tunanoonion This movie is awesome. Why have I only stumbled across it now? Was there no publicity back in 2002? So much better than the normal Hallmark product, which can be over sentimental and fanciful. It's an intelligent re-make of the Swiss Family Robinson's survival story, cleverly avoiding the clunky plot points of the 1960's John Mills film. Shot in Thailand (I think ) the film looks stunning. Beautiful sets, fabulous cast (including a young Jessie Spencer aka Robert Chase in House MD.) There's a reality about their evolution on the island and the magical encounter with a native fisherman. One of their sons Jacob is separated from them during the shipwreck and is adopted by Pirates. This cleverly provides the emotional drive the story needs to get to it's climax. Exciting, moving, rewarding, with excellent direction from Charles Beeson.....just great!

whpratt1 This is truly a great entertaining film from the very beginning of the picture to the very end. A man named Robinson is arrested and sentenced to prison, however, his wife wants to be with her husband and willing to take all her children on a sea voyage aboard a prisoner ship with other convicts. There is a large storm that develops out at sea and most of the crew vanish and cause the family to be split apart from each other. The story turns into a sort of Robinson Family story from the past, except there is more adventure with the children along and all starting to grow up and becoming detached from Mom and Pop. This is a great family picture with even pirates and men hungry for gold.

Scallie1011 Wonderful portrayal of the timeless classic, Swiss Family Robinson. A great film for all the family. It's exciting, moving, has wonderful photography and is excellently directed. Shipwrecked and separated from their youngest son, the Robinsons set about surviving on a deserted shore. Pirates and the inevitable return of their estranged son makes compulsive viewing. Congratulations Hallmark.

Cipher-J in which a family gets marooned on an island in paradise. The period is roughly 18th or 19th century, and dad gets convicted as a felon by the English court because, being a parson and a religious fanatic, he refuses to swear allegiance to the crown. As punishment, he is to be shipped off to a penal colony south of the equator, and his wife petitions the court to let her and the kids come along. A big storm wrecks the ship and the family ends up on an island, except for one of the sons, who ends up being raised by pirates. How the family survives, and eventually becomes reunited becomes the substance of the story, but there are problems. It's very slow moving. The lighting is unnecessarily poor in many critical scenes, as though striving for "realism," but mostly it's just rather annoying. Nor are the characters all that appealing. Attempts to introduce a few romantic moments mostly fall flat, and in the end, we are actually left to feel sorry for the bad guy!