Les naufragés de l'île aux pirates

My family and I borrowed this from the library a few months ago. And while I expected it to be good, it was quite frankly fantastic! It's a fun family pirate adventure.

The film begins with notorious - and supposedly "dead" - pirate Merrick murders an officer named Howell and stealing his identity.

In the meantime, a sailor who is unable to return to sea is facing losing his property over debt. His son Haakon volunteers to become a cabin boy in order to financially help his family. His ship winds up taking on an officer Howell - who is none other than Merrick in disguise - as first mate. He quietly poisons the captain, and then takes charge of the vessel, ruling it with an iron fist.

Haakon discovers an Australian girl named Mary on board. After she is discovered, Haakon is saved from a lashing by a sudden storm. The storm sinks the ship. I've forgotten many of the details, but Haakon washes up on an island - alone. He soon discovers that it's Merrick's own hideout, and that he'll be back at some point. He must prepare - while looking for an opportunity to escape.

It's a great family adventure, with very mild violence, no swearing (that I remember), no sex, etc. In other words, completely suitable for children. I found it quite delightful.

Another reviewer described the movie as being "not very memorable"... this couldn't be further from the truth! Despite not having watched the movie in a minimum of 15-20 years, I found myself constantly stunned by how vividly I remembered every scene, nearly to the point of reciting the lines.

As a kid, I was obsessed with this movie. It was everything I wanted in an adventure - the adventure I wished I could have: fleeing home to set sail on a voyage full of intrigue, curious ports-of-call, kind sailors, exotic tribes, murky pirates, mutiny, tropical exploration, surviving in a strange wilderness, buried treasure, ingenious traps and, overall, seeing the world and growing through it.

30 years since the first time seeing this movie, it is just as enjoyable and just as solid as it ever was. By the end, I was in tears, in no small part due to the relief that it is as good as I remember it being - that is: not just being overriden by childish sentimentality, but also because it is a well-crafted, well-acted, and well-composed piece of cinema.

The only "flaw" I could find is that I wish the film could have been longer. There are a couple of segments which could have done with being fleshed out, as they rather rush to the next element. Despite this, the film still manages to carry the weight of an epic and, by the end, you truly feel that you have been through a long and life-changing experience. It's a 90-minute movie that feels more like a 3 hour epic - and in the very best of ways!

If you have any fondness for adventure - especially the seagoing or global explorer kind, this will definitely be worth your time.

Shipwrecked is a tale about a young boy who finds his destiny and friends along the way. It is quite an interesting movie, very different and more thoughtful than most American movies. Stian Smestad does an excellent job as Hakon Hakonsen, and the actors who played Mary and Jens were wonderful also. This is a timeless classic with a good lesson in it. *** out of ****

Very cute, "lightly" based on the work of Robert Louis Stevenson, "The Treasure Island", despite being highly popular in the cinematographic world, the plot always attracts me, sea, shipwrecked, island (desert or not), cute and determined children, evil pirates, fun and adventure...

STORY: Haakon Haakonsen is a young boy which joins his older brother, Jens, on a ship with a mostly foreign crew. As the youngest and most unexperienced member of the crew, Haakons gets a really hard time from the others. But he learns fast, and builds up respect from some of the crew over time. Then one day the ship gets hit by a huge storm, and gets wrecked. Haakon Haakonsen wakes up at an island alone. He now stands in front of many challenges, and gets to use the moral, and the skills he have built up inside of him. He also meets some of the crew-members again, and gets to learn that they don't earn all the respect they had on the ship at all. Haakon now stands in front of the challenge of survival, and then to get off the island..

INFORMATION/RATING: The story's time-line I believe is somewhere in the late 1800's or early 1900, as the ship they work on is a Caravel type of ship, among with other time-like indicators.

This is a movie is a good and typical adventure-movie, which contains moral-like characters, and cynic pirate-like characters. Of course, there is a treasure too:) The story in "Shipwrecked" is a lot like "Mutiny on the Bounty", "Robinson Crusoe", so if you like movies/stories like these, you will very probably enjoy this too! "Shipwrecked" is from 1990, and it's a Norwegian-produced movie, so you cannot expect the hugest Hollywood-effects in it, but i think this could be a positive factor too. Still I believe that this is a indicator to the "User Rating" of the movie. Many watchers forget this when they watch movies. My point is; If "Shipwrecked" was made today, with the same story, I believe the user-rating would be up at 7.0 - 7.5 and maybe even higher. As I use to tell my friends: You need to know what you are watching, if not the watch is being watched:) If you are critically focused when you watch this movie, I'm sure you will find a lot of errors and goofs, but if you watch it with clean sheets I'm sure you'll love it. When I take the production year- and production country in mind, i give this movie: 8 of 10