Peter Pan & Wendy review: Disney+ remake lacks pixie dust
David Lowery's update of J.M. Barrie's story and Disney's animated classic adds diversity but never takes flight
Film Reviews Disney
Adapting well-known and much-beloved animated features and making them look and feel refreshed for a whole new generation is a tall order. Many have attempted it, but only a handful have truly understood how to do it properly. Director David Lowery’s live-action iteration of Pete’s Dragon did the seemingly impossible feat of turning a lesser-known property into a genuinely compelling, charming “boy and his dog” story, revolving around a feral child and his furry dragon finding a family. Lowery innately knew what the practically patented Disney Magic entailed, and he delivered in spades.
Unfortunately, that same sense of wonder and spectacle has not completely carried over to Lowery’s second offering for the studio, Peter Pan & Wendy, which has been sent straight to their streaming service, Disney+. This adaptation combines the fundamental building blocks from J.M. Barrie’s 1911 novel (and its preceding play) and Disney’s 1953 animated film to both greater and lesser effects. By changing elements—for legitimate reasons—it becomes a diverse coming-of-age tale, but it also loses a lot of what made its predecessors memorable and magical. While it’s assuredly not one of the worst (Robert Zemeckis’ Pinocchio earns that title), nor one of the best live-action remakes from Disney’s vault (Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella is up there with Pete’s Dragon), it’s a lackluster letdown whose potential for greatness goes unrealized.
It’s the night before big sister Wendy Darling (Ever Anderson) is being shipped off to boarding school, and her little brothers John (Joshua Pickering) and Michael (Jacobi Jupe) are determined to make it a fun time. Their vivid imaginations are running wild as they play swashbuckling pirates on a fantastical adventure—until a mirror breaks, which catches the ire of their parents (Alan Tudyk and Molly Parker). Mom would rather her daughter start acting her age, but Wendy isn’t quite ready to say goodbye to adolescent whimsy.
As the siblings drift off to sleep, they awaken to a clatter and catch the winged fairy Tinker Bell (Yara Shahidi from Freeform’s Grown-ish) rustling in their bureau. Peter Pan (Alexander Molony) soon bursts in looking for his missing shadow. Turns out Peter has been stalking Wendy, waiting for her to wish to never grow up. Now he’s there, ready to whisk her and her brothers away to Neverland. After getting showered with pixie dust, they fly over London and use a mystical portal to transport into the fantasyland. There, the young Darlings find themselves instantly caught in an escalating war between Peter’s sworn enemy Captain Hook (Jude Law) and his crew of vengeful pirates, and Peter’s pals, badass warrior Tiger Lily (Alyssa Wapanatâhk) and The Lost Boys, a band of like-minded orphans which also includes girls.
Lowery and frequent collaborator Toby Halbrooks update the story with clever modifications that give characters a refurbished sense of autonomy. Not only does Wendy have a stronger arc than in previous incarnations, her journey holds greater emotional weight than Peter’s, whose turn from self-centered to selfless is entirely unearned and stretches credulity. She’s courageous and witty while facing down obstacles and figuring out that growing up is an important step towards her happiness. Anderson digs into these deep layers with bravura. Tiger Lily and her tribe are no longer Native American caricatures as offensively portrayed in cartoon form, but authentic people speaking Cree and not being mocked by a bunch of bigoted white kids. The Lost Boys are a diverse diaspora of different personalities, rabble-rousing free spirits who value friendship first and foremost.
That said, the filmmakers do a disservice to their source materials when it comes to other characters. There’s a fine line between arrogant and smarmy and this Peter Pan is the latter. His rude attitude grates rather than ingratiates him to us. There’s a way to make a character full of himself and have it be entertaining and funny, but these filmmakers fail to do this time and again, detrimentally affecting Molony’s performance as he demonstrates no charisma. Shahidi is a capable presence, trapped in an underutilized and underserviced role. Tinker Bell is jettisoned to the background, given little to do—and certainly nothing delightfully irascible—beyond working up to predictably speaking at the end. Her multi-dimensional personality is missing and made worse by the fact she’s given two poses the entire time: hopeful and frightened.
Even the spectacle-driven sections disappoint and underwhelm. Bland fight choreography that mimics kids’ basic pretend play is repeated during every action scene, from those that take place inside Skull Rock to the big climax on Hook’s ship with its simultaneous mini-battles. The Darlings’ pixie-dusted flight through London’s murky midnight skies is bogged down by distractingly ropey CGI. The sequence featuring the giant crocodile—who pops out of the water to rescue the kids from Hook’s wrath and expose him as a bit of a buffoon—doesn’t feel, look, or sound immersive. We’re always keenly aware of the artifice involved.
It’s a shame that no adaptation has ever been able to capture the full cleverness, wit, or creative perspective on childhood and imagination of Barrie’s original material. But this film is geared toward those most familiar with the Disney animated film, perhaps understandably so. Not unlike other studios’ Peter Pan interpretations, like Steven Spielberg’s Hook, P.J. Hogan’s Peter Pan, Joe Wright’s Pan, and Benh Zeitlin’s Wendy, Lowery’s version does just enough to make it his own. However, with no real laughs, no genuine thrills, and no memorable scenes, its legacy will soon be forgotten.
Peter Pan & Wendy premieres on Disney+ April 28.
56 Comments
By tying with Zeitlin’s Wendy, this does at least halt the declining trend in AVC reviews of Peter Pan movies. Who would have expected a misfire like Joe Wright’s would still rank higher than the next two?
