Muppet Treasure Island
Muppet Treasure Island >>>>> https://cinurl.com/2tJy8X
Jim Hawkins is a young orphan who lives in an inn in England with his best friends Gonzo and Rizzo. Jim listens to Billy Bones' tales about the pirate Captain Flint, who buried his treasure trove on a remote island and executed his crew so only he would own the island's map. One night, Bones' crewmate Blind Pew arrives, giving Bones the black spot. Just before dying of a heart attack, Bones gives Jim the treasure map and begs him to go after the treasure and keep it safe from pirate hands, especially a one-legged man. Just then, an army of pirates attack the inn, destroying it, but Jim, Gonzo, and Rizzo escape with the map.
The trio takes the map to the half-wit Squire Trelawney (Fozzie Bear), who arranges a voyage to find the treasure. The boys are enlisted aboard the Hispaniola as cabin boys, accompanied by Trelawney, Dr. Livesey (Bunsen Honeydew), and Beaker. The ship is commanded by Captain Abraham Smollett (Kermit the Frog) and his overly strict first mate, Mr. Arrow (Sam Eagle). The boys meet the cook Long John Silver, the one-legged man whom Bones warned them of, but Jim and Silver become good friends. The ship sets sail, but Smollett is suspicious of the crew, believing them to be of shady character. After Gonzo and Rizzo are kidnapped and tortured by three of the crew who have turned out to be pirates, he has the treasure map locked up for safe keeping.
It is revealed that Silver and the secret pirates in the crew had been part of Flint's crew and want the treasure for themselves. Silver fools Mr. Arrow into leaving the ship to test out a rowboat, says he drowned, and has his minions steal the map during Arrow's memorial service. Jim, Gonzo, and Rizzo discover Silver's treachery and inform Smollett. Arriving at Treasure Island, Smollett orders the entire crew save the officers to go ashore, planning to keep himself and non-pirate crew aboard the ship and abandon the pirates on the island. However, his plan falls through when it is discovered that Silver has kidnapped Jim to have leverage against the captain. On the island, Silver invites Jim to join them in the treasure hunt using his late father's compass. When Jim refuses, Silver forcibly takes the compass from him. Smollett, Gonzo, and Rizzo land on the island in an effort to rescue Jim. However, unbeknownst to them, Silver had hidden a squad of pirates aboard the Hispaniola before leaving, and they capture the ship in Smollett's absence. On the island, Smollett and the rest of the landing party are captured by the native tribe of pigs, where Smollett reunites with his jilted lover Benjamina Gunn (Miss Piggy), the tribe's queen.
The pirates find that the cave in which Flint hid the treasure is empty, leading to a brief mutiny against Silver. Silver reveals that, even though he is a pirate, he cares for Jim and allows him to escape. After reprimanding the crew from using a page from the Bible to deliver a death sentence, Silver and his crew capture Smollett and Benjamina. Smollett is hung from a cliff to fall to his death, joined soon by Benjamina after she reveals where the treasure is hidden to save his life. Jim rescues his friends and with an alive Mr. Arrow, who portrays his own ghost to scare the pirates aboard the ship, the group regains control of the Hispaniola and rescues Smollett and Benjamina.
The group engages the remaining pirates in a sword fight on the beach with Sweetums defecting to Smollett's side until only Silver is left standing, but he surrenders when he finds himself outnumbered. While the pirates are imprisoned, Silver discovers he still has Mr. Arrow's keys and tries to escape with the treasure during the night. Jim confronts him and threatens to give his position away, while Silver draws his pistol. In a tearful standoff, neither can bring themselves to follow their threats and Jim allows Silver to leave as long as they never cross paths again, much to their disappointment. Silver rows away, but not before returning Jim's compass to him and complimenting his kind heart. However, Mr. Arrow informs Jim and Smollett that the boat Silver used was not seaworthy, and Silver is later stranded on Treasure Island.
