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Treasure Planet
(Reviewed October 11, 2002)
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Really disappointing Disney animated movie--disappointing mainly because the studio's last one (this summer's "Lilo & Stitch") was so original and fresh.
"Treasure Planet," a clunky-dumb update of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island," has a lot in common with last year's dreadful Disney dud "Atlantis": A young male protagonist on a mission to a near-mythical location encounters dangers from nasty crew members with ulterior motives. There's even a sorta similar "retro-futurism" approach, with advanced technology appearing in antique trappings (in this case, starships that look like sailing ships).
The problem is that nothing here is convincing or involving; it all seems very hacked out and pointless. I especially disliked three things: The skin-crawlingly annoying use of achingly overused present-day cliches in a world that is not our own; the utter implausibility of a plot in which someone who is the guest of the guy who charters a ship is expected to work as the next best thing to a galley slave; and the third-act appearance of (God help us) this movie's Robin-Williams-equivalent (in this case, Martin Short voicing a screechingly twitchy robot). Also, "Frasier"'s David Hyde Pierce overdoes his tired persnickety schtick to the point where you'll be praying for him to walk a plank.
The character animation seems okay but dated. (Many of Jim's mother's facial expressions appear to have been traced directly from 1989's "The Little Mermaid.") By contrast, many of the backgrounds (starscapes, space ports, explosions and such), often mingling line art and computer animation, look nice in a show-offy "demo-reel" fashion.
Too bad they couldn't have been used in a movie with a better script. I was really, really bored by this one.
Back Row Grade: D-
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