Treasure Island (Tuonti)

Steve Barron gets the excitement, danger, and intrigue of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island nailed down with this two-part miniseries, which originally aired in the UK and, later, showed on the Syfy Channel in the States. It's certainly a fresh, updated look at the source: commanded by Eddie Izzard as Long John Silver, this story of mutiny aboard the Hispaniola presents itself with a vivacious visual demeanor, steady performances, and enough inventiveness to distinguish itself from the countless other book-to-screen versions of Treasure Island out there. While it's focused on intrigue and thrills, it misses the boat in terms of creating a convincing coming-of-age yarn around Jim Hawkins, and ultimately the story arrives as an unusual immersion-breaking conclusion that plays fast and loose with the audience's perception of the characters' attitudes. Vivendi's Blu-ray looks and sounds just right, though, which will make this pirates' adventure worthy of a Rental .

I know it doesn’t completely fill the bill as a pirate film, but ever since I saw The Goonies up on the big screen I became obsessed with all things pirate related.  Even one of the first books I read as a child was the Robert Louis Stevenson classic Treasure Island .  The bad part with being an 80’s kid was growing up in an era where pirate films simply were hard to come by, and when they did they weren’t very good; I’m looking at you Cutthroat Island . I think most of us can agree it wasn’t until Pirates of the Caribbean came along that we pirate fans finally got the movie we had been waiting a long time for.