Roger Ebert, reviewing for the Chicago Sun-Times, gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four. While he was favorable to Tim Curry's performance, he summarized the film as being "less cleverly written, and for moi it's a near miss."[19] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film two stars out of four writing that the film was a "boring Muppet adventure that doesn't successfully meld the Muppets into a conventional buried-treasure story. I wanted the Muppets to play themselves rather than phony pirate-related characters."[20]
After telling the story of Flint's last journey to young Jim Hawkins, Billy Bones has a heart attack and dies just as Jim and his friends are attacked by pirates. The gang escapes into the town where they hire out a boat and crew to find the hidden treasure, which was revealed by Bones before he died. On their voyage across the seas, they soon find out that not everyone on board can be trusted.
Curry, though, is at his most theatrical as Long John Silver. It helps that Muppet Treasure Island is a loopy film; one song, "Cabin Fever," depicts the pirate crew (sans Silver, sadly) singing and dancing about how crazy they're becoming while stuck at sea in an attempt to locate buried treasure. The film's sense of humor is much more in line with the giddy chaos of The Muppet Show, and Curry is working his a** off to ensure his performance fits perfectly with some of the best verbal and visual gags in the Muppet lexicon. Curry's version of Long John Silver is confident of his superior intellect, but he's also flamboyant, outsized, and ridiculous.
Robert Louis Stevenson's classic pirate tale takes on a life of its own in the hands of the hilarious Muppets(TM)! MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND(TM) -- the Muppets' very first action-adventure -- is the fun-packed, music-filled, high-seas swashbuckler the entire family will enjoy over and over. It all begins when young Jim Hawkins inherits a long-lost map to a pirate's treasure. Jim hires the great ship Hispaniola, where he meets the good Captain Smollett (Kermit the Frog) and the evil yet charming Long John Silver (Tim Curry). With adventure in their hearts and treasure chests of gold in their eyes, they set sail on the bounding main only to discover danger at every turn -- including Benjamina Gunn (Miss Piggy), Treasure Island's worshipped love goddess who's dressed to kill! Featuring a rollicking musical score by Academy Award(R)-winning Hans Zimmer (THE LION KING, 1994), MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND is a real gem that "explodes with wit, weirdness, and wildly inventive fun." (New York Post)
Three and a half years after teaming up with Walt Disney Pictures to adapt a literary classic in their own unique way, the Muppets were back with the same plan. Following the artistic (if not overwhelmingly commercial) success of The Muppet Christmas Carol, the creative talent behind the Muppets - which again included longtime Muppets writer Jerry Juhl, executive producer/longtime Muppeteer Frank Oz, and son-of-founder/Carol helmer Brian Henson - was even content to return to 19th century British literature for their next big screen project. For this winter 1996 outing Muppet Treasure Island, the inspiration was, of course, Robert Louis Stevenson's swashbuckling adventure novel Treasure Island. Like the Charles Dickens story the Muppets had previously brought to life, Stevenson's tale had a history of sparking cinematic adaptation dating back to the silent era. This was not news to the Disney studio; in 1950, Walt Disney chose this book as the subject of his first entirely live action feature film. To date, Walt's version remains arguably the most well-known straightforward filming of the text.As was true of Christmas Carol, Muppet Treasure Island would remain quite faithful to its source, insisting against expectations that the free-wheeling comedy the Muppets were famous for could be perfectly married to a classic book and still please Muppet fans and casual moviegoers alike. What worked extremely well the first time around does not come across as solidly in Treasure Island. The film opens by creating atmosphere, one of the chief successes of Muppet Christmas Carol. In this initial environment, young, effeminate human protagonist Jim Hawkins (Kevin Bishop) and his two tiny friends (Gonzo and Rizzo, the storytellers of Carol serving a similar role though not with outright narration or camera-talking) wait upon the rowdy, tough-to-decipher local personalities of a tavern owned by the ultra-observant Mrs. Bluveridge (Jennifer Saunders of the BBC's popular comedy series "Absolutely Fabulous"). Among the patrons is Billy Bones (Billy Connolly), who regularly tells those in his midst of great treasure lying undiscovered. The arrival of Blind Pew, with a black dot (that is, a fear-instilling death sentence) for Bones, soon results in his death. But Bones does not die before bestowing young