BEFORE: I was smart yesterday to post my review of "Disenchanted" before going to work, it turned out to be the big premiere of "Boy Kills World" at the theater, and there was nearly a full house, with a red carpet and some stars from the film there - Bill Skarsgard, Famke Janssen and Brett Gelman. Lots of snacks, too, but I was there late for the clean-up, since there was popcorn and soda bottles all over the big theater. But I don't mind staying late, more hours for me, even if all my co-workers bail early to catch trains out of town, I'm there for the duration and I have keys to lock up. I'm going to try to grab as many shifts as I can so I can take that week off after Mother's Day and not really feel it in the old wallet.
Alan Tudyk carries over from "Disenchanted".
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Peter Pan" (2003) (Movie #2,615)
THE PLOT: Peter Pan, a boy who does not want to grow up, recruits three siblings in London and together they embark on a magical adventure on the enchanted island of Neverland.
AFTER: Disney Studios, of course, has been on an absolute tear to re-make every single one of their classic animated films from the 1940's and 1950's, up through the 80's ("Aladdin" and "The Little Mermaid") as live-action films, really live-action with a lot of animation and effects in them, and honestly, I've just never seen the point, other than it doubles the output of the studio, and saves on the costs of writing new stories or stealing from different source material. It's a copyright dodge, I'm sure of it, because the company can claim that since they made a version of "Peter Pan" in the 1950's, then they have the right to make a reboot of the same story without having to go back to the Barrie estate and re-license the rights to "Peter Pan".
But for all their efforts, the only good reboots they've made in the last few years are the updated "Aladdin" and "Lion King". I thought the new "Little Mermaid" was only fair at best, and that new version of "Pinocchio", geez, what a real stinker. Not even America's favorite nutty uncle Tom Hanks could make it entertaining, it was awful across the board. But still, they're persisting, they're down to "Peter Pan" now, and really, it is worth all the effort, just to have a new version of the same old story? No, it most definitely is not.
Look, certain things worked in the 1950's that just aren't going to work today. If they continue and re-make "Snow White" as a live-action film full of effects, they'd better hire real little people or they're going to hear about it for sure - Peter Dinklage will lead the charge and there will be lawsuits if they cast regular-sized actors as the dwarves. I still don't know how Peter Jackson managed to cast famous regular-sized actors as hobbits and dwarves in "The Lord of the Rings" and somehow he skated, I guess because those movies were so effin' great. If they had, the next thing you know there would have been lawsuits from people who identiy as orcs and evil wizards about how they were portrayed in those films. JK.
The "Peter Pan" story has a big problem, in that the villain is missing a hand and has a giant hook where his hand used to be. OK, so disabled or differently-abled people are evil pirates, is that what we're saying? Then the 1953 animated feature also had a whole subtext about Captain Hook being a stand-in for Wendy's father, this stems from the original plays where the same actor was cast as both Mr. Darling AND Captain Hook, maybe originally it was done to save money, I mean Mr. Darling doesn't appear after Act I, so that actor can just throw on a pirate hat and a big fake mustache and now he can play both roles. BUT that gave a whole Freudian subtext to the whole deal, like Wendy sees her father as a controlling, dominating figure who is so over-protective he won't let any irresponsible boys come near her, and he'd rather she walk the plank and drown than to be caught fooling around with boys. Oh, it's there.
I won't even get into how the stage play version got turned into a musical in the 1950's, and Peter's songs were written for an alto voice, which meant that a short-haired woman usually ended up playing Peter Pan, and thus it was also easier to have a small pixie-like woman flying around the stage on ropes, instead of a man, since men tend to be bigger and burlier, it all kind of worked - but then by casting a woman in a boy's role they opened up a larger can of worms regarding gender roles, and isn't a boyish woman very close in many respects to an effeminate young man? Wait a minute...that's the sound of people's minds being blown in the 1950's. We'd better throw in a hyper-sexualized Marilyn Monroe-style Tinkerbell character so everyone can at least tell the genders apart.
So now here comes the 2023 update with "Peter Pan & Wendy", and notice how the female lead ALMOST gets top billing with the male lead, because we've got to strive for equality now. But let's make sure that Peter Pan gets played by a boy and is clearly identifiable as male, because some people out there in America lose their minds as soon as they can't tell what gender somebody is, or if they're one gender and they identify as the other, well, forget about it. OK, Peter's a boy, now we just have to throw some girls into the cast as part of the "Lost Boys" tribe, but they'll clearly be identifiable as girls, and then we can at least say the film is closer to equal representation by gender. Boost up the part of the Native American girl, and make sure she can speak the Cree language, just to be on the safe side.
