Treasure Planet Movie Review

Similar to the plight in Cowboys & Aliens, do we really need to throw sci-fi elements into a movie to get us to watch it? Disney’s Treasure Planet (2002) is a sci-fi adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s adventure novel Treasure Island. While it boasts some fantastic animation and a creative setting, I can’t help but wonder why Disney didn’t just make an animated version of Treasure Island. I thought I suppose, the cultural interest in classic pirates hadn’t really started until Disney made Pirates of the Caribbean a few years later.

If you’re familiar at all with Stevenson’s classic novel, you already know what Treasure Planet is all about. Jim Hawkins (Joseph Gordon-Levitt ) is a troubled teen who grew up hearing tales of pirates and adventure. Now, he regularly gets into trouble with law enforcement. One night a dying alien happens upon the inn that he and his mother run and before passing, the alien gives Jim a map with the warning, “Beware the cyborg.” Under examination, Jim discovers that the map charts the way to Treasure Planet, a distant world where hundreds of space pirates have stashed their loot. Certain this is the adventure he’s been dreaming of, Jim and Dr. Doppler (David Hyde Pierce), a family friend and financier of the voyage, joins the crew of the spaceship R.L.S. Legacy under the command of Captain Amelia (Emma Thompson). Jim is assigned to work with John Silver (Brian Murray), the ship’s cyborg cook. Jim suspects this is the same cyborg he was warned of when he hears rumors of mutiny. Despite his growing friendship with Silver, Jim refuses to take part in the mutiny and find himself attempting to defend law and order against a spaceship full of reckless pirates.

Treasure Planet starts off with young Jim looking at a book. Instead of its pages filled with old-fashioned words, holographic pop-up moving images and narration appear. I don’t know if this was intended by the writers and director or not, but this communicated to me that the following story would be leaving the pages Treasure Island far behind and showing us instead some flashy images. That’s a pretty accurate interpretation. The visuals in Treasure Planet were fascinating to watch, but it felt as though its roots in the original story were lost somehow.

I really liked the mash-up of the mid-1700’s and the futuristic sci-fi. It was highly creative, intriguing, and fun, and thankfully wasn’t trying to be steampunk. It’s a bit odd that Jim and his mother are the only humans in the whole movie, but the diverse cast of aliens is also pretty neat to see. Seeing eighteenth century galleons and pirate ships go sailing through the stars really is neat, but still doesn’t seem right. It raises questions like how deep space is breathable, and why swashbuckling is still popular in an era of laser beams or ray guns. You really need to try to ignore questions like that and enjoy the movie for what it is; a fantasy sci-fi story.

The animation was both fantastic and awkward. It coupled some very detailed 2D animation with usually 3D backgrounds. Each style of animation looked good on its own, but when overlapped it looked awkward; almost like some moving paper dolls were set in a 3D environment. Sometimes it looked okay but more often than not it just didn’t look quite right. The 2D animation is pretty impressive; it’s full of subtleties and detail. John Silver was my favorite character; he has a mechanical arm that has an endless supply of gadgets and gizmos tucked away in it which he uses with such nonchalance to make it look natural. He’s a fun character to watch as he moves. Here’s a clip from John Silver’s character introduction that really illustrates how intricate and subtle the animation is:

Disney alternates between “girl movies” and “boy movies,” and that depends a lot upon the gender of the main character. The “girl movies” tend to feature Disney’s princesses trying to find their prince, and “boy movies” tend to feature boys going out on big adventures. These tendencies perpetuate gender stereotyping. Recently, with films like Tangled and The Princess and the Frog, we’re shown some strong female protagonists going out on adventures, but I don’t see a “boy movie” by Disney ever showing us a prince in search of a princess. Treasure Planet is definitely a “boy movie.” Jim doesn’t even have a potential love interest; it’s all about the adventure, and becoming a man through hardships and mentoring. That’s not to say it’s bad, it just reinforces gender roles.

Treasure Planet wasn’t all that great of a movie. It lacked heart that some lasting Disney classics have. I felt like it was a promotion for a video game more than a tale about adventure. It seemed to want to showcase some creative animation and setting more than to tell a story about interesting characters. The sci-fi element was very interesting, but kind of a flashy distraction. At best, Treasure Planet might encourage some young viewers to read Stevenson’s classic novel. It will appeal to young boys who enjoy an action movie that is suited for their age level; that is what Treasure Planet is, in a nutshell. It may be worth buying if you have little boys in your home who are into that sort of thing. Otherwise, I’d rent it once just to see the neat animation. In the end, it’s a pretty forgettable movie.

