The teaser poster for TREASURE PLANET
© Disney
Reviewed Format: Wide Theatrical Release
Rated: PG
Voices: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brian Murray, David Hyde Pierce, Emma Thompson
Writers: Ron Clements & John Musker & Rob Edwards, animation story by Ron Clements & John Musker and Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, based on the novel TREASURE ISLAND by Robert Louis Stevenson
Directors: John Musker & Ron Clements
Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures
TREASURE PLANET
By: Abbie BernsteinDate: Monday, December 02, 2002
TREASURE PLANET is a perfectly serviceable and diverting yet uninspired animated rendition of TREASURE ISLAND that is and is not set in outer space. On the one hand, ships fly the solar seas in search of astral bodies rather than landmasses, and on the other hand, they are actual ships with sails and open decks, which means that all of the characters can somehow breathe in the depths of space. Oh well, nobody claims that even the human-looking ones are really human, and most of both the central figures and the background crowds are alien and/or mechanized, which is largely what gives this version what distinctiveness it has.
Anybody familiar with Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel will feel at home with the broad strokes of the plot. Young Jim Hawkins (voiced by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) lives fatherless with his innkeeper mother (voiced by Laurie Metcalf). An old pirate (voiced briefly by Patrick McGoohan) arrives, almost immediately drops dead and Jim finds himself in possession of a treasure map. This time out, it's canine-ish family friend Dr. Doppler (voiced by David Hyde Pierce) who offers to take Jim under his, well, paw as they hire a ship to search for the destination suggested by the map, a planet where the dread Captain Flint is said to have hidden all his loot. The feline Captain Amelia (voiced by Emma Thompson) is on the up and up, but the crew looks scurvy. Cook Long John Silver (voiced by Brian Murray) is good at playing father figure to the susceptible Jim, but there's more to this old sea cyborg than meets the eye...
The script Brian Murray and Joseph Gordon-Levitt voice John Silver and Jim Hawkins in TREASURE PLANET. © 2002 Walt Disney Pictures
However, there's a kind of rote quality to much of what happens, and not merely because most viewers will have encountered some previous edition of TREASURE ISLAND at some point in the past. Silver is a charming sociopath, Jim learns to be a man (the script is so timid that it doesn't even let him really mess up he thinks that he did, but we know he didn't), the treasure is found and a great escape is made, but there's not a lot of strategizing. The environments are appealing and inventive without usually inspiring either awe or curiosity we enjoy looking at them while they're onscreen but don't contemplate them afterward. The mixture of traditional animation and CGI works more harmoniously here than it has in some earlier films as the process becomes more widely used, the rough edges seem to be smoothing out. Silver's menace is toned down somewhat here it's left to a giant spider type (voiced by Michael Wincott) to provide the real focal point of evil.
There's nothing really wrong with TREASURE PLANET it is a reasonable adaptation rendered relatively safe for young viewers (one sympathetic character does die about one-third of the way through) and watchable though not memorable for grown-ups in an easy to please frame of mind.
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