That just leave the evil pirate who's missing a hand, we need to find a way to make him more sympathetic. So they added a subplot about Captain Hook being one of the Lost Boys himself, only he and Peter had a falling out and Hook started a band of pirates, also he started to age again. Hmm, OK, but that still doesn't turn him into a villain, are we putting that on Peter or on the large crocodile that ate his hand? Try to remember, he's the victim here, so umm, wait, who's the villain here then? They also added something of a back-story for Peter, he was a real boy in the real London and he used to live in the house where the Darlings live now, only he can't go back to his real parents even if he wanted to, because they must be dead by now, he spent too much time in Neverland I guess.
But some of the Lost Boys DO want to return home to London, which is going to cause a problem for the Darling family. What happens if they can't be reunited with their old families, for the same reason or a different one? Do the Darlings have 18 new mouths to feed, or will they all be sent to orphanages or foster homes?
What this film DID keep from the original plays was the focus on Wendy, how this trip to Neverland is really HER journey, it symbolizes the time just before she's ready to leave her parents home and travel to school, become a young woman out in the world, and all that entails. Peter may be her first love, but he's unreliable and won't grow up - hmm, does this sound like somebody that every woman knows? Yeah, the first time you fall in love it could very well be with someone who doesn't take the relationship as seriously as you do, so he'll be involved with his sword-fighting or his schoolwork or his cars or his stamp collection, and he's not going to give the woman who cares for him the attention she wants, and this will be a limited time offer that he'll probably miss out on, and maybe after a few more relationships he may smarten up, or maybe not. But SHE will, she'll seek out somebody in the future who cares about her in all the ways that "Peter Pan" didn't, and they'll both be better off.
Right, but the only problem here is that they cast an actress to play Wendy who seems unable to express happiness or joy in any way - she's got a look of constantly being concerned about something, or maybe it's "resting crying face". Even when she's flying, which you're only supposed to be able to do when you think happy thoughts, she still doesn't look happy. Also, NITPICK POINT here, which is it that makes the Darling kids able to fly, is it happy thoughts or is it pixie dust? Pick a lane here and stick with it, unless for some reason it's the unlikely combination of both thoughts and dust, I'm just asking for a little consistency though.
Also, really, there's a lot that DOESN'T happen in this movie. It's 109 minutes long and there are really just TWO action scenes where the kids fight with the pirates, and really except for the flying ship, the scenes are very similar, a lot like one pirate battle twice instead of two different pirate battles. Captain Hook wants to drown the two boys in the first part and make Wendy walk the plank in the second part, but that's just variations on the same theme, isn't it?
Also what was the deal with Tiger Lily, anyway? Where does she even fit into this story, and if she doesn't fit, then why is she here? Oh, right, the Native American thing. Well, we also got a Tinkerbell of color, so I guess there's that, but at this point, why bother? Are we just filling quotas or something or is Disney trying to qualify for a grant? This magical adventure left me wondering if the trip was even necessary in the first place. There's just nothing here that we didn't see in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, except this has more kids in it.
NITPICK POINT #2: I never understood the whole "2nd star to the right, and straight on until morning" thing. To the right of what? The sky is filled with stars, where do I start if I'm going to count up to two? And there's no "right" in space, because you could be upside-down and right would then be left, so this direction just isn't helpful at all if you're trying to get to Neverland.
Also starring Alexander Molony (last heard in "The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales"), Ever Anderson (last seen in "Black Widow"), Jude Law (last seen in "Side Effects"), Alyssa Wapanatahk, Jim Gaffigan (last heard in "Hotel Transylvania 4: Transformania"), Joshua Pickering, Jacobi Jupe, Molly Parker (last seen in "1922"), Yara Shahidi (last seen in "All In: The Fight for Democracy"), Florence Bensberg, Sebastian Billingsley-Rodriguez, Noah Matthews Matofsky, Caelan Edie, Skyler Yates, Kelsey Yates, Diana Tsoy, Felix De Sousa, John DeSantis (last seen in "Seventh Son"), Garfield Wilson (last seen in "Coffee & Kareem"), Ian Tracey (last seen in "A Score to Settle"), Mark Acheson (last seen in "She's the Man"), Jesse James Pierce, Cassie Van Wolde, Deborah Ramsey, Paloma Nuñez (last seen in "Shazam!"), Paul Cheng (last seen in "Game Over, Man!"), Mike Ching (last seen in "Nacho Libre"), Kevan Cameron, Todd Allen Johnson (last seen in "Deadpool 2").
RATING: 4 out of 10 sea shanties that almost rhyme but don't
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