Movie Details
Movie: Peter Pan & Wendy (2023)
Director: David Lowery
Cast: Alexander Molony, Ever Anderson, Jude Law
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure
Release date: 28 April 2023
Distributed by: Disney+
Adapted from: Peter Pan, Peter and Wendy
Cinematography: Bojan Bazelli
IMDB: 4.4/10
Language: English and French in Canada
Runtime: 1 Hour 49 Minutes
Trailer
Synopsis
I don’t like Peter Pan. I never liked him and the whole story seemed strange to me even as a child. In addition, I simply do not like the effort to milk this classic even though the audience is not interested in the way Hollywood would imagine. In the twenty-first century, both the traditional version of PJ Hogan starring Jason Isaacs and the prequel Pan starring Hugh Jackman flopped in theaters.
And the live adaptation of the classic animated Disney movie certainly doesn’t even try in theaters. On the other hand, I can have a clear conscience that I am writing this review as a “non-fan”. I honestly tried to show the film to my colleagues, but everyone in the editorial office has a somewhat similar relationship with JM Barrie’s hero. Well, there is no pleasant surprise this time either.
Peter Pan and Wendy revolves around a girl who is not quite a little girl anymore and somehow suspects that the days when she could fool around in the house with her brothers and fence with wooden swords are slowly coming to an end. He has to grow up. But she doesn’t want to, and the plans her parents have for her aren’t exactly exciting to her.
But one night everything changes, because Wendy and her brothers meet Peter Pan, a boy who never grew up, can fly, befriends the fairy Tinkerbell and takes the siblings to Neverland. Which is a pretty boring-looking coast with a couple of kids running around in weird costumes and Captain Hook’s pirate ship sailing by. Yeah, this movie – like all of Peter Pan in general – requires a lot of imagination.
Peter Pan & Wendy: But even if you plug everything you have at your disposal, it may not be enough. The story isn’t particularly revealing or particularly interesting. Peter Pan can indeed be analyzed as a story about childhood, its end, and perhaps even death, but we don’t need a goddamn number of adaptations for that.
In addition, David Lowery approached the narration in a relatively traditional way, and his entire film has a certain old-worldliness to it, which I don’t mean entirely as a positive. Peter Pan and Wendy never really managed to engage and draw me in, and it feels like a fairy tale told by someone very grown-up who thinks fairy tales should be. Of course, I could be wrong, although I just can’t imagine that this adventure with a one-armed pirate villain, a slightly hackneyed flying hero, and a bunch of screaming children could fundamentally appeal to children.
Peter Pan, as the unsuccessful adaptations of this century have already shown, is something that today has little to say and its traditionality leads to a certain fascination. Lowery is a good filmmaker who is not afraid of bold visions and a good director. He didn’t get much space for the first, or the second…
let’s just say that he tries to squeeze the most out of the little and his Peter Pan and Wendy can occasionally please with a nice shot and has nice music. But there aren’t really good actors in it, the daughter of Paul WS Anderson and Milly Jovovich Ever Anderson doesn’t seem completely convincing, and Jude Law’s Hook will remain in the shadow of his predecessors. And so the whole thing kind of flows from beginning to end, then it ends and you might think that it was pretty nice, but also damn boring and pointless.
I appreciate Lowery’s effort to update the story and adapt certain elements to appeal to twenty-first-century audiences. And I don’t have the slightest problem that there are girls among the Lost Boys, that Peter Pan looks a bit Indian or South American. Not even that there are heroes with a skin color other than white. The effort to update is completely functional here, it does not push forward at all costs and simply reflects the current world. Painless, non-aggressive, simple, and functional. In a way that can only offend viewers with a dull mind, minimal perspective, and zero empathy.
Play the trailer well, what’s the point when the result is an equally boring fairy-tale spectacle, which sometimes looks and sounds nice, but disappears from your head before the end credits end? Kinda a pointless movie. And Hollywood should let this stuff sit for quite a few years because I don’t know who and how they want to impress with it.
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