Average Rating: 
Rating:  - The movie Titan A. E. wanted to be...
I'm not really Joanne - I'm her 16-yr. old son Matt, but anyways...The moment I saw the preview for this at the June release of Lilo and Stitch I was completely smitten. I finally read Treasure Island over this summer, and found out how much I had missed before I became a teen! This was a faithful (if somewhat unorthodox) adaptation of the classic by Robert Louis Stevenson. Fans of the Final Fantasy game series (forget the movie; THAT should be thrown off the face of the earth) will like the "flying ships" and Jim Hawkins, the main character, who is vaguely reminiscent of Squall from Final Fantasy 8. The animation is spectacular, and Long John Silver's Swiss Army Knife cyborg "appendages" are pretty neat. The music is perfect: James Newton Howard, as usual, does a wonderful job with his adventure themes that remind us of the early 90's movie Shipwrecked and such high seas adventure. Johnny Rzeznik, of the Goo Goo Dolls, wrote two songs for the movie; "I'm Still Here" and "Always Know Where You Are" (the latter performed by BBMak). They give a feeling of the teen in Hawkins and accentuate Howard's score perfectly. To top it all off, the film was not merely entertaining; there were morally redemptive factors: Treasure Planet brings out the pain of having a broken family, and viewers will be touched by the bond that forms between Hawkins and Silver. Some of the aliens are a little bit scary, and there's a few explosions, etc., but it's generally a kid-safe film. Overall, this movie was a classic adventure movie, perfect for young and old alike, and one that I will watch more than a few times. Way to go Disney!
Rating:  - Surprise.
Like anyone who has been to the movies at all the past year, I've seen lots of trailers for Disney's TREASURE PLANET. Until a couple weeks ago, I was planning on avoiding the film until it came out on video. However, a boring weekend with little to do and movie theatres that were only showing a few limited films, changed my mind. After seeing the movie, I must say I was pleasantly surprised.Anyone who has read the classic novel by Stevenson, already has a basic idea of the plot of the movie (and for once Disney stays fairly close to source material). The major difference being that the setting has been changed from colonial seas to intergalatic space. The updated change of setting works surprisingly well (though it would have been nice to have a space battle worked in somehow). The movie moves fairly quick and if it wasn't for the fact that I had seen the late night showing of the film, I wouldn't have looked at my watch once. Kids will love this movie and if adults give it a chance, will find enough to keep them entertained as well.
Rating: - Great Movie in a Great Year for Movies
I absolutely loved this movie, as did my nine year old son. We were dragged there by a neighbor (a girl, actually) who wanted to see Treasure Planet again. I'd read the novel Treasure Island as a kid, and was never that enthused about it. So I was blown away by this adaptation, and I bet R.L. Stevenson would be pleased, too.By moving the story to outer space (the final frontier, as we've heard) the writers recaptured the sense of adventure and the unknown that the sea had in the 19th century. Jim Hawkins is a teenager whose father has taken off, and he's mostly finding ways of tweaking the authorities and getting into trouble. After an alien spaceship crashes at the inn run by his mother, Jim gets possession of a treasure map left by a space pirate (Captain Flint) and the chase is on. He and the "Doctor", a family friend and astrophysicist, set out to recover the treasure, hiring a ship and a scurvy mutinous crew straight out of Star Wars Mos Eisley Cantina. The formidable Captain Amelia, played deliciously by Emma Thompson, and her first officer Arrow skipper the ship. Long John Silver, here a cyborg, has signed on as cook and plots to steal the treasure for himself. The animation is absolutely stunning, merging images of a great galleon with nebulas, black holes, and strange creatures of space. More critical, though, is the casting and character development. I could particularly identify with Jim Hawkins mother, at her wit's end with an unhappy and restless teenager. The growing relationship between Jim Hawkins and Silver, who finds himself drawn into a father role against his better judgment, and the zingy one-liners exchanged between Captain Amelia and the initially bumbling Doctor, who turns out to be more resourceful than he looks, are really at the center of the movie, together with Jim Hawkins' growth into a self-confident young man. I particularly liked the ending. I was always a bit put off by the ending of the book Treasure Island, where Jim Hawkins ends up fabulously wealthy thanks to pirate loot. Here, the movie suggests that wealth consists in having enough (but not too much) money, coupled with knowing who you are and who you care about. It seems like Disney has not put much effort into promoting this movie, which is a shame. For me, it ranks with Toy Story as the best Disney movie ever made.
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