‘Swiss Family’ Marooned by Violence, Story

“The New Swiss Family Robinson” may be new, but this shoot-’em-up travesty is no improvement on the original. That it premieres Sunday under the aegis of ABC’s “The Wonderful World of Disney” is perplexing at best.

In this violence-filled distortion of Johann David Wyss’ classic novel, Jane Seymour and James Keach haplessly play parents sailing with three offspring from Singapore to Sydney, unaware that supposed friend Sheldon (an inch-deep turn by David Carradine) has smuggled treasure on their boat and is planning a hijack.

Shipwrecked by Sheldon and his heavily armed band of thugs, the family washes up on a tropical island paradise, where the pirates temporarily give up their pursuit. Not until, however, there is a blazing gunfight and gratuitously graphic, bloody scenes of a croc trying to chow down on a bad guy’s head, then mangling Sheldon’s leg.

The sunken boat outfits the family like well-groomed Hawaiian tourists--Mom’s big emotional responses come when her hairbrush and toothbrush show up. Plentiful food is effortlessly at hand and all Dad needs to do for housing is draw sketches. The Disney-ish real thing appears in the next scene.

Written and directed by Stewart Raffill, this misguided misadventure offers little sense of the castaways’ effort and ingenuity that sparked the original story. That means time for more pirate attacks and gunfire, however.

And, hasty romance: Teenage son Shane, played by John Mallory Asher as a crass, airhead surfer, discovers and falls for a teenage girl who survived a French airplane crash years earlier. Francoise (Yumi Iwama), who lives with an orangutan, exhibits her genetic fashion sense with her perfect, feather-trimmed coiffure, and a hand-sewn, off-the-shoulder, mini-skirted ensemble.

Further comic relief is provided by inane dialogue.

Dad to seasick Mom, throwing up in a bucket: “Are you OK?” Mom to Shane, distraught because Francoise can’t be found: “Are you OK?” Dad to Shane, who’s lying bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound: “Are you OK?”

* “The New Swiss Family Robinson,” ABC, Sunday, 7 p.m. The network has rated this TV-PGV, which recommends parental guidance for younger children; contains violent images that some parents might find objectionable.