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Muppet Treasure Island
R1 - America - Disney/Buena Vista Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak and Cameron Murray (22nd May 2006). |
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The Film
 Being a huge childhood fan of the Muppets I was really looking forward to watching this movie, unfortunately like so many things from your childhood that you cherish seeing it as an adult leaves you disillusioned and wondering how you managed to make it to adulthood without choking on your own tongue. Based off the story by Robert Louis Stevenson book Treasure Island and it does not stray greatly from it, except for some extra characters which seemed to serve as more of an excuse to use the full Muppets cast than to add to the story. For those of you not familiar with the story of Treasure Island, put simply an orphan boy, Jim Hawkins (Kevin Bishop) finds a treasure map, after a man staying at the inn he worked at dies, decides that he wants to leave his down trodden existence and take to the high seas in an effort to find the treasure. He manages to get himself a ship, and slowly finds himself a family on the high seas. Pirates become involved and it takes a turn for the more violent as they begin to fight over the treasure. As I say this is simply put as this movie seems to be more about friendship, doing the right thing and the Muppets. Due to the constraints of working with felt Muppets the production has a very studio filmed feel, for a very good reason most of it was filmed in a studio. This does some what limit the feeling of the high seas. The lighting is done well but does not provide a great deal of mood for the production. Children most probably won’t notice, but if you’ve seen any films in recent history you’ll be wondering why you feel so detached from the action. There was some good use camera movement through the movie, for instance trying to give the illusion of a rocking sea by rocking the camera is always a nice touch when dealing with ocean based movies. Also a Yoda in Star Wars II or III type fight between Tim Curry‘s Long John Silver and Kermit (Steve Whitmire) is also quite enjoyable. The acting from the Muppets cast was as good as I remember, and while it did not bring the rapturous belly laughs that I have memories of I had to chuckle several times. Billy Connolly played an enjoyable role as Billy Bones the Drunkard Pirate that Hawkins gets the treasure map off. Kevin Bishop‘s portrayal of young Jim Hawkins honestly annoyed me and while I will concede that working opposite puppets would not be the easiest acting assignment when you see his effort versus that of Tim Curry you can truly see the gap in talent. Curry was sensational and while I am generally a fan of his work I think he did a particularly fantastic job given the circumstances.
Video
Presented in the film’s original theatrical ratio of 1.85:1, the disc also includes a 1.33:1 full screen version. The 1.85:1 widescreen anamorphic transfer is generally sharp, I found blacks deep and bold however this was not entirely consistent and I did notice some murkiness in the blacks during portions off the film. Shadow detail was consistently good throughout most of the film and background detail can be seen. Colors were quite natural for the most part, however skin tones veered on the orange on a number of occasions (primarily during interior scenes, which might have something to do with the lighting rather than the transfer, this lighting scheme was however annoying none-the-less). Overall it’s a fairly decent transfer that serves the film well. The full screen version is basically the same quality aside from the fact that it’s cropped to fit a standard TV screen.
Audio
This film includes two audio tracks, an English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track as well as a French Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track. The French track is only on the full screen version, the widescreen only has the English track. For the purposes of this review I chose to view the film with its English soundtrack. For the most part I found the dialogue clear and distortion free, the track had a ambience that immersed the viewer and was generally pleased with the overall atmosphere of the track. I had no problem believing I was on a pirate ship. Optional subtitles are also included in English for the hearing impaired.
Extras
Buena Vista Home Entertainment has released this film under the banner Anniversary Edition celebrating 50 years of the Muppets, however this edition is far from a decent special edition. First up we have Pepe Profiles: Fozzie Bear, A Long Day’s Journey into Night Clubs featurette that runs for 5 minutes 27 seconds, and much like the previous Pepe Profiles, features other Muppets talking about how they met Fozzie and comment on this stand-up comedy routine. Pepe also interviews the iconic bear to humorous effect (that is if you’re a child, or have a child’s sense of humor). There are also several bonus trailers of upcoming Disney releases that include: - "Lady and the Tramp" DVD promo spot which runs for 1 minute 4 seconds. - "Disney's Movie Surfers" promo clip, this is a highlight clip that previews two movies The Wild and The Shaggy Dog and runs for 2 minutes 36 seconds. - "The Muppet Show: Season 1" on DVD promo spot which runs for 1 minute 32 seconds. - "The Muppet Wizard of Oz" on DVD promo spot which runs for 1 minute 34 seconds. - "Radio Disney" promo spot that runs for 31 seconds. The first four listed are start-up previews and play before the menu, these can be skipped by pressing the menu button on your remote.
Overall
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