simnia-1 I'm a huge fan of the original book series so I was very enthusiastic about seeing this movie, which I finally saw in the form of an English-dubbed version online. Even as a kid in the 1960s I fervently wished these books would be made into movies, and I finally got my wish, though I had to wait over four decades to that to happen. To summarize my impressions of this movie, I thought it was fairly good, but throughout I kept wondering when specific scenes and events would happen, but they never did, although some of the details were quite accurate. The plot is so different from the original book's plot that it was difficult for me to enjoy the story. After all, a plot is the essence of any story, so to alter the entire foundation of a very popular book is to invite failure, which in fact seems to be what resulted, since the filmmakers didn't even recoup their investment yet, from what I read, and old fans are generally coming away disappointed.Some of the more memorable events for me in the original book were the skull talking to the boys in the cave, the boy Chris Markos being trapped in an underwater cave by a freak accident, finding gold doubloons hidden in a blow hole, Jupiter catching a cold, Pete waking up and not recognizing right away where he was, crowds of treasure hunters flocking to the island, and Tom and Chris and the Ballingers fighting at the end over the various frames to cover up an old hold-up. None of that existed in the film.In the book plot, a film was being made on the island, and the boys were invited there by Alfred Hitchcock to be filmed while scuba diving, but in the movie, an amusement park was being built on the island, and the boys were there by invitation by Mr. Crenshaw, Pete's father. In the movie the setting was changed from the southeast coast ("Atlantic Bay") of the USA to South Africa, and the Greek boy Chris was replaced by an African girl Chris. There were no underwater scenes at all, to my disappointment. The movie climax involved a hang gliding chase where Victor Hugenay uncharacteristically tries to kill the boys chasing him. African racial issues were also fairly prominent in the movie, such as it being dangerous for white boys to enter a black township, which was a little too much realism that killed the innocent and charming character of the book series, for my taste.However, I believe the filmmakers expertly meshed the different world of the 1960s with the world of the 2000s by not introducing too much high tech equipment, they kept foul language toned down to innocent levels, and they thankfully avoided any flatulence humor. They also kept the essential sense of adventure intact with the presence of a large uninhabited island that contained caves, both of which are guaranteed to fire any boy's imagination. The youthful romance was kept innocent, as well.The details that were kept fairly accurate were the Jones Salvage Yard and the secret gate to headquarters and headquarters itself (though it contained a modern plastic chair), the Investigators' business card (though it contained the acronym "T3I" that wasn't in the book), Jupiter's pensive gesture (though that consisted of fingers under his mouth instead of pinching his lip), all of which were delightful to see. The film character of Jupiter was appropriately cool-headed, formal, and intellectual to be convincing to me, though not chubby as in the book. The ages of the boys in the film seemed a little young to me, but still quite convincing since if they were any closer to puberty they would have had a different view of the world, likely a different set of interests, and people in general would react to them differently.Miscellaneous observations... The romantic angle was interesting since such an angle was never present in any of the books. Even boys of ten would be starting to become interested in girls, so that was realistic enough for my taste, even if not true to the books. As others noted, the theme music had a James Bond theme sound due to its half-step melodic sections, which I thought fit well since it related to action and investigation without being too much of a ripoff of Bond film music. The references to presumably upcoming adventures (a stuttering parrot in the salvage yard, Jupiter calculating jelly bean volumes, and Jupiter mentioning a haunted castle) were all delightful. I'm a little disappointed that whiz kid Jupiter would erroneously assume that Gamba was the entity being confined to Miss Wilbur's room, a risky assumption I detected right away. The itching powder gun was very cool but unrealistic in several ways. At least the plot's twists and deceptions of the characters were true to Robert Arthur's style, which was true to the style of the old books.I'm enough of a fan to keep watching upcoming Three Investigator movies, no matter how bad they become, but sadly, after four decades, I *still* find myself wanting to see the books converted to film *accurately*, not like this.

atc1980 i just saw the English edition. i was greatly disappointed! the book series was based on the honesty and credibility of young teens from the 80's. the movie has taken so many creative liberties it hurts! Jupiter Jones is supposed to be super smart, a little heavy, and the leader. to make matters worse Jupiter is aggressive when dealing with adults, in the books he is polite and considerate. in the movie he is just a quiet boy that may or may not lead the team. the other 2 boys are worse! the movie starts with Mr. Crenshaw picking up the team from the airport, but the book has them kidnapped and marooned on an island. its not a theme park they are building its a movie they are making. in the book Chris is a boy, in the movie Chris is a girl. because they changed the sex of Chris they added in a romance between the 3 boys. in the books the boys were not old enough to care about girls. they even changed the missing treasure from lost golden doubloons to a silver crown.on the whole the movie is worth watching if you don't know the back story. if you have ever read the books you will be greatly disappointed in the movie. it is rated PG.

AccessCardRequired the film would have a US theatrical release - don't you think. Saw the film, loved the books as a kid, but please what what this all about? Nothing of the flick reminded me of the lovely books. The kids are too polished, too wise, too boring - that is not the acting, but the weak, weak script they had too suffer trhough. Why South Africa? I can tell you, cause it is cheap to shoot there, nothing else. The film was a major disappointment in Germany (box office). Generated some 900.000 viewers - tha'ts not enough to recoup the investment of nearly 10. Mill Euros in budget. No idea, why they made another one. Too sad, great promise, weak, very weak result.

abaris_amalia Just saw this one in a preview screening at the Hamburg Filmfest. As a long time fan of the early books and audio tapes which have been a great success here in Germany for decades, naturally I had certain expectations for this first movie version of a Three Investigators story. And by "certain" I mean, I already knew this was the first big international movie from Studio Hamburg (the production company) and so I could imagine the style to be quite a commercial as-mainstream-as-possible one. After all, it's a franchise product, isn't it? Well, I was not wrong.To all the fans: Don't expect an authentic Three Investigators movie. Okay, there are some nods to the old school fan community, but they're sparse and don't really go with the flow, and then that's about it. It's a decent movie for children (although not really appropriate for the very young ones, some scenes may be too frightening), and it still can be interesting for the parents or of kind of an academic interest to the usual grown-up fan, but there are too much points where the protagonists just don't behave like the original characters would have. Also they don't really look that much as how the characters are described in the books. Bob doesn't even wear glasses, for whatever reason...It's very obvious the movie is designed for this target audience notoriously called "kids". Not children, that is, but kids. It could have been worse of course, at least the boys don't wave mobile phones around, wear baggy pants and listen to hip hop via iPods (only once it starts to get too silly when they pull an itching powder blowgun with even a laser pointer mounted on top!). The makers fortunately chose to display a setting which is quite timeless in appearance. But then they try just too hard to please by putting in some die-hardish action scene, some james-bondish, some mission-impossiblish and some indiana-jonesish stuff and even - how misguided could they get - ROMANCE! While in the original story the three boys become friends with another boy, here this is changed to be a girl (a decision obviously led by marketing considerations). And the first comment one of the boys makes when they first see her, believe it or not, is something along the lines of "Wow, what a hot chick!" Though the boys are displayed as very young ones, as young as one could possibly imagine the characters from the most early books. When the original Three Investigators met girls, they dealt completely different with these encounters. They simply had no business with love interests back then, they were serious detectives only concerned to their mystery cases! It seems the writers of the screenplay had a merely superficial understanding about what made the Three Investigators special from the start - or they were pressed just too hard for prostitution.By the way, the story has almost nothing to do with the original book episode of the same name. Besides the three main characters there are only two other persons which also appear in the original story (Peter's father and Faraday). The actual villain even turns out to be one from completely different episodes. While the elements which make up the case are typical for TTI stories mostly, it all comes around just too forced, too artificial. At least for the fans, I guess. For everyone else the movie might be a nice family fun ride (the children in the audience laughed at all the moments where it was intended), but then nothing particularly special. The only thing that would make this movie stick out, namely it being a TTI adaptation, of all things is what doesn't work that well. But on the other hand, to make this work well might be an impossible enterprise, considering how hard core the fan community has become over the many years and how diverse and inconsistent the TTI universe has become anyway.We'll see how the producers will pull off the next installment, which they said is already underway...