Father Geek here with a special report from one of our long lost African Editor DR. SOTHA's out-patients... way way out there... one with the strangely curiously bent handle of "Crowbar Jones". Now knowing SOTHA the way I do, having served for several years as his direct superior here at Aint It Cool News, and judging from a few slips of the tongue on "Crowbar's" behalf, I'd have to say "Crowbar" was probably an escapee from one of the good DOCTOR's more experi-mental labs, one of his failed experiments perhaps, soooooooo bare that in mind as you read "Crowbar's" report below... Strange he doesn't even mention the astonishing, white latex cad, Head Nurse Hollis... curiouser and curiouser...Hmmmmmmm...
Oh yeah... and beware of Spoilers...
In deepest darkest Africa, we rarely get to taste of the nectar of real civilization, except when ol' DR SOTHA comes a-visiting on his rounds. And recently he seems to have been busy on the other side of the jungle, so my part of the bushveld's been feeling a bit neglected. So imagine our delight when Long John Silver & Jim Hawkins came to visit on their way to a worldwide release of Treasure Planet!
Needless to say the film's great. Spectacularly rollicking even. Darn good yarn. I've written about it too -->
Strange he doesn't even mention the astonishing, white latex cad, Head Nurse Hollis... curiouser and curiouser...Hmmmmmmm...
Oh yeah... and beware of Spoilers...
In deepest darkest Africa, we rarely get to taste of the nectar of real civilization, except when ol' DR SOTHA comes a-visiting on his rounds. And recently he seems to have been busy on the other side of the jungle, so my part of the bushveld's been feeling a bit neglected. So imagine our delight when Long John Silver & Jim Hawkins came to visit on their way to a worldwide release of Treasure Planet!
Needless to say the film's great. Spectacularly rollicking even. Darn good yarn. I've written about it too -->
In deepest darkest Africa, we rarely get to taste of the nectar of real civilization, except when ol' DR SOTHA comes a-visiting on his rounds. And recently he seems to have been busy on the other side of the jungle, so my part of the bushveld's been feeling a bit neglected. So imagine our delight when Long John Silver & Jim Hawkins came to visit on their way to a worldwide release of Treasure Planet!
Needless to say the film's great. Spectacularly rollicking even. Darn good yarn. I've written about it too -->
There are two types of people in this mixed up world: those who love Disney films, and those who despise them. For all my gruff demeanour, I belong to the former demographic.
Worse still, I belong to that select, elite group of adults who actually like all the song and dance routines found in Walt's cartoons - something that can be blamed perhaps on my being entrenched at the Mother Grundy school of Vaudeville during my most formative years.
So while everybody was rejoicing that Disney was releasing a song-free version of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, I was alone in my regret... that is, until I saw the trailer, and realised that this film was SET IN OUTER SPACE! You see, as I would tread old Mother Grundy's boards, (sweeping 'em usually, occasionally mopping), I would dream of escaping to the far reaches of the galaxy, hanging out with Luke Skywalker and Buck Rogers and maybe rescuing a princess or two. Thus began a lifetime of geekery, tragically tempered by a fascination with burlesque. So, when you mix The Pirates of Penzance with Star Wars, you've got me hooked no matter that there's neither song nor dance.
Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest
Treasure Planet is about a young angst-ridden scallywag called Jim Hawkins, who causes his loving innkeeper of a mother no end of grief by getting busted by the cops for racing his solar surfer in inappropriate places at inappropriate speeds. So imagine her relief when her inn burns down and young Jim decides to go off on an adventure to find the loot of a thousand worlds!
He's been entrusted the map to the hiding spot of the legendary and fearsome Captain Flint (who, in flashbacks and later rotting corpse shots, has six eyes!) by a dying tortoise called Billy Bones, who in between his final gasps warns Jim to "beware... *hack, cough*... the cyborg..." (in the original book it was "beware .. *hack, cough*...the one-legged man...").
So he and the doddery Dr Doppler (Frasier's David Hyde Pierce), who used to hang out at the inn until it came under the influence of arson, hire a big space-galleon to go after the loot. Trimly run by the feline Captain Amelia (Emma Thompson on speed), the ship is crewed by a no good bunch of shifty dodgers who look suspiciously like pirates. And, blow me down and shiver me timbers if the cook isn't a gumby old cyborg by the name of John Silver (fantastically voiced by Brian Murray).
There's adventure. There's skullduggery. There's chivalry. There's betrayal. There's treasure. There's a happy ending. Tell you what, there's a rollicking movie in it too.
Yar, ya scurvy lubbers!
Treasure Planet hurtles from opening sequence to Heinz Winkler's credit-rolling songfulness like an embarrased cat out of a hot tin hell. It never lets up (for any ariatic singing moments, for example), and the film is over before you know it, leaving you wishing there was more.
Admittedly, there's the standard dollop of Disney sentiment - as well as the perennial Disney trademark: the "amusing" sidekick. Fortunately, in the case of the sidekicks (two of 'em) - one of them is fairly cute and never says a word, and the other - a robot voiced by the unfortunate Martin Short - doesn't have that much screen time.
In the matter of the Disney sentiment, however, I was intrigued by the angle they took. The cardinal subtext, which forms what our dear William Goldman would call "the spine" of the film, is Jim's paternal abandonment issues.
Unlike Mr Stevenson's novel, Jim's father doesn't die at the beginning of the story. He leaves the boy and his mother, and never returns. I think Disney really took a risk there... compared to its usual level of schmaltz, the subsequent substitution of Long John for a father figure, the reluctant trust, the betrayal, the maturing of a troubled boy into a bold young man... it all becomes rather poignant - bittersweet even - and never too sentimental.
Pieces of Eight
Earlier, I pretty much trumpeted the fact that there weren't any songs. I lied. There is one, and it's sung by the Goo Goo Doll's Johnny Rzeznik. But it wasn't a song and dance routine - it was a song and space-blitz! And it's more like a montage than a routine, plus it's really cool, so we'll gloss riiight over that and move swiftly on to the end credits, which has also got a song, sung in the South African release of Treasure Island by our very own pop Idol, Heinz Winckler.
Yaaaay!
Which brings us to nutshell time: A very good film, Disney's best in a while (although Lilo & Stitch was really good too). The voice talent is especially superb (c'mon, David Hyde Pierce and Emma Thompson in a verbal duel?), and the integrity of the story - a classic for very good reason - is preserved in this new medium. Well done Disney, let's have another.
