Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

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

czarina-yelena I'm not sure where all the 10/10 and 9/10 reviews are coming from. This is a faithful adaptation of the book - so much so that you may as well be watching a dramatic reading, but that's the only good thing about it. Christian Bale's Jim Hawkins sounds perpetually bored, worst of all when he's narrating behind the scenes like he's reading aloud in class. The settings are Hollywood-sanitized and look like the backdrop of a play, none of the grit of the 2012 British version.A good adaptation has heart and adds something of its own to the story. This version does neither.

berberian00-276-69085 Here is a story I want to tell. Yesterday, a friend of mine vouched that nobody could write a better piracy story than Stevenson's "Treasure Island" - tale of buccaneers and buried gold originally published in 1883. Nope, I replied, I have something at hand that is equally intriguing as plot but remained obscure since publishing date in 1972. You can Google it as "Veseliiat rodzhŭr" but full text is not available online. Plus, it is not written by neither Rafael Sabatini nor Emilio Salgari, etc. that are pioneer storytellers of pirate stories. Author is Georgi Dobrentov and here is resume of plot which I will divide in several subplots for more appropriate understanding.Subplot, part I - It's year 1683, sometime after Restoration, Charles II is reigning. Sir John Richmond, a hereditary aristocrat, is getting married to Lady Jane Crossword. They are going on wedding trip to Le Havre, France. Their small brigantine is shipwrecked near the coast of Spain where they are attacked by Barbary Coast Pirates. The barbarian leader is called Ali ben Jusef ibn Saada or "GreenEye Beast", but this Muslim proves gentleman and didn't kill the crew while only Lady Jane elopes with him under name "Fatima".Subplot, part II - Sir John manages to sail back to Portsmouth, South England, on his dilapidated ship but is furious on his wife's adultery. Since he is very rich, he seek vengeance by means of becoming pirate himself. He gets charter by Charles II which gives him right to liberate criminals from Newgate Prison. He engages 300 person by ransom and boards them on three-masted heavy frigate, a vessel specially built for him. His new crew is detached of scoundrels but that's the only way retribution can come. Names here are Don Pedro Quickdeath, Linden Hallelujah, Richard Artichoke and Black Mike. The first three are faithful to their Master, but commander Black Mike is traitor who works for notorious Caribbean Pirate Dick Dack (aleas Richard Misfit).Subplot, part III - Under Jolly Roger flag, Sir John Bloodthirsty hunts for his adulterous wife. Meanwhile, Muslim pirate Ibn Saada is ambushed first by Dick Dack and then overwhelmed by Sir John and his crew. Before dying Ibn Saada tells him that Lady Jane "Fatima" had further eloped with a Dutchman. When the latter is caught, she is already with a French, then with a Swedish and finally with a Spanish noble that makes the protagonist crisscross the Seven Seas. At last, the Sea Hike has trailed to a desert island in the Caribbean where Pirate Dick Dack has lounged his settlement. The guy alludes to revenge against Sir John and his progenitors because the latter's grandfather had blinded his one eye while Richard Misfit had been working as alchemist at Court. So far, everyone gets ashore where looking for treasures the island explodes into the air and that's it.Epilogue - Some of the Pirates survive the Alchemist plot and live till old age (Pedro Quickdeath, Linden Hallelujah, Richard Artichoke). Lady Jane is seen last with her lover Black Mike and then with a common sailor. Sir John changes his secular name to Saint Augustine and lives till 80 years of age. Now, if you liked my story I will be perfectly glad. And don't forget "Treasure Island" (1990) with Charlton Heston. Watch it!

