Review of Treasure Planet (2002) by Reginald C — 01 Nov 2011

Another massive slap in the face to single mothers from Disney, Treasure Planet is about a young Padawan called Jim Lad who is so desperate for a father figure in his life that he bonds with the repugnant cybernetic alien pirate who burned his mother's house to the ground and would have murdered the pair of them if they hadn't escaped by riding off on the back of a giant chicken. Bonding with unsuitable father figures is one of the symptoms of chronic HADS - the big disease with a little name that ruined so many lives in the 1980s. HADS is Hollywood Absent Dad Syndrome.

And famous sufferers include Elliot from ET, whose mother was doing such a shit job of raising him by herself that he adopted a bulb headed alien freak as his father figure; John Connor, whose single mother was such a crap parent he adopted The Terminator as his dad; and more recently, James T Kirk from the new Star Trek, who adopted the space navy as his entire family. Other symptoms of HADS are: having a pudding basin or other irksome haircut, riding wheeled or other vehicles too fast in violation of traffic laws, beng naturally talented but resenting academic and other forms of discipline; and being a little bitch. Jim Lad is a textbook HADS sufferer: he has a little Jedi rat ponytail, he keeps getting busted by the space cops for going too fast on his flying surfboard, he is failing at school and he erupts in Kevin and Perry style teenage rants at his hapless mother about having to clean the dishes. He ends up on a flying galleon hunting for space treasure and suspects the ship'scook is the leader of the space pirate gang, but his yearning for masculine authority is so unquenchable he ends up mopping floors and tying knots under the boar faced, blade handed miscreant with sickening eagerness to please that was noticeably absent when he was asked to do THE EXACT SAME DOMESTIC CHORES FOR HIS MOTHER. Eventually something bad happens, someone dies and the tough guy teenage Anakin breaks down in tears, finally burying his head in the huge, stinking, piss stained barrel gut of the guy who murdered a space tortoise on his doorstep. Bear in mind this is a kids film aimed at parents with young children and the message is clear: Women, your children need a man around the house, no matter how shitty, or they will grow up all wrong. So go and bail Joe Bob out of custody, and if the sheriff says you're crazy just ignore him, and if he gives you five across the eyes every now and then just tell the kids you got the black eye from falling down the stairs and daddies meth is medicine for his bad back.