Folks, Harry here, and now I've heard everything. Here's a movie that is reportedly saved and kicked into high gear by... MARTIN SHORT? Really? Has Martin Short been a genius since INNER SPACE or THE THREE AMIGOS? Well then, I remember liking Short a long time ago, maybe in animation he found himself. Happened with Robin Williams and Eddie Murphy. However, I'm dying to see somebody use GEORGE CARLIN!!!!! And just let him go!
Hey Harry, longtime reader who hasn't sent you anything in a while. Caught the first 'Dogma' screening a couple years back. Anyway, I caught a pass to a 'Treasure Planet' screening in Charlotte, N.C. Do what you will with this:
My expectations for 'Treasure Planet' were fairly low, as it seemed like a desperate attempt to find another idea by Disney. And i thought my suspicions were confirmed when one of the minor characters spoke in 'flatula,' which is exactly what you would think: he speaks in farts. Horrible, HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE.
I sighed heavily and trekked on through the film, which follows an underachieving, but good-hearted troublemaker named James, who lives with his abandoned mother. (The film is set in some type of futuristing setting which is never really explained.) One day, a pirate named Billy Bones crashes his ship outside the restaurant James' mother owns. Being pursued by pirates, he leaves James with a sphere that contains a map to the treasure plant, which may or may not be a myth. James (voiced by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and family friend Dr. Delbert Doppler (David Hyde Pierce) decide to hire a crew and find the planet. The crew is led by Captain Amelia (Emma Thompson), who is not happy that Doppler hired a band of questionables as her underlings. In any case, James forms a bond with John Silver (Brian Murray), a cyborg who leads the crew of undesirables. Silver becomes torn with his mission to kill the captain, doppler and james, and get the treasure as he takes a liking to james.
So, what's good? About 30 minutes or so before the movie ends, just as everything seems to be getting boring, Martin Short shows up and kicks the film into gear. Short plays B.E.N., a robot stranded on the treasure planet alone for the last 100 years. part of his 'brain' has been removed, and he's ... a little crazy. Could have been a really annoying part, but Short, i thought was brilliant, and didn't tread into Jar-Jar territory. Some may think differently, but he had my laughing my ass off. Also cool was a creature called Morph, a cute little ball of goo that can transform into just about anything he wants. The animators made clever use of him, and you never really get tired of seeing him on the screen.
Gordon-Levitt does a nice job of keeping James from becoming an annoying brat, as is usually the case in films like this. Murray, Hyde-Pierce and Thompson are all very good. And Michael Wincott is once again underused (but still great) as a spider-like menace who is part of the crew.
The bad: not too much to say here, besides the horrible flatulent-speaking garbage. I will say that I hate how these cartoons use wonderful 3-D type animation that is just stunning, but then shift to stock, 2-D characters that look no different than they would in the 1960s. Just as in Titan A.E., it was a distraction for me. Oh well.
Overall, a suprisingly decent Disney movie that avoids some of the standard cliches that were constantly creeping into many of their films.
Anyway, do what you will this and, if you use it, just call me Lou C.
