A modern retelling of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale that portrays our cast "IN SPACE".The action and atmosphere are excellent, and the father-son bond that builds between Jim and Long John Silver is another highlight of the film amid is a great example of "show, don't tell".The only things that I'm not a huge fan of are Morph and B.E.N. Both characters can be very annoying at times, especially B.E.N. (no offense Martin Short...)Overall, it's a fantastic adaptation with a few errors here and there.

Treasure Planet (2002) was one of those turn of the century hand drawn Disney movies that were released just after the computer animated boom. Along with Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) and Brother Bear (2003), Treasure Planet was one of the nails in the coffin of traditional animation due to its poor box-office returns. Now does that mean that the movie is bad? No, but its not great either.The story begins with young Jim Hawkins (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) as a boy reading the legend of Captain Flint and his infamous band of pirates. Years later the boy turns into a rebellious young trouble maker desperate for adventure. How can you tell he's rebellious? He has a rat tail in the future! After coming across a map to the legendary treasure planet, he and a family friend commission a ship from Captain Amelia (Emma Thompson) and her first mate Mr. Arrow (Roscoe Lee Browne). Things however aren't what they seem aboard the ship as the crew led by John Silver (Brian Murray) are actually pirates in hiding.Like a massive man-o-war in a modern harbor, the film is impressive to look at but listless and mostly for show. The visuals are the only thing that gets the star treatment while the script itself is lacking anything that isn't dated Disney fair or clunky exposition. There also seems to be a problem with general writing mechanics. When Jim tells his mother that he wants to go on his grand adventure she doesn't seem that adamantly against it. When the Dr. Doppler character (David Hyde Pierce) seems distracted by Captain Amelia we get nothing to show a growing romantic relationship. When the film should emotionally invest in the characters of Jim and Silver, we instead get montage. In other words this movie has a hard time getting from point A to point B.Still It's not like Treasure Planet was a failure of epic proportions. Say what you will about Disney, if this is the worst it can get than I'm actually impressed.

Disney has always been at its best when adapting existing stories and characters. So in that regard this film was almost like a match made in heaven. Robert Louis Stevenson's classic adventure novel is full of pirates, excitement, exotic locations, humongous characters and personalities. Everything that Disney does so well.And for the most part they succeed here as well. The story from the novel is adapted without any major hitches and the characters are very likable. Brian Murray as Long John Silver is terrific in his role and is easily the character you want to see the most. Emma Thompson and Roscoe Lee Browne are a lot of fun as the ship's captain and her impeccably mannered first mate. Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jim Hawkins is a bit of a hit and miss for me, but not by much. I think they were going for a younger Aladdin, but overshot the "I'm a rebel" factor.The film also looks amazing. All the ships and most of the backgrounds are done with CGI, but they went with such stylistic designs, which are not even supposed to look realistic, that they have aged barely at all. The character designs are also inventive, especially Silver's new and improved cyborg arm and leg. The score is not bad, though perhaps a touch too modern and pop for it to be truly classic.Where the film does stumble slightly is the story. Nothing major is changed, and the original is one of the best ever written, but the film suffers from the same problem Atlantis: The Lost Empire did. Namely that there are so many events to cover that the normal Disney running time simply does not cut it. This needed to be about half an hour longer for it to flow properly. Now more than one scene feels rushed and they fail to capture the emotions and the themes behind the buccaneering and hunting for lost gold.It's a fun film and definitely worth checking out if you're a fan of Disney or adventures in general. It doesn't quite have that edge of Renaissance films, but it's still definitely one of the better animated films of this millennium.

Disney's 43st full-length animated feature film is a story about the classic story of Treasure Island, but with the backdrop set in outer space.This movie brings back The Little Mermaid directors Ron Clements and John Musker, who gave us quite an adventurous movie full of sci-fi action and drama. While I thought the reason behind the co-habiting of humans beings and space aliens should be explained more, the characters somehow worked in the film. The animation wasn't as colorful or vibrant as in earlier animated pieces in the Disney canon, but it is serviceable. The visual effects, particularly for the action and adventures scenes, were quite mesmerizing.The plot, though, does take a long while to gain any steam and nothing really captures your interest until the treasure hunt kicks into high gear toward the middle of the movie. The characters also take quite a long while to develop, but the concept of paving your own path in life, as John Silver suggests Jim Hawkins do, and Jim wanting to find the treasure to help his mother rebuild her business are good strong points that drive the movie.The movie doesn't stick out as iconic or captivating as earlier Disney movies do like those from the Walt Era and the Renaissance Era, but it's still not too bad to watch at least once.Grade C