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hulkskid
Reviews
Treasure Island (1999)
This is a poor version that tries too hard to be original with established material.
This version of Treasure Island is poor for trying to hard to be original with an existing story. It's one thing to have new scenes at the beginning that show Captain Flint supervising the burial of his treasure, and Billy Bones inflicting Pew and Long John with their disfigurements. But it hurts the flow of the story that so much screen time is given to Black Dog who in the original story was a far more incidental character, and less vicious. Plus, his chase of Jim goes against the pirates' desire to keep their plot secret. It's also bothersome that this version of Long John is played out rather weakly, including how meekly he gave up leadership of the pirates to George Merry and how difficult he is to even understand in some scenes, how morally questionable the doctor, squire, and captain are in this version, how Jim and the doctor are more concerned with the map than in Mrs. Hawkins' death, how Jim joins the pirates, and how the whole ending is changed. In that, it doesn't make sense that only three people can sail the ship at the end, and that Long John doesn't resent Jim and Ben for not revealing earlier the locations of the ship and the treasure which would have avoided the battle and some of the deaths.