More yet than you go to find Treasure Island, Treasure Island comes to find you. The fatherless Jim is visited at the original book's beginning by figures in a confusing death pursuit who wrench him out of his bleak but quiet childhood. In this movie, Jim is not fatherless but his father is deep in the pursuit from the beginning; never was there any other way. Childhood is a lengthy phantasmagoria, and both the boy hero and the viewer may feel relieved to finally set sail with some kind of idea, however imperfect, as to who is who and as to what the objective is. This modernization is certainly no movie with which to introduce the tale to a youngster-- or to anyone else. You need a prior familiarity with the book, you need a tolerance for red herrings and ambiguity, and at least for the English-dubbed version you need to be willing to suffer dialogue that is not merely unrealistic but downright awkward. If you can get past all that, you can enjoy a combination of surrealism, allegory, and straight-faced B-movie absurdity that will have you shaking your head and wondering what gullible pockets ever supplied the budget.
