I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I've read the book in my childhood. This movie is way too far from the real story. I could not just predict what is going to be next, but also the race of the actors. Common, it was England, which was white 300 years ago as well low-class people such as pirates would never be in a racially-mixed team. Looked very weird, especially that the pirate's chef, such as Captain Silver was chosen to be black. No offense, but it's far away from the reality and why not just to be honest and keep the story real? Looks like movie creators were afraid in the "racist" accusations. There were too many other distortions, which made me sick and I even stopped watching.

(Did you like that clever gag in the title?)I read the book yonks ago and I loved it and this isn't the book. Nothing close to it. But I don't care about that - I just want to see a ripping adventure about piracy... but this isn't that either!My God, how to deaden a story over three torturous hours! This is about as mindless and ridiculous as TV can get.The usual TV monkeys are wheeled out once again to perform in this ludicrous farce as proper actors have agents who tell them to avoid this bilge! The Trevor Eve academy of acting is in full swing... lots of angry shouting, pointless posturing, etc. The story seems to be buried amongst the props because for the life of me I couldn't make one out, but here goes... A young impressionable and slightly retarded man is seduced into the world of piracy on the high seas by a psychotic, drug taking, alcoholic black pirate and mum seems OK with it!A boat and lots of people growling 'Arrrrr!' and you have a TV program! The problem is the characters are as dull as the murky briny and there's no sense of a narrative to tell you why they are there... other than to go 'Arrrrr!' a lot!As the torture wears on the cast do unbelievably stupid things. I won't spoil this for you in case the MST3K crew wants to adopt this wreck and riff on it.This garbage should be thrown overboard and the people behind it keelhauled... slowly!

I enjoy Izzard's comedy quite a bit, but I was surprised at the casting of him in this role. In a more traditional adaptation, he might not have fit, but this is a film that takes several liberties with the classic story, one of the biggest being the expansion of Silver's back story. Part of the continuing appeal of Silver is his shifting status between villain and anti hero. Between murderer and mentor. The film further blurs the lines by presenting much of it from his perspective. This, combined with a somewhat less savory interpretation of several of the protagonists creates an even stronger moral dilemma as Jim is forced to choose sides between what he has been brought up to believe is right, and what his present experiences have impressed upon him.The film takes fairly significant liberties to be sure, but welcome ones in my opinion. If this were the only film adaptation of the book, I'd hope for something more true to form. But the fact is that this book has been remade dozens of times, so it loses nothing by changing things up a bit in this particular adaptation. If you prefer the classic interpretation, there are any number of other films that will satisfy you. Personally, when a story is as well known as this, I'd rather the filmmakers try something different instead of retelling the exact same version for the hundredth time.I'm a little annoyed that several of the other reviews here apparently didn't bother to finish watching the entire thing. I can appreciate if you didn't care for this particular version, but reviewing a movie you've only watched half of seems ridiculous to me. Moreover, many of them were greatly misleading as a result. Livesy's supposed cowardice for example is merely a facet to a larger character arc that I found greatly fleshed what is often portrayed as a rather boring background character. If you want the classics, stick with Robert Newton. If you want a comedy, try the Muppet version. If you want a slightly darker, morally grey twist on a well known story, give this a shot.

The acting was very decent and the cinematography was quite good for a made for TV movie. The biggest problem was how the movie is very dark and how it completely changes a few critical characters from the book. Livesey comes of as a bumbling,incompetent person and trelawney is just a hateful character. Ben gunn was very annoying and probably the only character that looks like you would imagine from the book. The captain's character was very well played as well. I wish I could undo watching this movie- it just spoiled the classic for me. For the life of me I cannot understand why the changes were made. It would have been an excellent movie if they stuck to the book. Save your money and avoid this movie.