The Three Investigators and The Secret Of Skeleton Island (2008)

Best movie ever!

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This movie filmed in 2007 in Cape Town,Western Cape, South Africa.It involves 3 boys around 13 years old who like to solve mysteries. Jupiter, Pete and Bob. Jupiter the leader explains his 2 parents died mysteriously and so that is why he looks for answers to solve a mystery. The boys have a meeting place in a salvage junkyard in an underground like tunnel.Pete's father works in another country and buys 3 airplane tickets for the boys to visit him. The boys have their investigative backpacks along with their clothes.They land on Skeleton Island and Pete's father knows a rich lady that owns property. It is said that there is a very valuable crown buried in the caves on Skeleton Island. The boys and the lady with her employee like guards take a trip to the caves. There is a black African man that is near the caves the woman wants to enter. She claims she owns the land and wants him off her property. He tells her his ancestors are buried there.His name is Gamba and has a daughter named Chris who is as old as the boys. Gamba gets arrested because of the lady and Chris is scared for him and wants the boys to help her father.The 3 investigators act very professional but at times scared to death. They are driven around town, to the caves, to the water etc by Bill who is not who he pretends to be.There are clues about where the crown is. In the movie a rich white man falls in love with a black woman who I believe was an African woman many years ago and they had relatives from their relationship. He bought the crown for her. The man in the picture that bought the crown is Sir Horatio Wilbur. There are hints written in back of the picture picture that was cut in half him on one side and his love on the other. The mystery is around this couple. The boys use the picture as a clue and enter the cave. What they find is very dangerous and tender.The movie has beautiful and colorful scenery with mountains and caves and there are boats on the sea. The music is so good too. Lots of adventure,danger, suspense and very tense at times and a little humor. Surprise action like flying on parachutes, caves collapsing and more.Good movie to watch. Watch free on Youtube. A green message opens on the left side telling you to visit their site. Put your cursor over the right top a X with a black circle around it appears & it will close that message and the movie starts. The Three Investigators and the Secret of Skeleton Island about 1hr 30 mins. long. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEChSlyo34g

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.

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.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to watch 'The Secret of Skeleton Island'. To keep it simple: I liked the movie. Nonetheless, the movie is obviously made for a family audience, kids, younger teens. As Wikipedia says 'The Three Investigators' are a juvenile detective book series, good mystery books for kids/teens. The movie tries to be the same. In my opinion they succeed even though the changes are more than obvious. 'The Secret of Skeleton Island' as a book is up to 5 percent in the movie. 95 percent are modernized, relocated etc. For those you know and love the books (or tapes): you will not be bored because you don't know the story. The question is: is it a good thing? What was changed? The movie has plenty of humor. It is funny, yes, but do we want to remember 'Home Alone' by seeing 'The Secret of Skeleton Island'? Bob seems to know more than Jupiter. That is odd. The investigators are younger than expected. Yet, filming several movies will let them grow into it. The location of the movie is South Africa. Quiet interesting. It enriches the movie. The 4th kid is a girl. That's OK if you forget the puberty scenes. What was good about it? As I already said. South Africa was a good choice even if the topic eventually comes to the different races. Jupiter appears to be a little Sherlock Holmes (just a little bit) and mentally grown-up. I liked the popping up of hints. Hints towards other cases, e.g. 'The Stuttering Parrot' or 'Terror Castle'. From the beginning of the movie you have the impression of other movies: - James Bond (music, starting scene), - Indiana Jones (cave). The only thing I still can't answer myself: are the changes good and do I want it similar in 'Terror Castle' or more like the book?