Review: Treasure Island Kids: The Battle of Treasure Island – Schateiland 1 – De Slag om Schateiland (2004)

Directed by: Gavin Scott | 101 minutes | adventure | Actors: Beth Allen, Frank Brown, John Callen, Jack Hurst, Joseph Moore, Adele Pascoe, Randy Quaid, Sasha Tilley, Nicko Vella, Devon Wood

The movie ‘Treasure Island Kids: The Battle of Treasure Island’ is inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s book ‘Treasure Island’, but is a little less thrilling than the famous example, just a little bit. The beginning is still nice in a London harbor in the year 1780. There is talk of an old treasure map and a hidden gold treasure of mythical size. Then we see a beautiful mansion in the modern age where men dressed as pirates raid to retrieve a mysterious box containing the infamous treasure map from the fireplace and finally we see the arrival of a group of reluctant adolescents on ‘Treasure Island ‘. A bit confusing, but okay.

The story that follows this nice beginning is quite chaotic and is a series of incidents, so trying to tell what the film is actually about is far from easy. There is an island where a huge gold treasure is buried and a descendant of the infamous pirate Flint who tries to find and usurp his ancestor’s treasure. However, the island is in the hands of two old people who, with the help of their niece, try to avoid losing the island through debt. The old man has spent years trying in vain to find the gold treasure, and their niece’s last rescue attempt is to start a holiday resort for children. Their hopes seem to be dashed when it turns out that the children are not in the mood for anything except to go home as soon as possible.

The best part is not wanting to delve too much into things like the old man’s inventions, which have no clear purpose in the film other than just being there, nor the adolescent suffering that is important now and then not and nor in the fact that the parents can see everything that happens on the island via webcams, because the relevance of that…. Well, if you let everything come over you a little bit, the film is great as a background for a children’s party where it doesn’t matter when you watch or not, because you can’t lose the storyline anyway because of the complete lack of it and the game. is so flat that even very young children can easily replay the roles as a festive part.