Can you think of a retelling or updated version of a classic story with a very different setting that was good? I thought She’s the Man was a vaguely amusing retelling of Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night. What do you think? Comment below and tell me all about it!

Hanna Movie Review

I like genre blending stories. They can juxtapose storytelling tropes that ordinarily wouldn’t go together and by proximity they take on a new, interesting quality. Shaolin Soccer, for example, combined a sports movie with a Kung Fu movie and made a very extraordinary and entertaining movie. Hanna (2011) combined the cat-and-mouse chase spy movie with subtle elements of a fairy tale, giving us a fascinating movie.

Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is a unique teenage girl. She has the strength, stamina, and the smarts of a soldier. These skills come from being raised by her father, Erik (Eric Bana) an ex-CIA man, in the wilds of Finland. Living a life unlike any other teenager, her upbringing and training have been one and the same; all geared to making her a perfect assassin. The turning point in her adolescent life is a sharp one; sent out into the world by her father on a mission, Hanna Journeys stealthily across Europe while eluding agents dispatched after her by a ruthless intelligence operative, Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett). But as Hanna nears her target, she is faced with startling revelations about her existence and some disturbing questions about her humanity.

Hanna is a foreign film; a British-German action thriller with some subtle fairy tale qualities to it. These aren’t really overt; they are just subtle enough to make you think of a fairy tale allegory while enjoying some great action scenes. You can imagine a young princess being raised secluded from dangers in the world by her father, you can picture the prowling big bad wolf henchman who is stalking the innocent little girl as she travels through a strange environment, you can also easily picture Marissa as the wicked step mother wanting to stop the young princess, or even kill her. Even Hanna’s character is like a blend of Black Widow from The Avengers and Rapunzel from Disney’s Tangled. She’s a highly intelligent killing machine that exhibits a naïve sense of awe and wonder as she explores the world she has been cut off from. There isn’t really any magic or fantasy element in Hanna; it really is an action spy movie. But the beautifully subtle parallels to some of Grimm’s cautionary tales are hard to ignore.

The action sequences were remarkably well shot and choreographed. There was no real shaky cam to obscure the action; everything was meaningfully filmed and gave us a very clear image of what was happening. The director, Joe Wright, proves to us that action doesn’t need to be mindless. Even during scenes that are largely CGI and no actual human bodies are present, they are still well choreographed, making some truly beautiful action scenes.

There were a few times when the camera is following Hanna as she leaps, crawls, and flips around obstacles and she simply disappears from the shot and then turns a corner back into the same shot. It develops Hanna’s character by showing us that she is thinking a step or two ahead of us and is faster than our eye can keep up with. In several scenes in the movie, there were very long, sweeping shots that were remarkably well filmed. In one instance, Eric is arriving at an airport and the camera follows him from the terminal to a subway without any cuts. As we watch him walk from different angles we see CIA agents obscured from his vision but not from ours as they close in on him. The cinematography really is impressive in Hanna and it keeps it interesting.

A lot of action movies (and fairy tale movies for that matter) have over-the-top fantasy violence. Has anyone ever thought a James Bond movie was realistic? Hanna remains pretty well grounded, though, especially when she repeatedly encounters an ordinary British family on vacation. The family has a daughter named Sophie (Jessica Barden) who is probably the first girl her age that Hanna has ever met, and Sophie’s family is the first normal family she has ever seen. Scenes with the family are usually humorous, but it adds a touch of reality to the story that keeps the movie from going too far overboard in its own action-based exuberance.

As foreign films go, Hanna was quite good. The only bad thing I can say about it is it left a few loose ends unresolved. I didn’t get the feeling it was hoping for a sequel, but if the movie had gone maybe 5 more minutes to establish just a little more closure, it would have been perfect. There’s still something disquieting about a little girl who has been made into a ruthless killing machine; that alone says something about our views of gender roles. How would we have felt if Hanna was a 16-year-old boy?  Still, it’s great to see a strong female protagonist in a lead role. I liked Hanna, and I recommend seeing it. I didn’t love it enough to want my own copy, but it was well worth renting. Also, you should watch more foreign films.

What is your favorite cat-and-mouse style chase movie? Is it a spy movie like James Bond? Is it a sci-fi action movie like Predator? Comment below and tell me all about it!