Master Hawkins with the all-important treasure map.Jim, Gonzo, and Rizzo set out for adventure and a ship. Their journeys quickly lead them to rich half-wit Squire Trelawney (Fozzie Bear) who believes there is a man living in his pointer finger quite worth listening to. As off-kilter as Trelawney may be, he does deliver the Hispaniola, a trustworthy vessel which comes with the respected Captain Smollett (Kermit), the suspicious cook Long John Silver (Tim Curry, in the prime human performance), and a large crew of misfits. Pirates, two-timing, a bundle of songs written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, and appearances by just about all of the major Muppets fill the screen for the remaining hour of the film. Muppet Treasure Island doesn't rank with the Muppets' finest film work, but that doesn't mean it is not a fun way to spend 100 minutes. Stevenson's sea-set story doesn't have the same timelessness as Dickens' holiday redemption tale, which makes it tougher to stay completely involved in the plot specifics. Compounding this ability to disengage is the fact that the atmosphere the film achieves is never nearly as compelling as that of The Muppet Christmas Carol, "The Muppet Show" theater, or the worlds created for the other original Muppet movies. Whereas the casting of Carol seemed to make utter sense at every appearance, the settings of Island results in forced character cameos and frequent dueling between the widely-adored Muppet personalities and the far less interesting characters they inhabit.All of these realities leave Treasure Island somewhat lacking as a whole, even though it is comprised predominantly by entertaining episodes. There are memorable songs ("Sailing for Adventure" and the wildly unrestrained "Cabin Fever" stand out, especially) and funny bits (like the Hispaniola crew roll call), but they just cannot fully mesh with a story in which the Muppets seem minimally invested as does the audience accordingly. That said, the real reason that Treasure Island feels like a letdown is because it is the Muppets. By 1996, they had built a 20-year-old record of comedic excellence upon witty wordplay and charismatic characters. What for another cast could have been praised as "good" and "pretty funny" can only be considered not up to the usual standards for the Muppets.The ways in which the movie succeeds are numerable, and they all primarily stem from the juxtaposition of the Muppets in their period world. When the furry personalities conquer the confines of the adaptation, the affair becomes lighter and certainly more interesting. There are some potent touches of random humor here, from the pirate who quietly resembles Marlon Brando and eventually does an On the Waterfront impression to the touristy group of rats (Rizzo's relatives) who mistake nighttime mutiny for dinner theatre and blissfully sing about margaritas. You could put the Muppets in the most dreary of settings and still come away with a few bright spots; you'd have to look no further than their underwhelming recent hip-hopped version of The Wizard of Oz for proof of that. Treasure Island is far from the gang at its worst, its disappointment comes chiefly from how much less enjoyable it is than the similar-cast-and-crew, similar formula of The Muppet Christmas Carol. Muppet Treasure Island came to DVD in June of 2002 (it was the subject of UltimateDisney.com's first DVD review, when we were still reduced to the lameness known as Angelfire). Though its format debut came among other live action films from Disney's catalogue that were typically treated to barebones and non-promoted discs, Island somehow enjoyed a DVD filled with some genuinely good bonus features and clever newly-filmed menus, but a pan-and-scan only presentation that seemed to betray the disc's other strong points. Thousands of Muppet fans called and/or e-mailed Disney to complain of the cropped treatment - and you can bet it was Muppet fans, as any other movie of this stature faced with a similar plight would likely have gotten overlooked - including director Brian Henson. But there was no type of Willy Wonka-"chalk one up for the little guy"-"that's the power of petition" announcement spurned from the complaints. Instead, three and a half years passed with the fullscreen-only disc on the market (having been reduced to a bargain bin price).This fall, with the Muppets' first two big screen outings now a part of the Disney empire (thanks to the Mouse's February 2004 purchase of The Muppets Holding Company), Disney has finally re-released this film and its similarly-cropped counterpart The Muppet Christmas Carol in widescreen, alongside its first offerings for The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper. The Kermit's 50th Anniversary Edition DVDs, as these new discs are called, have generally turned out to be less commemorative than you'd expect. But Carol retained most of its well-done previous features, does Treasure Island fare the same? 781b155fdc