Treasure Planet

A rebellious kid whose dad left home when he was young, hops aboard a flying ship with an alien-infested crew, in search of treasure. It isn’t long before the ship’s cyborgian captain takes a liking to the kid (no, not that kind of liking!), and guides him through some wicked space adventures. But with everyone’s eye on the big prize, who’s gonna be the real winner? Disney ensues.

A very cool space adventure drenched in vibrant colors, lively characters, a slick lead with some personal issues and plenty of fun for everyone. As some of you already know, I’m not the #1 animation fan on the block, but when I see a movie that I like, it doesn’t matter if it’s animated or not…good is good! In the case of a film like SPIRITED AWAY, I appreciated the adventurous ride through which I was transported, but didn’t much care for the film’s length or some of its redundancy factors. This movie is a lot like that one in the sense that it truly whisked me into another world for an hour and a half, but it also managed to maintain my interest throughout, provide for a real dude as the lead with personal problems to which many of us could relate and always had something new and fun to showcase. Another thing I loved about this picture were its many secondary characters, all of whom came through as engaging personalities on their own, especially the “bad guy”, John Silver, who was captivating and provided for just enough evil and goodness, to keep you on your toes throughout. Also, you’re not going to see too many characters like him on film, a man who is seemingly built via robotic body parts, all of which he can manipulate masterfully. His “cooking exhibition” was an especially cool intro to the man. I also liked the captain of the ship, the lovely feline with a no-nonsense attitude, her right-hand man, Mr. Arrow (yup, the Arrow is everywhere!), who reminded me a lot of The Thing from the Fantastic Four, Dr. Doppler, the straight-laced egghead who provided the film with just enough amount of science, as well as the countless other strange crew-members, all of whom had their own delectable peculiarities.

Having said that, my two favorite characters were the lead teen rebel, voiced by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who despite being in a Disney movie, sported an earring, loved sky-surfing against the law and had some shit to work out on the “daddy front”, and his loveable sidekick (aka comic relief) “Morph” who was basically this “thing” that was able to change into anything whenever it felt like. A great idea and actually quite funny on several occasions. I especially liked how it would also display emotion every now and again…nice touch. Of course, it’s always nice to have interesting characters, but if the story blows…who cares, right? Well, no worries on that front either because this is a movie that sets up a nifty adventure and keeps things moving every step of the way. There’s action, there are laughs, there’s emotion, there’s a solid score & soundtrack, there are twists and turns and oh yeah…did I mention the stunning animation? Not since TITAN A.E. have I seen space drawn out so beautifully on-screen. The color purple was especially overused, but rightfully so in this environment, and a number of scenes were just breathtaking. The film also features some surprisingly decent directing for an animated picture, with some very groovy action scenes rolling you along for the fun. I personally enjoyed pretty much every detail about this movie (other than two smaller annoying characters, one who farted all the time (for the kids, I suppose) and an irritating robot character who just reminded me of Jar-Jar and Gilligan too much-shut up, you dolt!), and I hope that many others do as well. With many entertaining characters, a rockin’ space adventure, a very cool planet, plenty of eye-catching animation, laughs, cries and action…I can’t see this movie going anywhere but sky-high. What ATLANTIS lacked in energy, TREASURE PLANET packs in all-out fun and excitement. Good times.

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian