Customer Reviews

Treasure Island

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

After mistakenly getting this 1998 version of TREASURE ISLAND instead of the classic Disney one, I decided I would at least give this film starring Kevin Zegers (Air Bud) and Jack Palance a chance. But... maybe I shouldn't have taken that chance at all.

The film opens out with a scene involving the pirates on Treasure Island, where Flint is having the treasure buried. We are shown how Pew and Long John Silver come to be blind and peg-legged. Billy Bones (Patrick Bergin) then arrives at the Admiral Benbow Inn where a long-haired Kevin Zegers greets him with a dash of rum. Billy Bones felt rightly cast, but Pew was not at the least bit as frightening as Stevenson describes, and Black Dog could have been a bit better as well.

Some of the shots are amazing - on the island and on board the Hispaniola - and Kevin does an okay job as Jim Hawkins, though swinging between sounding like a little girl and a thirteen-year old whose voice just won't stop cracking.

Problems arise in this version due to changes from the original story that just don't quite work that well. We never really SEE Long John Silver and Jim interacting on the boat that much, so we can't possibly understand why the old pirate has taken a liking to the boy. The ending shoot-out was mildly disappointing. However, I did feel that Ben Gunn was cast very well, and it was most humorous to watch him.

All in all, this is mild at best, with a few great cinematic shots, but not enough meat to carry things along.

I love Treasure Island, but I hated this movie. This uninspired version plods along until the end, and then it becomes wretched. Jim teams up with the pirates to kill the Doctor, Squire, and Captain. This movie was so bad I felt sick after watching it. Jack Palance would have made a fine Long John in a better directed version. On the plus side, the camera work is decent and the Hispaniola is beautiful.

Go for the Disney or Charlton Heston version instead.

We rented this out of our love for the Treasure Island story as well as our respect for Jack Palance's acting skills. While Mr. Palance performed well, the story itself was totally twisted. The "good guys" became the "bad guys" and the "bad guys" turned out to be actually the "good guys". Par for our modern PC culture which fortunately R. L. Stevenson knew nothing about (and yes, I have read the original story). SPOILER: the story ends by the "hero" Long John Silver sailing to Jamaica with Jim Hawkins and Ben Gunn (the "good guys" of the show were killed during a fight at the treasure -- but the story was so twisted that you were actually glad they received their "just reward" in death!). The only reason I rated this a "1-star" was because there was not a "zero-star" rating.

This film does not stray from the original story until the boat lands on Treasure Island! It was a bit shocking at first, but Long John Silver's (Jack Palance) and Jim Hawkins' (Kevin Zegers) superb acting makes this a very enjoyable fantasy to watch!

This is a story of two very elderly men and a very capable teenage boy! Jim Hawkins, while polite, is incredibly resilient and thinks very fast on his feet. And Long John Silver is not some evil minion, but a man of honor who believes in democracy, no less!

My hats off to the filmmakers for having the courage to re-interpret a classic in such a dramatic fashion. It certainly makes you think about Treasure Island in a totally different way!

Anyone who has actually read the book will be disappointed with this version of the film. Despite pretty good casting, the film is ruined by an unforgivable altering of the story. Peter Rowe owes an apology to all fans of R. L. Stevenson.

I had high hopes for this film, as it has plenty of well-known actors. But this director/writer butchered the original story. He went far beyond taking liberties with it...he ruined it. The plot development is horrible...characters don't develop, they simply change in the time it takes to switch scenes. And as other reviewers have noted, the ending is probably the worst part of all. As I watched (painfully), I questioned if the director even bothered to read the book. He took a wonderful, rousing adventure and turned it into a sickening, useless film that I will never watch again, let alone buy.

If you've seen any of the many versions of Treasure Island then you've seen them all. Whats makes this version at least different, (if not better) is the dramatic change at the end of the story. I realize its not what the author had in mind, but hey this is hollywood and they reserve the right to alter the story.
The acting ranged from very good to very bad; with Kevin Zegers (Jim Hawkins) probably doing the best acting job in the movie. Another version, and in my opinion the best to date, features Christian Bale & Charlton Heston in the lead roles. This version was still one of the better ones though and all in all I give it four stars.

Good Pirate film. Should have been made more for the kids- there were some overly gory shots, and at times it was too wordy and lengthy for the kids. Good production value, cool sets and boats / costumes / set design was impressive. If you like Pirate films, this is for you.

Alright, I finally read Treasure Island and decided I needed to see a good interpretation on film. This ain't it. Treasure Planet and Muppet's Treasure Island were both humorous at least. This is the only other version I could find locally. It started off promising enough, then it went downhill fast and never looked back. The settings and costumes were simply beautiful though. If you are hoping for a true-to-book movie this is the farthest thing possible. Frankly, it stinks.

Saw this film only once, and maybe I'm going blind, or the movie affected my brain somehow.....but did anyone else notice that in the closing credits to this horrible film that Jack Palance's name was spelled "Plalance"? Gotta wonder who's got the reins when something like that slips by.....