One of the best parts of this movie is somewhere near the middle of the climactic battle. Peter Pan and Hook are flying around the ship taunting and swiping at one another, and Pan's pretty much gotten the better of Hook, having just thrown him up against a sail. Then this starts:
Hook: "I know who you are!"
Peter (laughing, grinning, taunting, and being the typical Peter Pan): "Yep! I'm the best there is!"
Hook: "No -- you're a tragedy!"
And the great thing?
1) Hook is right.
2) Peter knows it.
Dark, complex, and surprisingly meaningful
I loved this film. First off, all the lead actors are excellent. They're believable, they've got incredible chemistry, and they make a semi-absurd story WORK. There's no camp or inauthenticity. They strike a pretty serious, semi-humorous tone, and they carry it through with perfect believability. This is no Dungeons and Dragons.
It helps that this Neverland is now a dark and menacing place. Shadowed jungles, midnight seas, evil mermaids...you name it. When people are in danger, they're in danger. You can get killed and die horribly -- not in a fun cartoony way, but damnedly forever and for real. You'd better know what you're doing, and you'd better have all your wits, caution, and courage about you. It's the first time I could truly appreciate Peter Pan's skill and survival. (Really -- why have a hideout if you don't have to really worry about hiding from anything?)
It also helps that Hook has glorious Satanic menace to him. He's intelligent, he's charismatic, and he's got no compunction against murder.
But what made this movie for me is the fact that Peter is conscious. Sure -- 99.5% of the time he's full of bravado and fun. But if he's about to die, he knows it; if he's hurt by Wendy's leaving, he knows it; if his whole view of the world is collapsing, he knows it. This isn't the animated Disney version, where he's an oblivious, mocking sprite the entire time. If something serious is happening, he gets serious.
I don't know if this is what the book is like. I really don't care. I LIKE this version of Peter Pan -- a boy who glimpses the greater complexity of adulthood, and rejects it. I'm glad Hook is NOT right in his initial view of Peter. I'm glad there's the whole sequence where Hook becomes surprised that Peter might actually be able to love. I like the fact that Peter is vulnerable, not an inhuman, godlike, imperturbably grinning being.
It's not overdone, and it's not melodramatic. (He's 99.5% bravado and fun, after all). But it's the .5% that makes all the difference in the world, between a free-frolicking animated Disney mess, and the quite serious and wonderful film that Hogan has made. We don't get blank, carefree incomprehension on Peter's part. He sees and chooses of his own free will.
Wendy is excellent as well. For the first time, I understood the weight of the "growing up" tension in the story. It isn't loneliness for home that ultimately pulls her back. It's the realization that beyond the childhood feelings of laughter, capricious fun, anger, and danger, there's something deeper and fuller and grander.
Sure -- the movie isn't perfect. There are some rather forced jokes and lines thrown in. I didn't care for some of the minor character acting. It's clunky at the start and drags at the very end, and the music is soaring and distracting in several inopportune places. But given the amazing number of things that could have gone wrong and didn't, I'm not complaining. The depth, buildup, and consistency of the characterization works. I greatly enjoyed it, and consider it one of this week's better-wasted 2 ½ hours.
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