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Summer vacation means things like sleeping in, summer camp, swimming pools, bike rides, and fun family vacations. For most kids, it doesn’t mean battling real pirates while trying to find hidden treasure. But in TimeCrafters: The Treasure of Pirate’s Cove, that’s exactly how four kids spend their summer.
TimeCrafters joins four kids and four time-traveling pirates on a treasure-hunting adventure through a small coastal town. When Josh (Casey Simpson) and his friends discover an old treasure map on the beach, they’re excited to set out in search of buried gold. But they’re not alone. Four pirates, led by Mr. Pistol (Eric Balfour), wake up on the shore, unexpectedly transported through time. Despite showing up in an unfamiliar time and place—and being mistaken for drunken Renaissance Fair actors—they’re not about to let a group of kids beat them to the treasure.
As Josh and his three best friends race through Pirate’s Cove at all hours of the day and night, following the clues to the treasure, young viewers will enjoy following along on their modern-day swashbuckling adventure. The tone feels like a Disney Channel Original—only without the song-and-dance numbers. It’s silly and sometimes melodramatic, too, and the acting is often painfully over-the-top. But kids will get a laugh out of the goofy, bumbling grown-ups and the pirates’ silly fish-out-of-water antics as they overreact to camera flashes and become mesmerized by old movies.
The plot definitely has its share of holes, and it feels a little bit scattered. Throughout their adventure, the kids clash with the mayor’s spoiled son, Josh’s mom (Denise Richards) struggles to direct the local theater group’s Fourth of July play, and the mayor unveils his plan to ditch the town’s pirate theme and build a dinosaur theme park. And then there’s the time machine storyline, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if you think about it at all. It’s all random and haphazard—and, admittedly, older viewers might lose interest fairly early on. But kids will enjoy following these clever characters as they outsmart grown-ups and bullies and eighteenth-century pirates in their quest to follow the map to remarkable riches.
TimeCrafters: The Treasure of Pirate’s Cove isn’t a flashy summer blockbuster or a gripping thriller for kids—and it isn’t necessarily a movie that parents will love watching with their kids. It’s a hokey adventure with small-town laughs and pirate intrigue—but while it isn’t especially memorable, it’s a brainless film that will spark young viewers’ imaginations.
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