Memorable, crazy movie

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Jack Palance's last movie appearance finds him in the lead role of Long John Silver in this well-produced account of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel directed by award-winning TV writer/director Peter Rowe. The rest of the players are able enough, although it could be complained that Rowe's compositions are directed more to the demands of small screen TV rather than big screen cinemas. Nevertheless, Rowe makes impressive use of a real, full-sized sailing vessel, and there is plenty of action for young and old. The cast is credible and even more importantly, the script follows the novel closely and will not disappoint RLS's legion of fans. Jack Palance makes a superb villain and his son, Cody Palance, can be glimpsed in a full-screen close-up as Blind Pew. Available on an excellent New Concorde DVD.

That the story is such a classic and that it had Jack Palance in it were two reasons enough to give this much-maligned adaptation a try. Unfortunately, this adaptation of Treasure Island just doesn't work at all and by far the worst version, to me the only really bad one as well. It's a disaster as an adaptation, and judging it on its own terms(which this reviewer considers a fairer approach and always tries to use it) there's little to praise it either. The locations are beautiful indeed if not always tropical enough, the Hispagnola is fantastically rendered and the adaptation is well shot, the start is quite strong and there are a few good performances with Kevin Zegers' appealing Jim Hawkins, Walter Sparrow's humorous Ben Gunn and Patrick Bergin's gusty Billy Bones. Jack Palance is the big name here, he certainly tries his best as Silver and looks the part in a role that on paper he was perfect for but he deserved much better scripting and direction than what he got. Because what we got was a waste of a great actor's talents, there are numerous points where Palance is very charismatic and engaging but when the scripting is particularly poor there is the sense that Palance knew it was poor and gives up. The rest of the acting shows little enthusiasm either, in fact most of the cast go through the motions. Characterisation is incredibly weak here and not really in the bland sort of way but in the grossly distorted sort of way, where we have the least frightening Blind Pew imaginable and interesting characters like Squire Trelawney now one-sided caricatures, and the less said about the good guys now bad thing the better. What was really disappointing was the lack of development in Silver and Jim's relationship, crucial to the story and very interesting and potentially poignant but hardly seen. And you know something's wrong when you can't really tell whether Silver is good or bad, no other adaptation of Treasure Island has had that problem. But other than the bizarre treatment of the story and characters the main problem with this Treasure Island adaptation was how lazy it felt. The script is one corny muddle with some parts only feeling like padding which only succeeds in slowing down the pacing, and the story is plodding and completely lacking in adventurous spark, intensity and mystery that would have been there if just a little if the stockade assault had not been left out. When it comes to the changes, changes to a story is not a problem but it can be if the changes are basically useless and drag the adaptation down and that was exactly the case with this Treasure Island. It also depends on the nature of the changes and here it just felt bizarre in a way that you don't want to witness again. The adaptation is hurt even further by too much focus on Black Dog, a secondary character originally and it feels like it, an incredibly rushed and anti-climatic final battle and a very tacked-on and toe-curlingly cheesy ending that leaves a sour taste in the mouth. All in all, lazy and uncomfortably weird, a very bad version(even on its own terms) and not worth bothering with unless you are a fan of Palance or one dead-set on seeing every Treasure Island adaptation available. 3/10 Bethany Cox

Don't watch this version if you loved the classic. Has virtually nothing to do with the original story. The heroes are turned into villains and killed off, along with most if not all of the original dialog. If only they had done this same with this film in pre-production. Having read the book recently, I've gone back and watched the original film and the Disney remake. I thought this might be fun for comparison. Fun is not quite the word. Jack Palance is about as good a substitute for Long John Silver as the Isle Of Mann is for a tropical island with a few hot house plants stuck in the background. What is going on in Canada? I'd say there were some strange films coming from there lately, but this is ten years old and strange doesn't begin to describe it. More like bizarre! And here is the Spoiler of Spoilers in a pre-spoiled mess. Instead of Jim Hawkins sailing back to England with the good guys and the treasure, they kill the bad guys and good guys, and he runs off to Panama with it with Long John and Ben Gunn. Wait? What? That's right. And Long John doesn't even know the names of the sails even though he's supposed to be a sailor. Huh? What? The bad guys are bad. The good guys are bad. Everyone dies. And the last two members of Flint's crew don't know anything about sailing.

This version of Treasure Island is poor for trying to hard to be original with an existing story. It's one thing to have new scenes at the beginning that show Captain Flint supervising the burial of his treasure, and Billy Bones inflicting Pew and Long John with their disfigurements. But it hurts the flow of the story that so much screen time is given to Black Dog who in the original story was a far more incidental character, and less vicious. Plus, his chase of Jim goes against the pirates' desire to keep their plot secret. It's also bothersome that this version of Long John is played out rather weakly, including how meekly he gave up leadership of the pirates to George Merry and how difficult he is to even understand in some scenes, how morally questionable the doctor, squire, and captain are in this version, how Jim and the doctor are more concerned with the map than in Mrs. Hawkins' death, how Jim joins the pirates, and how the whole ending is changed. In that, it doesn't make sense that only three people can sail the ship at the end, and that Long John doesn't resent Jim and Ben for not revealing earlier the locations of the ship and the treasure which would have avoided the battle and some of the deaths.