Review: Treasure Island (DMC #13)
Arg, ya mateys! Welcome back to this here blog. Treasure Island is the thirteenth movie in our Disnerd Movie Challenge, and after watching it last night we have a few thoughts to share. In case you fell asleep part way through, here’s a quick synopsis of the story. (Feel free to skip ahead to our review.)
Synopsis
While young Jim Hawkins is looking after the tavern his mother runs, two different pirates come looking for William Bones, a sickly man who’s been hiding there. The second pirate hands Bones a black spot—a mark of death. Bones knows the pirates are after his treasure map, so he gives it to Jim for safekeeping while Jim goes to fetch help. By the time Jim returns with Doctor Livesey and Squire Trelawney, however, the pirates have already looted the tavern and Bones is found dead. Jim shares the treasure map with the Doctor and the Squire, and the Squire at once declares the three of them must go on a voyage to uncover the treasure. The Squire hires Captain Smollett and his ship for the expedition, and hires a cook, Long John Silver, who befriends Jim and claims he can rally up a crew. Once on the ship, Captain Smollett expresses misgivings about the crew, especially since their “secret” voyage appears to be common knowledge.
After days at sea, Jim is sitting in an apple barrel when he overhears Silver and the crew planning a mutiny. He discovers that Silver hired his old shipmates, and all of them are pirates from Captain Flint’s crew. Jim warns the Doctor, Squire, and Captain, who ask Jim to stay friends with Silver so he doesn’t suspect they know the truth. When Silver, Jim, and some of the other pirates head to the rowboats to pull the ship to shore, one of Silver’s men tries to start a mutiny on the ship, but the Captain and his men are ready and hold the pirates off. Silver threatens to cut Jim’s throat if the Captain tries anything, and so the rowboats make it safely to the island. Once on the island, Jim runs away from the pirates and encounters Ben Gunn—another pirate from Flint’s crew who was marooned on the island five years ago.
Jim meets up with the Captain, Doctor, and Squire at a small fort on the island while Silver and the other pirates take control of the ship and arm themselves. After the Captain refuses to bargain with Silver, the pirates attack the fort. The attack fails, but Captain Smollett is wounded. That night, Jim slips away to the ship. Though he manages to sneak on board and cut the anchor rope so the ship will drift to shore, Jim is stabbed by one of the pirates on guard before he uses a pistol to shoot the pirate. Jim manages to make it back to the fort, but when he arrives he finds Silver and the pirates instead of his friends. Jim passes out and Silver discovers the map on him. The other pirates want to kill Jim, but Silver argues that he wants to use Jim to trade for the map (which the pirates believe is still with the Captain and the others). Instead, Silver bargains for himself, asking the Doctor for leniency in court. Silver then leads the pirates to where the map says the treasure is, but when they arrive there’s nothing to be found. The pirates turn on Silver who manages to kill some of them before the Doctor and the others kill the rest. Ben Gunn reveals that he dug up the treasure years ago and hid it in his cave. On the way back to the ship in a rowboat with the treasure, Silver makes a final stand and kicks everyone out of the boat except Jim. He orders Jim to steer him out of the cove but instead Jim beaches the boat and refuses to help the pirate. Silver threatens to shoot Jim, but ultimately can’t bring himself to do it. Feeling sorry for the pirate, Jim helps Silver shove off out to sea with the treasure.
Thoughts Before Watching
Megan: I remember I had to read the original book Treasure Island as a summer reading assignment back in grade school. I also remember hating the book, but I think that was partly because of the old-timey writing style, and partly because I waited until the last possible week of summer vacation to even start reading it. I’m pretty familiar with this story, but I think that is thanks more to the films Muppet Treasure Island and Treasure Planet than that summer reading assignment. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen this 1950s film of Treasure Island before, so I’m curious to see how they adapt the story.
Kevin: My experience with this story is very mixed. I’ve never read the book, but my dad had a copy of it in our office at home. I’ve also never seen this version. I saw Muppet Treasure Island some years ago and I don’t recall liking it much (which is odd since I’ve enjoyed most of the Muppet films—I think I need to rewatch that one eventually). Lastly, I‘ve watched Treasure Planet a couple times but only really enjoyed it on the most recent watch. So, let’s just see what’s in store here, shall we?
Thoughts After Watching
Prediction: This film won’t have any women in it.
Megan: Seconds after the opening credits appeared on screen I turned to Kevin and said “I’m making a prediction: this film won’t have any women in it.” Granted this was a pretty educated prediction—the opening credits don’t list a single woman among the actors, and from what I remember of the story Jim Hawkins’s mother is the only female character. The prediction unfortunately turned out to be true. While there is mention of Mrs. Hawkins and that she owns the tavern, she never appears on screen. She’s conveniently in town running errands when the first pirates arrive at the tavern, and while we assume Jim got permission from his mother to go off on a seafaring journey, we never see the conversation take place. Even in the scenes with people in the background we only ever see men. Thus this film clearly fails the Bechdel test—it never stood a chance based on the casting decisions.
Celebrities, especially young ones, don’t always have happy endings.