Tangled Movie Review

There seems to have been something of a decline in “girl movies” over the past couple of years. I haven’t seen as many movies with female protagonists. It makes me wonder if some writers are afraid of incurring the wrath of feminists if they use a young woman as a dainty, ladylike hero. Tiana in Princess and the Frog (2009) was a workaholic, resolute on making her dreams come true herself. She was a delightful and refreshing character, and I hope she helped set a standard for female protagonists and other “girl movies.” I think it is thanks to Tiana (and a few other independent-minded Disney Princesses) that we were given a complex, compelling, intelligent, and self-sufficient protagonist in Disney’s Tangled (2010).

The infant Rapunzel, born to a king and queen, received healing powers from a magical flower at birth. Baby Rapunzel is kidnapped by Mother Gothel (Donna Murphy). Gothel knows that the flower’s magic now resides in Rapunzel’s golden hair. To use this magic and remain young, Gothel locks Rapunzel in an isolated tower and raises the baby as her own. Years later, Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) is now a teenager, and her hair has grown 70-feet long. She has been held in the tower all her life, and is naturally curious about the world outside. One day, Flynn Rider (Zachary Levi) scales the tower while escaping the Royal Guard after stealing some of the crown jewels from the castle. Rapunzel strikes a deal with the charming thief to act as her guide and take her to see where the floating lights come from that she has seen every year on her birthday. Flynn tries to steer them away from the Royal Guard and other thugs he’s crossed while Rapunzel agonizes over disobeying Gothel by leaving the tower. When Gothel discovers Rapunzel is gone, she unfurls a deceitful plot to lure her back with a guilt trip rife with lies and plans to lock Rapunzel up for good.

Tangled is mostly character driven, and it has some great, fun characters. Rapunzel is bright, talented, cute, and independent. She has been lied to and manipulated all of her life by Gothel into being afraid of the world and distrusting of people. When she plucks up the courage to leave the tower, she is tormented by inner conflict; she is overcome with the joy of adventuring beyond the tower and experiencing new things, while also being overwhelmed by guilt and shame from disobeying Gothel whom she believes is her mother. In fact, the only real reason Rapunzel thinks she needs Flynn is because of the “dangers” Gothel warns her about; ruffians, thugs, poison ivy, quicksand, cannibals, snakes, and the plague. As she grows to realize the world isn’t as she was taught it is, Rapunzel’s self confidence and independence blossoms, making her all the more interesting.

Gothel was a really good, nasty villain. Most villains are undoubtedly bad, but Gothel is downright evil. I kept expecting her to whip out some magic spells or a hidden power of some kind, but she didn’t. All she had was lies, deceit, and manipulation; but these were used so well that she was still a formidable force to be reckoned with.

Tangled is also humor driven. This movie is absolutely hysterical! Every character, even the villains, get funny lines. The humor is very diverse; puns, jokes, exaggerated expressions, and plenty of slapstick is delivered at regular intervals. In one scene a horse from the Royal Guard has a short sword in his mouth by the hilt and is attempting to attack Flynn who is defending himself with a frying pan; Flynn quips, “This is the strangest thing I have ever done in my entire life!”

The art direction in this film was gorgeous. A lot of the scenery and architecture had Germanic-Gothic influences; everything from the Royal castle, to the town’s buildings, to the style of clothing the characters wore. Not only did it give the movie an old romantic fairy tale quality, but it also heralds back to the German setting where The Brothers Grimm originally found the classic story of Rapunzel.

Tangled is a CGI animated feature, and while the characters did have some very cartoon-ish qualities in their movements, they also seemed to have very natural movements that fit within the setting. All the characters had very large eyes that reminded me of Anime characters. One of the more interesting scenes is near the end when Rapunzel has returned to the tower, and she is piecing together subtle little clues around the tower coupled with the information she has learned outside. The way they visually depict Rapunzel’s thought processes without dialogue and without a flashback slideshow was really interesting. Not only did this develop the plot, but it still depicted Rapunzel as an intelligent young woman; not a naive ditz who must rely on others to solve her problems.

Tangled was a great movie that had progressive attitudes about female protagonists, fantastic animation, fun characters, a good story, and was highly entertaining. I’d recommend this to anyone; young girls will like the princess fairy tale, young boys will enjoy the action scenes, teens and adults will enjoy the story, and everyone will enjoy humor and the musical numbers that are hallmark of Disney classics. I’m sure that Walt Disney would have been proud of this production. I want to get a copy of this for my personal collection; it is certainly one worth owning.