Stevenson's Treasure Island was one of my favorite childhood books I used to read over and over again. Currently I can't remember its nuances - the plot of course I do - and I enjoyed the 2012 version. Background and costumes seems realistic and one can notice at once that it non-US movie - compared to Pirates of the Caribbean, for example.

Izzard, Regbo, Sutherland and Wood are very good, the rest are just above average - or their characters are too "simple" to make some real shine out of them. On the other hand, it is good that no one really steals the show as Depp does when portraying Jack Sparrow. Fight scenes, collusions etc are also more "medieval" here.

In short, highly recommended for those fond of historic adventures, and not seeking deep philosophy or reasoning.

I wanted to like this recreation of the classic Treasure Island. One doesn't expect a slavish adherence to the original as long as the main story elements are in place, and who would be nitpicking enough to criticize every deviation from precise details of 18th century settings, customs and props. Making the feckless first mate a black guy might be a stretch, Billy Bones is not black in the original, but even the book describes Long John's wife as "a woman of color." Political correctness would be certain to ruin any classic, but I didn't detect toxic amounts of that here. No, the violation was far worse. About one third of the way through this re-creation takes a dark and nasty turn.

So I was enjoying this Treasure Island and it's dodgy crew as they set out to sea. Only having had it read to me as a small lad, but I kept coming up short: "Wait a minute! I don't remember that!" I knew my memory of the book was quite faded so I had to look it up. In this TV production squire Trelawney is turned into an angry, abusive tyrant. He virtually keelhauls some poor fellow as a punishment and the fellow dies as Jim looks on. That is totally gratuitous, it's not in the book. In fact, Trelawney is supposed to be a decent fellow and invites Jim on the voyage because he likes him. Later in the TV version the Squire abuses Jim irrationally and cruelly and drives him out of the camp on the island. He is supposed to be Jim's protector, but in this version he becomes his persecutor.

Classics are classics for a reason. In the story of Treasure Island it's the power of the narrative, the storytelling, that's the key to its popularity for many generations. The makers of this TV drama, as in so much of movies and TV drama, have no sense of the narrative. Treasure Island is a story of a rite of passage, of a young man being introduced to the world and for this to work he needs people on his side, protectors who care about his welfare. For him to be betrayed by the people who brought him along and took him into their confidence, makes no sense at all. At that point the narrative loses its moral compass and becomes absurd. I can't imagine a motive for such a drastic alteration in the story. Certainly Trelawney is given no motive to turn on Jim and leave him to the mercy of a bunch of cutthroats who intend to kill him. At that point in the TV version Jim is on his own, he virtually has to take care of himself. He has no allies. But rite of passage is not something that adolescents do on their own, as in "Lord of the Flies." They need compassionate adults to help them along.

And though I can't imagine why the screenwriters made such a poor decision about the plot line, I can see the parallels with contemporary culture where many young people are virtually abandoned by their elders and left to raise themselves on junk food and pop culture. Along with that comes a visceral dislike of established values, the well-off, and any authority, combined with an exaggerated feeling of entitlement. Perhaps the writers thought that the values of the RLS book were too outdated and corny for an audience of feral children used to getting their own way. As in the "Occupy" movement, all rich guys are automatically considered evil just because they're rich, so the squire has to be evil. I don't know. But you can see the result of such a philosophy in the London riots of 2011 and the ever expanding percentage of out-of-wedlock births in the Western world.

In any case these seemingly unnecessary alterations in the story line throw the entire story out of kilter, and Treasure Island is no longer fun. Don't get me started on the ridiculous ending. Avoid this version.

I'll first point out that I haven't seen any of the other older versions of Treasure Island, nor was I familiar with the story prior to watching this.

My initial feelings are that Pirates Of The Caribbean has been put to shame for it's immature attitude towards pirates, whilst this film is probably the best representation I've seen on screen (but I haven't watched a lot of pirate themed films, to be honest). We are treated to a slightly rugged world of pirates where there are no supermodels running about, quite the opposite for the most part. The way it should be. I think the cleanest looking person in the whole film is Elijah Woods.

Eddie Izzard (Long John Silver) was excellent and perfectly cast in my opinion. I have never thought much of him as an actor before but this certainly changed my mind. Just like PotC is all about Depp, this is all about Izzard. The rest of the cast are also very very good but Izzard really stands out. Sean Gilder also made an excellent pirate, but his on screen time was pretty limited.

I can't comment on how true this is to the original story but I thought it was great entertainment with really good production values and a great overall cast. Easily the best pirate film I've seen.