In Neverland, the pirates are waiting for spring while idling on board a massive ship encrusted by snow and ice. Still, it’s hard not to recall Mary Martin’s “I’m Flying” during this sequence. Recovering his errant shadow, Peter (Jeremy Sumpter) in short order convinces Wendy to fly off with him to Neverland for endless adventure and freedom from responsibilities, a decision she makes just after her parents (Jason Isaacs and Olivia Williams) and spinster Aunt Millicent (a freshly coined character vigorously played by Lynn Redgrave) inform her that it’s time she grew up.Īfter quickly teaching the three Darling sprigs to fly, courtesy of fairy dust from the endlessly prankish Tink (Ludivine Sagnier, this year’s French bombshell from “Swimming Pool”), Peter leads the kids on an outer space spin through a dizzyingly brilliant solar system seemingly composed of dozens of planets. In the warmly inviting nursery of the Darling family townhouse in Edwardian Bloomsbury, 12-year-old Wendy (Rachel Hurd-Wood) regales her younger brothers John (Harry Newell) and Michael (Freddie Popplewell) with tales of Peter Pan and the pirates while the real boy lurks about outside the window. Given the characters’ ages and extreme attractiveness, this is quite plausible, but it is also vaguely unsettling given its complete absence from previous versions, and undeniably brings a new component to the debate over whether or not to remain a child. Although the film walks a very fine line with it, an undeniable cusp-of-adolescence romantic/sexual subcurrent courses through the Peter-Wendy relationship. A literary quality informs the narration and flow of events that may create a restlessness in the troops from time to time, although spectacular action and effects come to the rescue with such regularity that the sweep of the story will pull along most viewers, young and old.įor grown-ups, there is also the fresh spectacle of witnessing Peter Pan played by a boy. Hogan, working from a script first penned by Michael Goldenberg (“Contact”), has leaned more toward fidelity to his literary sources than to pandering to the presumed dumbed-down tastes of the contempo kiddy audience. To his credit, and with a measure of seriousness not present in his popular comedies “Muriel’s Wedding” and “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” director-co-writer P.J.
For completists, the 1924 silent film of the story still exists as well.
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Many baby boomer parents have no doubt shown their kids the breezy 1953 Disney animated feature, not to mention videos of that generation’s most cherished version, the TV special of the musical starring Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard. The past 20 years have served up the dreadful but successful “Hook,” as well as years of touring legit productions of the delightful musical starring Cathy Rigby and others who have kept the franchise name alive for fresh generations. Co-producer Lucy Fisher two decades ago acquired the rights to the Barrie “Pan” properties, which include not only the 1904 play but the eventual novel, “Peter and Wendy,” published seven years later.