Kevin: This is, I think, the second film we’ve seen in the challenge that includes Bobby Driscoll (Jim Hawkins). I’m not talking about his role in the film here; instead, I wanted to briefly talk about his life. Driscoll also provided the voice of Peter Pan in the animated film, but his actual life outside of filmmaking was tragic. In his day, Driscoll was perceived by many as a famous child actor “belonging” to the Disney studio. When he became a teenager, an onslaught of acne and the pangs of puberty resulted in Disney shifting Driscoll from likable roles to more antagonistic ones. Eventually, he was let go by the studio as he was no longer considered “marketable.” He struggled to find acting work at other studios, turning to drugs and criminal activity. Driscoll died at a young age from a drug overdose, and was buried in an unmarked grave as coroners couldn’t positively identify him. His remains weren’t identified until his mother was searching for him, a year after he had passed, and his death wasn’t reported by media for several more years. Driscoll’s story is just one of all too many, a story where young people thrust into the celebrity spotlight sometimes have difficult lives later on. This obviously isn’t the case for everyone, but it happens often enough. I think part of this problem is the attitude that talent is only as good as the money it brings. Don’t get me wrong, Driscoll is responsible for his own choices in his later life, which he even acknowledged. But one may wonder if things could’ve turned out differently if he hadn’t experienced such a fall simply because he got older.
The storytelling lacks luster.
Megan: Sorry, Kevin, but I’m calling it out now—Kevin fell asleep before the end of this movie. In his defense, the later half of the second act and all of the third act really drag in this movie. I think part of this is the creators’ reliance on the source material. Whenever you try to adapt a novel to the screen you have to really pick and choose the essential moments to include, and I think this film may have suffered from trying to include as much as possible from the book without really giving a new take on the source material. For example, Muppet Treasure Island adds in songs (“Cabin Fever” is still my favorite), humor, and a rambunctious cast of male and female characters to keep you interested the whole way through. Meanwhile, Treasure Planet gives the story a whole new take with a completely new setting (outer space) and a more diverse cast of male and female characters, even gender swapping some of the original characters and (in my humble opinion) improving their character development. For today’s audiences who are more familiar with modern retellings of this tale, it can be a bit of a slog to watch this older adaptation.
Kevin: Huh? What do you mean the movie is over? What did I miss?
Truthfully I was really just tired last night! Anyway, once I woke up I wondered if I had missed anything. And, to be honest, I don’t think I did. I’m familiar enough with the story thanks to Treasure Planet even with its own retelling that I understood where we were in the story. Even though I haven’t read the book, this movie does very much feel like it’s just showing the book on screen instead of adding something new to it. I’ve also just never been a huge fan of the live-action movies made during these earlier decades. Those movies have a style; they’re kind of straight forward, simple shots. I know the era is occasionally called the Golden Age of Hollywood, and although I’ve said a few times already that I could be biased, I think I’m just so far removed from these decades that their style simply doesn’t appeal to me.
These fight scenes don’t age well.
Megan: Comparing the fight sequences of Treasure Island to more recent pirate films like Pirates of the Caribbean really shows the former film’s age. Treasure Island was released in 1950, and by most counts the fight scene choreography is akin to what you might expect from a kids’ stage production. I mean the prop swords fall on bare shoulders and literally paint on blood wounds. To today’s audiences, it’s totally obvious! Sure, at the time they didn’t have the technology to create skeleton soldiers like we see in Pirates of the Caribbean, but even the most low-budget fight scenes in today’s films and TV shows are far more believable.
Kevin: Is it fair to compare modern fight scenes with those from decades past? Nope, but we’re doing it anyway. There’s one shot where Jim is stabbed by a pirate and his only reaction is to…sort of grimace? Grit his teeth? Look a little uncomfortable? There’s nothing beyond that. Come to think of it, did the knife even have blood on it? I don’t remember, but even if it did the scene still falls flat.
What’s really missing here is heart.
Kevin: The characters seemed like they were fighting just to fight and without clear motivations. I’m just going to use Star Wars as an example: one could argue that the fights in the original trilogy were boring compared to what came later, but for me the importance of those original fights is the emotional states of the characters. This is lacking in the fight sequences in Treasure Island. I could have bought the action if there was some emotional resonance there. See, this is why I fell asleep! Please don’t judge me!
Megan: It’s true—the emotional hook could be so much stronger. I mean they have the setup for an emotional gut punch with Jim befriending Silver and then discovering that Silver has been lying the entire time. However, from the very beginning it’s hard to believe that Jim is truly friends with Silver or that he truly idolizes him, and when Jim discovers that Silver is plotting a mutiny he doesn’t really have much of an emotional reaction to it. I think that’s also why the final scene where Silver can’t bring himself to shoot Jim and Jim helps Silver escape doesn’t quite have the same emotional impact it should. We didn’t fully believe their friendship earlier, and so now it’s hard to believe they might still hold some friendship toward each other.
The visuals are still beautiful after all this time.
Kevin: So if you get this far in our review, you’ll see that we’re not fans of this film. It was well received when it was first released, but it just doesn’t work for us. However, there is one thing about Treasure Island that is wonderful, and it’s the visuals. The matte paintings that serve as backdrops throughout the movie do look a little dated and fake at times, but the technical work is beautiful. What comes to my mind most specifically is some of the opening shots; there’s a sunset going on in one of the paintings and the colors are vibrant enough to stand out against the live shots, which are also done very well. For being the studio’s first full length live action feature, they went all out on the look of the film.
Verdict
Megan: 2
Kevin: 2 (yes, even though I fell asleep).
Final score: 2
P.S., Any Arrow fans out there?
After five years on a hellish island…
This is what men look like…