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Treasure Planet
Treasure Planet
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** ½ Stars
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Rating
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PG
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Director
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Ron Clements
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John Musker
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No hidden treasure here
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Starring (the voices of…)
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Joseph Gordon-Levitt
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Brian Murray
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David Hyde Pierce
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Emma Thompson
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Roscoe Lee Browne
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This animated, and loosely adapted, version of Robert Louis Stevenson's, "Treasure Island," starts as a wonderful adventure but eventually leaves viewers in a quandary. Jim Hawkins (Gordon-Levitt), a teenager who enjoys speed on his unique form of transport, has loved tales of adventurous hidden treasure hunts since he was a young boy. Now a restless teen, Jim's been brought home by authorities more than once. His single mother is worried about him. He helps her run a diner, in space, for traveling ships. Not spaceships, but ships in space¾with masts and sails, and bows and sterns.
One night, a pirate (with not much swash left in his buckle) visits the inn and leaves a golden sphere, which gyrates into a map leading the way to the legendary Treasure Planet, where the "loot of a thousand worlds" is hidden. With the help of an old family friend, Dr. Doppler (Pierce), Jim secures a ship, the R.L.S. Legacy (for Robert Louis Stevenson) to make the journey. The motley crew is headed by the no nonsense Captain Amelia (Thompson). John Silver (Brian Murray), the ship's cook, takes Jim under his wing. And that's not the only thing he wants to take Jim for. It appears Silver and his cronies of marine-life misfit meanies are out to get that map.
We have no quarrel with the lively storytelling or vibrant color palette splashed across the screen. Our question is where in time and space are we? We feel rudderless. It seems that in an attempt to be cutting edge contemporary, yet tell a timeless tale, Disney has muddied the water and scuttled the spaceship at the same time. Why not simply set the story in the "near future," with all the attendant cyborgs and space transports?
In an attempt to perhaps be incredibly imaginative, the filmmakers have instead produced an unimaginative piece. Unfortunate, since directors Clements and Musker brought us "The Little Mermaid" and "Aladdin." There's nothing to recommend "Treasure Planet" to anyone over the age of five. And that's a shame, given its source material, which is very thinly scratched. It would be wonderful to glean a new interpretation of the telling of a classic tale.
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