Highly Overrated But Still Good

As Good As It Gets

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Blistering performances.

Solid but uninspired movie which could have been profitably edited down by around 45 minutes. I can't remember the original plot too well anymore, but I believe that this production does seem to reflect some modern liberal political sensibilities, which likely weren't there originally--in and of itself, this is a legitimately different twist to put on things, except that it throws a few forced clunkers into the script. The performances by Izzard as a subdued Silver and Wood as Jim are pretty strong, but, Sutherland, as with all of his later movies, is just cashing a paycheck and does not at all seem invested in, or appropriate to, the role. Also, as a long-time small boat sailor, it kind of drove me nuts that they never raised more sail than they did--my guess is that this is not historically accurate, but instead reflected the limited budget of the movie, meaning that they didn't want to shell out for the cost of additional sails for the ship. If the movie was going to be dragged out to three hours, I personally wanted a lot more exciting sailing action. The production values are not quite up to that of a theater quality film, but compare favorably to those of a top-notch TV production. A perfect movie to watch with children if one wants to avoid sex and extreme violence, but for a modern adult audience, as long as liberties were going to be taken, it could maybe have been a bit grittier. Still, I can't say that I feel that I have wasted three hours or anything like that, and I'm not really significantly disappointed in any way at all, except for the dearth of sailing action.

A reasonably interesting adaptation of the classic novel. Has the same basic plot as the novel but changes some of the characters' personalities, to varying degrees. Also grittier than the novel.Nice scenery, good action scenes, a decent degree of intrigue.On the negative side, there is a ho-humness to the proceedings. It is not overly engaging, and it sometimes does feel like it is going through the motions. The movie/series never really grabs you and drags you along with it.Performances are so-so. Eddie Izzard is fairly good as Long John Silver. Nobody else really stands out. Donald Sutherland has very little screen time.

Lots of surprises, don't think for one minute you know the outcome of any scene! Beautiful scenery, terrific acting by all. Lots of action and suspense. Even though at times the storyline lags a little it continues to pick up speed. I like great endings and this has a great ending! The scenery is beautiful. Review requires ten lines but no spoilers. The long John Silver actor surprised me. At first I thought he was Bruce Willis, but he's not. He looks very different in real life. It's not a movie for preteens. There are no cute puppies in the movie. You don't even have to keep reading while I complete the required ten lines. Why bother? Because I like the movie so much I wanted to make sure it got a well deserved good review.

Stevenson's Treasure Island was one of my favorite childhood books I used to read over and over again. Currently I can't remember its nuances - the plot of course I do - and I enjoyed the 2012 version. Background and costumes seems realistic and one can notice at once that it non-US movie - compared to Pirates of the Caribbean, for example.Izzard, Regbo, Sutherland and Wood are very good, the rest are just above average - or their characters are too "simple" to make some real shine out of them. On the other hand, it is good that no one really steals the show as Depp does when portraying Jack Sparrow. Fight scenes, collusions etc are also more "medieval" here.In short, highly recommended for those fond of historic adventures, and not seeking deep philosophy or reasoning.