Rueiro Stevenson's novel is one of the greatest books for boys ever written, and I still have the edition my mother gave me thirty-two years ago and which I have read innumerable times since. Although I also did read and enjoyed Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Coral Island and other boys's adventure classics, none of them enchanted me as much as Treasure Island did. This must be the children's novel with the greatest number of film and TV adaptations in history. I have seen the 1934 version, which is very faithful to the book but it also is a typical product of its time in the cherubic cuteness of the kid and the gentleness of Silver. That is OK for an audience of little children, but the first time I saw it I was 16 and I found it a bit too corny, and the final scene between the kid and Beery is a tearjerker that has nothing at all to do with the novel. In the book Jim tells us that Silver simply sneaked off the ship unnoticed and was never again heard of. Then the 1950 Disney version is also too cute –it wouldn't be Disney's otherwise! - although it has a bit more action than its predecessor and the pirates are a lot rougher. The one thing for which this one is best remembered is the great Bobby Newton. He was the best John Silver of them all: a rascal with a twinkling eye who can be charming, amusing, a father-like figure, a solicitous crewman… and then the next minute he'll be a natural leader of cutthroats, a cold-blood murderer and a ruthless pirate son-of-a-bitch. But at the end you still root for him because Newton was able to give his character something that makes him an aristocrat among common criminals. As to the modest and mediocre 1972 version, apart from the presence of Orson Welles it doesn't have anything else to offer. And finally I want to mention a curious Soviet version from 1971 and which I saw in YouTube the other day, called "Ostrov Sokrovishch", and which although it is less than 90 minutes long it manages to be reasonably faithful to the novel. Now, coming back to this version discussed here... although in the book Jim never tells his age, we can estimate that he is between 12 and 15 years old. A very young boy would have never been left alone for hours in charge of the inn in those rough days of the highwayman, and an older and bigger teenager would have surely stood up too Blackdog and Blind Pew with less fear and he even might have landed them a good wallop or two. So, in this aspect Christian Bale makes the perfect Jim. And he is well accompanied by a remarkable pair of British baddie heavies: the hell-raiser Ollie Reed as Billy Bones -a role he was born to play- and the always excellent Christopher Lee as the infamous and disgusting Blind Pew. As to the rest of the cast, they are all good too, and the guy playing Israel Hands is a real bastard indeed. As for Charlton Heston (one of my favourite actors), unfortunately he is totally miscast here. I'm sorry, Chuck, but you were far too old for the role. Twenty years earlier it might have been fine, but not when you are sixty-seven. But then Chuck was the director's dad and obviously he came aboard cheap. Another aspect of this film that I find remarkable, for it was quite risqué at the time, is the frequent use of the words "bastard", "son of a bitch" and so. Of course, if the film were made today this wouldn't be "acceptable" in a story for children and teenagers, and the Censors Office would surely see to that. But that is how seamen in the 18th century –or any other time in history, for that matter- spoke like. And this is a story in which a teenage boy finds himself mixed up with the bloodiest pirates in England, he sees men getting shot, chopped up and blown up to pieces, and then he kills a man in self-defence and nearly gets lynched, gang-raped and hanged by the rogue's mates. All of this is in the book, it wasn't just made up for this film. A superb adaptation, almost 100% faithful to the original, with a good script, a polished cast, a fantastic art direction and a nice fiddle score to get us into the mood for the adventure. Ho ho ho and a bottle of rum!

h-l-workman This is easily and by far the best film version of Treasure Island ever created (I think I've seen them all since Treasure Island is one of my favourite books). Even being, as I am, critical of movies based on books, especially historical books, I can't find any fault with it. The historical accuracy is spot on, the sets are wonderful, the fact that it was filmed on location perfect, the use of an actual ship showing a die-hard loyalty to the book, the cast is excellent, the costuming great, and equally important to all of this, the soundtrack is riveting! I've long been a fan of the Chieftains and this film helped to further raise my respect for them. The scene in which Jim is pitted against Israel Hands would be nothing without that wild tapping as Jim runs up the rigging! One of the things I particularly love is how realistic the fight scenes are. Things are slowed down by the re-loading of the guns or complicated by the powder getting wet. And the film doesn't have the silly dancing about with rapiers that previous film versions of the book have, but furious slashes with heavy cutlasses and vicious, ungentlemanly kicking. The fight between Billy Bones and Black Dog is hilariously clumsy, but in a terrifying life-like way. I simply cannot say enough good things about this film. There is only one question that I have: WHERE IS THE DVD VERSION!!???