Barrie, is among the finest examples of the House of the Mouse’s character art and production design. There’s no charm to the atmosphere of this film, let alone Neverland itself.ĭespite its flaws, 1953’s Peter Pan, adapted from the original books by J.M. Unlike the lushness of Lowery’s last movie, The Green Knight, where color was almost a character itself, Peter Pan & Wendy is drab and depressing.

Nothing feels magical about the magical world of Neverland. In fact, she and Peter only spend about 4 minutes interacting with one another on screen, and most of it contentiously. Lowery removes the actual adventures from the original story yet later asks us to believe that Wendy is going to fondly look back on her time spent on Neverland once she leaves. There are no games, no follow-the-leader, no ceremonial festivities with the Piccanniny tribe, and not even a single mermaid. Heavily inspired by the 1953 Disney movie, Peter Pan & Wendy does away with the unforgettable experiences Wendy and her brothers have in Neverland with the Lost Boys. And once we arrive in Neverland, nothing really changes. Lowery never plays with our expectations to get us leaning forward in our chairs, wondering what’s going to happen next. There’s nothing new enough or intriguing from a story standpoint to set the tension into motion early on. Wendy (Ever Anderson) – who, this time around, is unhappy as she’s preparing to leave for boarding school the next day – and her two brothers are taken by Peter Pan (Alexander Molony) and Tinker Bell (Yara Shahidi) to a far-off world called Neverland, where they must face the wrath of a child-hating Captain Hook (Jude Law).Īnd so, we begin with a sense of redundancy, like we’re watching a less-colorful carbon copy of a better movie we’re well familiar with. The first 30 minutes plays out in the same basic fashion as the 1953 original, albeit with some visual flair (the movie’s sole example of such). Peter Pan & Wendy is none of those things.

While not nearly as good as its progenitor, Pete’s Dragon still had a succinct vision and was even inviting – not to mention, it was a really good kid’s movie. But that was from a decidedly different Disney company than the one that’s been bearing down on us the past few years. In fact, he helmed 2016’s Pete’s Dragon (based on the 1977 live-action / animated original).

Pete's dragon 1977 school bell