Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

(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 have read some other reviews of the film just to get a sense of how other viewers felt about this movie and beyond that, what they make out of the differences between the book and this movie. Some viewers were disappointed. I take it, they are truest to the book. I understand a movie cannot be made only to satisfy the fans of this great creation of R.L. Stevenson. There are many people who have not yet read the book nor will they ever read it. The changing of the personalities of some characters in the movie might they find very enjoyable.I for one, although all the time during the movie surprised by the appearance and conduct of Squire Trelawney, I accepted it towards the end of the movie and found it rather enjoyable, as a twist of tale. The same I felt about the character of Doctor Livesey.Apart from that, I liked the movie very much for the atmosphere, I thought it was just about the same as in the book. I have read the book several times, but I'd never re-read it for the sake of the adventure ( if I want that i re-read The Count of Monte-Cristo ) but for the sake of that wonderful described atmosphere of high-seas and the long gone era of the pirates. Back to this production, last but not list: I loved the scene in which the ship leaves port in Bristol and the whole crew starts to sing. I compare it to the first singing scene in " Oh Brother, Where Art Thou" as the convicts are smashing rocks and singing or to the first scene in " The Blues Brothers 2000" as they present the jail before the character of Dan Aykroyd leaves it. I thought it gives a lovely flavor to the whole atmosphere.I will watch this movie a second time! Even if only for this already mentioned singing scene if not for the dialog between Jim and Israel Hands, I quote: "You gotta be strong, in a religious way...or have no thought for God at all"Loved it!

First, I have to say good on Eddie Izzard for not trying to copy John Newton's Silver. On the other hand, it would have been staggeringly foolish to try that *again* in this day and age. No, Izzard delivers a new interpretation of Silver and does rather a good job of it.In many trivial ways, this production is more faithful to Stevenson's classic than the as of yet undefeated champion of dramatic productions: the Disney 1950 film. (More running time, I guess) In some important ways it's even more faithful, and even adds a few interesting ingredients. We get to meet Capt. Flint (both of them). We also get the meet the "woman of colour" that Stevenson had married to Silver--something Disney didn't acknowledge. Oh, and speaking of the race card, it was played with the likes of Billy Bones and Mr. Arrow (black as a bucc'neer's colours in bilge water, they is!) I guess it does add an important bit of realism, now present in a lot of recent 18c nautically-themed productions.But in some serious ways it diverges from the the book. I can't say whether or not it was a mistake to make Trelawney a partial crook and "Bible-reading hypocrite". (It was definitely a mistake to have a gentleman using "who" in the objective) It certainly was important to the ending. Oh yeah, that ENDING!!The ending loses it 2 stars easily (though as a TI purist, it was a challenge not taking off 4). It's perfectly understandable that they not use the book's ending, Disney didn't even do that, but this unique ending takes the whole story off course and changes the genre from pure adventure to something of a morality tale. In making a miniseries, there was the opportunity to rehabilitate the Treasure Island myth, as was done in 2000 with Frank Herbert's Dune. Unfortunately, what we have is probably the least Stevensian Treasure Island production to date. Sorry.

I was looking forward to this! The great cast (Glenister, Penry-Jones, Mays, Izzard) should have guaranteed a great movie. Well, it didn't!Firstly, what about the historical inaccuracies? Granted, they probably couldn't find a seaworthy ship from the proper era, but what about the props? Can't be to hard to find guns from that era instead of rummaging through Sharpe's prop-box. As well, what about the non-Europeans? Granted, there was the odd black fellow in piracy, but surely not on a merchant ship and definitely not as first mate! And the guys from Asia? Chinese, Malayan, Melanesian? How did they find there way to Bristol? And back to the ship: It seems that ever since Pirates of the Caribbean writers seem to think that ships requiring a crew from at least 50 (in this movie) or 200 (PotC) can just as well be sailed by one or two fellows. And then the characters: Why, why in god's name, change them all? They have nothing to do with the novel but are just modern clichés slapped on the original characters. The rich landowner has, of course, to be a greedy, immoral bastard, because rich people are like that! The doctor is a drunkard and a coward, and then suddenly changes his character 180° degrees, so that the audience can see, that every man can change for the better when he needs to.Long John is just a poor, misunderstood philosopher who wants nothing more than to live a life without worries, married to his sweetheart whom he saved from prostitution. Nevermind the scores of people he killed.Even the baddest bad-ass in this movie, Israel Hands, is really only a victim, as he was pressed into service as a boy and thus can't really be held responsible for his actions.Oh, nearly forgot: Which idiot built that stronghold five feet from the sea? The pirates really only had to bring their ship in just a little bit closer and a broadside would have blown that place to kingdom come and saved us from suffering through this sorry efforts ending.=== SPOILERS FROM HERE ===Well, the ending. After killing and maiming, being killed and being maimed, young Jim suddenly decides to throw the whole goddamn treasure overboard, not thinking about the debt his mother has or that they both will probably end up in the poor house or as slaves in the colonies. And the rest actually helped him. The helmsman will stay a helmsman for the rest of his life, the poor doctor won't get to marry Jim's mom and the skipper won't be able to pay the rent on his house as he doesn't get paid for that journey.At least, that's what would happen IRL, though this movie seems to be teaching us, that throwing money away is a good thing, because you'll get money from somewhere else anyway. Sounds to be inspired by the Euro crisis.Oh yes, and after they dropped the treasure into the waves, the captain said "let's sail to Jamaica and crew up". Someone should have spoken up and said: "Uhm, skipper, we just threw all our gold overboard. Gonna be hard finding hands of we can't pay 'em! Arr!"