The Great Movie Review: Treasure Planet

"Treasure Planet" is one of those movies that tends to not get a fair shake, but I've always thought it was an extremely well-made Disney film that deserves a little bit more credit.

"Treasure Planet" lifts the traditional plot and characters from the book "Treasure Island" and inserts them into a futuristic world, where ships are traversing the universe, not the ocean. But the creators didn't want it to turn into just another metal/steam/computers/dark spaceships type of a sci-fi movie (thankfully!), so they really went a long way to create a different kind of space movie than audiences are used to seeing. For example, "Sound designer Dane Davis mentioned that he and his team "scoured hobby shops and junk stores for antique windup toys and old spinning mechanisms" in order to create the sound effects for John Silver to "avoid sounding slick or sci-fi"."

The voice cast includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emma Thompson (two weeks of Emma in a row! Score!), Martin Short, and David Hyde Pierce, all giving fun and inspiring performances. It helps that they are working from an incredibly witty, clever, and moving script.

Another brilliant aspect of the film is the gorgeous animation, particularly the starry backgrounds and other-worldly visuals. I think Disney really did some fantastic work on the artwork of this film, as only they can do. There's a scene in Wall-E where the title character runs his "hand" through some... stardust, I don't know- that always reminded me of Jim Hawkins flying through similar space... sparkles. Both iterations of the astrological glitter are beautiful.

Speaking of Jim, I just love his character, and all I want to do is give that kid a hug. I think there is something so Ryan Atwood about him, the way he is so lonely and brooding but also compassionate and good-natured. I want to take them both home with me and take care of them.

Now I'm not the biggest fan of written-especially-for-the-movie songs, and heaven knows I'm no GooGoo Dolls fan, but I've never been able to resist the song they wrote that appears in the film. Here's the song as it was included in the movie, because the music video for it is absolutely awful. Just trust me.

I think everyone really enjoyed it, once they gave it a chance. Sometimes it's nice to take a break from the more intense films and mix it up with a little Disney! So if you enjoy good story-telling, lush visuals, and movies based (loosely) on books, which incidentally is our next theme, I'd recommend you check this one out!