A tale about a fatherless boy finding dramatically different father figures throughout a remarkable adventure, Treasure Island is an entertaining coming-of-age story, with themes of family, loyalty, friendship, trust, and honesty at its core. While Robert Louis Stevenson's classic adventure tale is popular film fare, it's never been done this well. Charlton Heston stars as Long John Silver and Christian Bale as plucky Jim Hawkins in this TNT production. Directed by Heston's son Fraser (who also directed the excellent family fare Alaska), the film remains faithful to the novel, and draws much of the spirit and excitement of the book. The action scenes are first-rate, and if the ship Hispaniola has never looked better or more authentic, no surprise: the ship is the original from 1962's Mutiny on the Bounty. The opening scenes are dark and rich, as they capture the period well, with careful attention to makeup (the teeth, the body grime!) and costuming. Oliver Reed and Christopher Lee are frighteningly effective as Capt. Billy Bones and Blind Pew, and the film's first half-hour is theirs. The tone shifts and lightens when Heston appears as the legendary pirate. Look for Pete Postlethwaite, Julian Glover, and Richard Johnson in wonderful supporting roles. [+]

Fresh off their monumental success with King Kong, producer Merian Cooper and director Ernest Schoedsack teamed again on The Last Days of Pompeii, another big-scale offering with a special-effects emphasis. Nominally based on the Bulwer-Lytton book, the film invents a new storyline much in the spirit of the Cecil B. DeMille religioso-melodrama school. Preston Foster plays a pacifist blacksmith whose life is ruined by fate; he turns his fighting skills to the gladiatorial arena and raises a foster son. A cameo appearance by Jesus Christ affects the boy but not the man, and it all comes a-cropper years later when Mount Vesuvius gets restless outside Pompeii's city limits. Fond childhood memories of the volcano's eruption should be tempered by the fact that the effects (designed by Kong man Willis O'Brien) are limited to the final 20 minutes of the film, and that the preceding 75 minutes are a slow ride indeed. This film's creakiness makes you appreciate how good DeMille was at whipping up entertainment out of historical yarns. One definite bright spot: Basil Rathbone, bringing his equine deliberation to the role of Pontius Pilate. -Robert Horton.