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Sunday 23 December 2012

Treasure Island (2012)

Sharpen up your blades, drink down your grog and get ready for a fantastic movie! Steve Barron has done a brilliant take on Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island and has enlisted an amazing cast to perform it.

I'm sure all of you will know the plot: Captain Blackbeard makes a large deposit on an island and then kills most of his crew so that they can't come back and dig it up but some of them get away. Billybones, who was one of the crew, ends up at the inn of Jim Hawkins where he is seeking refuge from other pirates wanting to kill him. They want him because he has the map of where the treasure is buried, however, Billybones drinks himself to death and Jim discovers the map. Jim tells his friend the Doctor about his discovery and they charter a ship and a crew to seek their fortune. I'll leave the plot there because I don't want to give away the ending.

The reason I love this movie so much is because you get to see different aspects of the characters. For example with John Silver you see the more caring side of his character when he is teaching Jim to be a ship's cook. Even when Silver has had to do something morally wrong to get what he wants he is still thinking of the boy and his best interests.

Squire Trelawney is also an interesting character too. In other renditions he comes across as a rich yet slightly stupid character but in Barron's rendition he is a calculating, conniving and very selfish man who is only interested in his wealth.

I love the character development with the Doctor and Jim. With the Doctor he is initially put across as a coward even though he has had previous military experience. However, when it comes to it and Jim is in trouble the Doctor really pulls through and overcomes those mental barriers that were keeping him from being the man he is. As for Jim, he is still just a boy who has had to take on the role as man of house because his father died. There are many aspects to his character that portray his boyish nature but when Jim has to make a decision to live by taking someone else's life he is able to do so and live to fight another day as a stronger man.

This really is a great movie and I can highly recommend it to you if you love the Treasure Island theme, pirates, or even just a good story!

For a full character review you can read that on my other Treasure Island Review. It's an interesting comparison between how the characters progress in this movie compared to the other versions that I have seen.

You can purchase the movies by following these links: