Treasure Island; Tyson; Being Muslim After 9/11

“Alever groans, a pipe judders and thunk: another unsolicited adaptation of a beloved literary classic is deposited on our screens. This particular emission is a six-part take on Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson’s timeless tale of swashbuckling adventure, high-seas treachery and thick eyebrowed youths in tiny britches wrestling with double-edged superpowers. The 19th-century novel has of course long captured the public imagination, its themes of … hang on. Superpowers? Aye, that there be. An’ plenty more bilge besides. For this US-UK co-production be what lubbers refer to as a “reimagining”. Which essentially means much effort has been made to “jazz up” – or, if you will, “ruin” – the source material. And so, for better or significantly worse, the Jim Hawkins (Tom Sweet) of this new Treasure Island, titivated by writer Robert Murphy, has been given a photographic and possibly quasi-mystical memory; a preternatural talent for recollection that is demonstrated in scenes of much whooshing excitement. Here we find the youngster scowling at various documents while the soundtrack whispers mysteriously and the camera zooms slowly in then quickly out of his face, like a bee too embarrassed to ask for directions to the toilet. Not that any of this makes him interesting, mind.”
Sarah Dempster, The Guardian

“This Treasure Island can seem a bit caught between two approaches, having one leg in the land of family-teatime drama and the other peg in something more like a grown-up period tale. Perhaps they should have gone the whole sea-hog and made this an 18-certificate piratical drama full of violence and menace. Still, it can be recommended alone for Oyelowo, electrifying every time he’s on screen. It’s his intimidatingly lyrical Caribbean accent (“I see you not born for the brine widow”) that really distinguishes things from the more than 50 versions of this story that have come before. In fact it’s quite possible that when the next Treasure Island comes round, he’ll be the only thing you remember about this one.”
James Jackson, The Times

“The script took a few liberties with the Robert Louis Stevenson original. Perhaps the biggest change — and rather a clever one — is that young Jim Hawkins is a teenage Mr Memory act. If there were an 18th-century version of Britain’s Got Talent, Simon Cowell would be putting on his ‘surprised’ face. The pub is run by his scheming and ambitious mother, Bess, played by Hayley Atwell, and is supposedly not a profitable concern. (Which is odd, because it seems to be packed every time the cameras visit). So to make money, she bets customers that Jim cannot perfectly recite a page from The Bible picked by one of them. It takes just one glance for him to be word-perfect. In the book, Mrs Hawkins stays at home while Jim goes off in search of treasure and adventure. In this version, she is the driving force. At times she reminded me of Victoria Beckham — both women have the glint of cold ambition in their eyes. Mrs Hawkins uses all the weapons available to an attractive widow. And it turns out that she’s pretty good with a pistol and sword, too. Treasure Island is action-packed and highly watchable. I really have only one serious complaint: when is the parrot going to get some lines?”
Roland White, Daily Mail

“Netflix’s new four-parter on Mike Tyson is one of the strangest sports documentaries it has ever released, or maybe just one of its strangest documentaries full stop. The streamer has form in sporting hagiographies – tales told with questionable distance from their subjects, and all the objectivity of cold war agitprop. Tyson is different, though: not only is it lopsided, but it also feels deeply icky. And that’s before Donald Trump arrives to defend its subject – a great catch for the programme-makers but a wholly baffling cameo that makes you wish he would stick with geopolitical meddling and golf. It ends – spoiler alert – with the former boxing champion taking the hallucinogenic drug DMT (or as he calls it, “the toad”, after the animal that produces it), while sobbing and inviting the show’s director to join him. Its episodes are peculiar, sometimes compelling, and – as many viewers will surely feel – truly irresponsible.”
Hannah J Davies, The Guardian

“Floyd Russ’s four-parter is, like many Netflix documentaries, far too long, but it feeds off Tyson’s volatility. In extended interviews, he is by turns cripplingly honest, suddenly reticent, shamed, self-loathing and brazenly egotistical, but frame by frame you simply don’t know which one is coming next. It means that an otherwise familiar narrative arc – the fights, the feuds, the fall, the redemption – retains tension throughout. You cannot stop watching this man, just as you couldn’t when he was in the ring.”
Benji Wilson, Telegraph

“In 2024, the journalist Mobeen Azhar made a documentary called Small Town, Big Riot that ought to have been highly influential, but, in our atomised modern media landscape, wasn’t. He deconstructed how anti-immigrant racists, radicalised by online propaganda, lies and hearsay, end up on the streets perpetrating shocking violence and rioting against a largely imaginary foe. Azhar’s new film tackles a wider, thornier problem and is less satisfying as a result. But in his willingness to debate hard topics – even if it means hearing difficult arguments, some of which are aimed at him personally – he is still provoking thoughts and airing views that better-known journalists would never go near.”
Jack Seale, The Guardian