away can come close to this!

Bottom line: SEE THIS FOR YOURSELF RIGHT NOW

Rating:
Summary: Only 1 good song in this movie
Review: The artwork is good, but its not the best. A lot of computer animation is used, instead of acutal hand drawn work. Which is another sign of how the Disney artists are getting more lazy.

There is only one song played during the movie. Fortunaltly, that song is very good, it is not irritating.

Rating:
Summary: terrific scifi animated adaptation of RL Stevenson's classic
Review: This is an animated science fiction story based on Robert Louis Stevension's Treasure Island. The script is very good though, as usual with Disney, not as enlightened as one would wish or hope. The animation and design are breathtaking, the characters are fun and the songs are minimally intrusive. All-in-all, I was pleasantly surprised by this film, and look forward to re-reading the book so I can see how it compares.

Disney's forte continues to be their state-of-the-art dvd extras, and this disc is no exception. There are trailers and featurettes galore, games, music videos, deleted scenes, an alternate ending and a commentary track with the producer and two directors. Spoken language options are English, French or Spanish, and English captions are available.

Rating:
Summary: Treasure Planet
Review: Well, Treasure Planet used to be my favorite, but now, I don`t know if I have a favorite movie! It has good characters, a good storyline, great feel-like-your-there animation, and an absolute great music (even I think the Goo-Goo Dolls are idiots!). I like the soalar-surfing parts alot. I hope you consider this reveiw.

Rating:
Summary: Watch it with the sound off
Review: For a host of reasons, "Treasure Planet" is sure to please the moppet audience for which it was intended. The art and animation is nothing short of sublime: the acme of the animator's art. The coloring is dazzling yet subtle. The conception of the ships is bold and original. The design of the characters - particularly Long John Silver, B.E.N., and Mr. Scroop - does not disappoint. The script (for the most part) is deft; the pace, brisk; and the voices of the characters matchlessly brought off.

So what's the problem with this movie?

Well, for the ADULT audience, at which many aspects of this movie are aimed, several hurdles come a-knockin', particularly when it comes to the way the plot stumbles storywise.

Lemme see if I understand: Dr. Dilbert Doppler is financing - exclusively commissioning - the entire ship with his "savings" (this is made clear). So how is it that his homeboy Jim gets stuck having to swab the decks and peel potatoes? The script tried to play this off as a whim on the part of our Protestant work-ethic captain, but for all that, it doesn't make a lick of sense and those upstairs knew it. I suppose Disney figured that, as I suggested, the kids in the audience wouldn't storm out of the movie-houses protesting the gross illogicality of this situation, since no sooner are we presented with it than we are introduced to the Cyborg's mesmerizing appendage. Just one of many irritating examples of how the barrel of their exposition could have used a cork or two. I had no problem believing that there were three-masted ships sailing through the ether and a dozen other ludicrous premises, but Jim's cabin-boy status posed a believability problem that nagged at me through a big chunk of the film.

And what's with Jim's pathetically trendy space-board? Is our age really so cynical that we can't simply make a movie that doesn't have a "cool and rebellious" hero at its center? Christ. Voltaire was "cool and rebellious." Jim ("prepubescent twit") Hawkins isn't. In years to come this transparent attempt to connect with today's "extreme generation" is definitely going to date the movie in an embarrassing way. God forbid Disney remake Snow White! All the dwarves would probably be into body-piercing and bungee-jumping! Definitely one thing that's great about movies like Pinocchio and The Little Mermaid compared to this kind of film: in those older films there was never any attempt to cast the events and characters onscreen in the light of recent fads, hair-dos, etc. It was possible delightfully to lose oneself in the imaginative worlds presented without being rudely summoned back to the grimy modern world we all inhabit. Even so, I had nearly forgot about that idiotic board until the end of the movie, when it returns with a vengeance. Save your popcorn bag: you'll need it for the vomit.

And what's with Morph, the ubiquitously ingratiating sidekick? Sheesh. I mean, does Disney have such a low opinion of children today that it invariably assumes none of them will want to see a movie unless there's some impossibly adorable (and scrofulous, if you watch carefully) creature thrown in there? Am I asking too much?

(Well, at least the principals didn't break into a maudlin chorus every 5 minutes; this is something of an improvement over the traditional Disney fare. Although there are a couple of sappy songs - such as shortly after Jim meets Silver - mercifully, though, they aren't sung by the characters.)

A final thing that I found annoying with this movie (am I alone?) was that, in the end, NOBODY gets the treasure. I mean, I know the treasure's just series of nicely-drawn pictures, but at the end of the movie this gigantic mountain of gold and jewels is utterly destroyed and NOBODY gets it, not even the villain! I found this immensely irritating; the audience had definitely made an emotional investment in this treasure. Finding it was the whole point of everything, and when things simply don't pan out, we are left feeling cheated and unsatisfied. Couldn't the loot at least have gone to an orphanage or something? True, Jim was tossed a few coins, but then, in the idiotic finale, we see his mother has inexplicably used them to rebuild her inn (which, we are led to understand, had been on the point of giving her a coronary), rather than using them to go to graduate school, or build a better life for herself somehow. This, also, rubbed me the wrong way.

Yes, "Treasure Planet" is an irritating letdown in every way except visually. What is clear from the film's coloring, detail, and computer-aided graphics is that animated movies are right on the cusp of really growing up, really becoming serious vehicles for art and storytelling - at least potentially. But for some reason the studios that have the power to create meaningful animated films insist instead on infantilizing the media, wasting millions of dollars cranking out dreck so laughable that even the kids it's intended for see right through it.

Rating:
Summary: Worthy Effort 4 1/2 stars
Review: O.k so people your right this one doesn't measure up to other Disney animated classics like "Beauty and the Beast" or "The Little Mermaid", but then again maybe that is not such a bad thing. Anyone remember the little disaster in-a-box from 1996 "Humpback?" No well then count yourself blessed and spared by the divine hand of God It was bad.

This movie was not bad, not at all in fact I rather enjoyed it. The storyline was solid if not wholly original and the graphics were great, sorta reminded me of Titan A.E only this movie got me to laugh once in a while whereas Titan A.E didn't. The voice actors also seemed to have a fun time with what they were doing.

The thing that killed this movie and why it so poorly at the box office was just the shear number of Treasure Island movies out there. I'm sure that if this move had been a wholly orginal idea it would have been a box office smash, but unfortunately it was not.

If you have the opportunity to but this one go ahead and do it. This movie will surly keep both you and the kids interested. On the plus side for adults the annoying singing is kept to a minimum