Ah, Thanksgiving, that most Disney-esque of holidays. Folks all over the country are getting back to basics, if only for a moment, gathering together to celebrate friendship, family values and the fine art of consuming. So how could another Disney feature-length animation not be right around the corner?Treasure Planet, Disney's umpteenth gazillionth project and a sci-fi reworking of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, is a somewhat strange choice for the studio's big Thanksgiving-Christmas offering. While it's a sporadically clever and visually ornate re-working of Stevenson's famous story, Treasure Planet is anything but the bright and cheery joyride that kiddies all but demand at this time of year. For that matter, the movie's appeal is further limited by the fact that it's simply too gender- specific for its own good. As much as Pochahantas and Mulan were female fantasies, this is clearly one for the boys.
The movie opens looking for all the world like yet another Star Trek spin-off, panning across a field of stars before exploding into a raging battle involving hordes of fanged, multi-eyed space pirates. Before things have a chance to get too intense, it all turns out to be a scene from a holographic book of the future, a bedtime story told to a small boy who, in the wink of a cinematic eye, becomes 12 years older and the movie's main character.
That character is Jim Hawkins, a spirited 15-year-old created specifically for young boys to relate to. Besides his tasteful little earring and oddly contemporary haircut, Jim's a typically withdrawn but basically decent teen with the sort of slightly rebellious streak that puts him into occasional conflict with authority figures. There's no dad in this picture (an absence that causes young Jim periodic torment throughout the movie) and mom works in what appears to be an 18th century theme restaurant that looks like the Star Wars cantina in Robert Louis Stevenson drag. As in virtually every scene in the movie, aliens of all shapes and size hang about in modified 18th century duds and jabber in period-speak like they've just stepped out of, well, Treasure Island.
The plot kicks into motion when Jim is out cruising the skies on his airborne solar skateboard and runs into a massive extraterrestrial tortoise being pursued by a small army of menacing alien types. The mortally wounded turtle-thingie whispers a few cryptic words to our hero, presents him with a glowing treasure map and promptly expires. And the chase is on.
To be fair, Treasure Planet isn't entirely a private party for boys. There are a few token nods to viewers of the female persuasion, the main one being Captain Amelia, the smart, sassy and very cat-like alien (voiced by Emma Thompson) who commands the vessel that Jim signs on to find the treasure. There's even a whiff of interspecies romance when the feline Amelia falls for Jim's companion, Dr. Doppler, a fussy, dog-like alien who resembles a genetic fusion of Goofy and Niles Crane (no surprise, since he's voiced by Frasier's David Hyde Pierce). The dog-cat love interest probably isn't Disney's all-time dumbest bid for seasonal peace, love and understanding, but it's a contender.
For the most part, the movie is a darker, slightly more adult Disney animation than most, tonally similar to efforts like Atlantis and even Hunchback of Notre Dame. The obligatory bones are thrown to the very young — there's a cute little shape-shifting alien sidekick, a wacky robot voiced by Martin Short, and a being called Flatula who communicates exclusively through farting noises — but many of the characters will probably be too strange or too intense for smaller viewers. The crew on Amelia's ship is a creepy melange of freakish and demonic-looking ETs, topped off by a horror show named Mr. Scroop, who's a particularly nasty cross between a spider, a lobster and a warthog.
The most complex of all these characters is Long John Silver, a hulking cyborg who wavers between coming off as vaguely ominous and acting as Jim's mentor and father figure. All in all, it's pretty close to the way Stevenson originally saw things, actually, but the murky human dynamic doesn't make a particularly successful transposition to a cartoon opus aimed primarily at children. We spend most of the movie unsure if Silver and his crew are good guys or bad guys, an aspect that may intrigue its share of adults but is sure to create problems for young viewers.
It's probably not giving anything away to mention that, as it turns out, Long John Silver is good and bad — he's a mercenary with a plan to steal the treasure for himself, but reveals his true humanity when push comes to shove. Silver's redemption is a bit of a cop-out, but it'll make sense to kids who feel confused by heroic villains and villainous heroes, which is bottom line in Disney's world.
Treasure Planet is as beautifully visualized as anything Disney's done in recent years, but the movie has the distinct feel of a minor effort in the studio's canon. The canvas here is epic but not particularly inspired, another seamless but slightly soulless blend of digital animation and the old fashioned hand-drawn stuff. The characters are interesting but not exactly memorable — even Jim Hawkins is a little too tortured and self-pitying to be completely likable — and the plot meanders more than it should (although it's not nearly as convoluted as, say, Atlantis).
All might have been forgiven, though, had it not been for the movie's soundtrack of generic, mildly angsty soft rock twaddle from Goo Goo Dolls singer John Rzeznik. The idiotic songs of Treasure Planet are sure to irritate young and old alike, and may just be the one thing about the movie on which kids and grown-ups can agree.
Lance Goldenberg can be reached at lgoldenb@tampabay.rr.com or 813-248-8888, ext. 157.
This article appears in Nov 27 – Dec 3, 2002.