Personally, I loved the 2003 version. Was bright and colourful like a storybook, with a good mix of sincerity but whimsical too… and Jeremy Sumpter played Peter like a likeable lil shit.
I really liked Sumpter as JD McCoy, so I don’t think he’s a bad actor, but I thought he was one of the weak spots of that 2003 movie. He didn’t really embody Pan’s fundamental mischievousness, so I’ve never watched him (my kids used to watch this movie a lot) and not thought this is an actor playing Peter Pan. Watchable enough, but not really that good.
Plus the 2003 movie has the perfect Jason Isaacs playing Mr Darling and Hook and manages to make them feel radically different, as only a great actor like him can.
Apparently, this idea is a Peter Pan tradition, but for whatever reason, it was new to me when Isaacs did it, and it blew my friggin mind.
My absolute favorite adaptation, hands down. Both Sumpter’s Peter and Isaac’s Hook were fantastic. Absolutely magical.
Rufio or GTFO.
I’m still waiting on a Peter Pan story that accepts that the guy is basically an evil cult leader. He kidnaps children and convinces them that being an adult is bad. It’s not! Honestly, this whole trope of “being a child is great and it is a tragedy that kids have to grow up” needs to die.
Ok, thanks Dad.
If anything it’s parents that seem to be obsessed with childhood and get upset that their children do the natural thing and become adults (“they grow up so fast”, etc. etc.)
I have no idea what your talking about…being a kid is 1,000x better than being an adult. If you think opposite then you probably had a terrible childhood, which sucks for you and I’m sorry.
No no, it’s totally better having tons of responsibility instead of tons of free time, and also constantly thinking about your own death, and also your body starting to break down in weird ways for no goddamn reason.
Agreed. Personally, I enjoy waking up sore from…just sleeping a normal 7.5 hrs…like, why does my hip hurt, or lower back hurt, or (you name it) hurt? Oh, because you’re getting old, that’s why. Now shut up and continue your endless march to death like the rest of the over 40 adults…It’s not cool, at all.
I have no idea what your talking about…being a kid is 1,000x better than being an adult.Sounds like your twenties sucked.
You’re an adult in name only in your early to mid 20’s. And mine were spectacular, thank you for asking.Yes, you legally become an adult at 18….BUT, be honest, MOST are not actual adults until far later when the REAL responsibilities of life happen (spouse, mortgage, kids, etc).
Okay, then did you mean kid as in 18-mid-20’s or kid as in the ages of the kids in Peter Pan?
Figure it out.
Well, the kids in Peter Pan aren’t in their early to mid-20’s. Scientists claim the brain is finished developing around 25, so it sounds like you bought a house, got married, and had kids by then. I guess a lot of folks do. A lot of folks like to move goalposts too though, so.
I think you miss the point of “they grow up so fast.” When your children are young, you are the center of their universe. A good parent enjoys and wants to spend time with their kids. When they grow up they develop their own interests, friends, etc. and you become less and less important as time goes on and your time with them dwindles. Most parents want that for their children, but also look back fondly on when you were their world and they wanted to spend all of their time with you. “They grow up so fast” is just a reminder to enjoy the time you have with your children while they are young, because it will be less and less as time goes on.
There are actually a couple of novels for adults that lean into this concept. Darling Girl was one of the better ones that I’ve read, although if I remember correctly, the ending was a little disappointing. But I know there are several others that Amazon keeps recommending for me, so you can probably find one that ticks your boxes.
You see it in media often geared toward girls, the idea that adolescence is a nightmare and things are better in adulthood.
I don’t think anyone looks upon adolescence with fondness. It’s the worst of both worlds — not really a child nor yet an adult.
In my personal experience, I look back at my childhood as wasted opportunity more then anything else. Its not being a certain age I miss, its the near unlimited access to free time. Like the idea of summer vacation. I can’t take a week off of work without at least a month of planning and then expecting to come back to weeks more work because I was gone. I could not imagine what three months would be like
i love paying taxes and having ennui
I love having income to pay taxes on, and I’m not sure ennui is age-dependent, and in any case I think part of the problem in today’s society is that there isn’t enough ennui — we don’t have time to become bored because our gadgets are always presenting us with new things — movies and shows to stream, games to play, social media to scroll through. Nice, but most advances come from bored people.
The cracks and groans that come out of my body when I wake in the morning aren’t a bad thing and a sign of years of damage. Its just my body singing me a song!!!
Yeah? Me too! My song is a Keith Moon drum solo that utilizes all my joints as tom toms.
I have a journal where I write down ideas for books I am never going to write and one of them was a spin on Peter Pan where Peter is not really a child at all but a interdimensional fae-like creature who basically kidnaps children and feeds off their youth. And that Captain Hook knew all this and was the actual good guy.
This is a fantastic idea, and if you don’t write it, I may have to steal it. (I trust Hook, at least, would approve…)
Akin to thinking Romeo & Juliet is so romantic. A couple of stupid teens get themselves dead. Why is this story forced onto highschoolers?
I’d argue Hook at the end at least has some sense of “you have to grow up eventually, but you don’t have to grow old.” Once Upon a Time made him a straight up villain.That said, there are usually other anxieties related to kids in media who don’t want to grow up – here, Wendy is being made to leave home at a young age. Even in other iterations of the story, the Lost Boys are generally orphans. Even in 2023, growing up a straight up orphan rarely leads to a happy, healthy adulthood. If you’re a food insecure street urchin in JM Barrie’s day, Neverland seems pretty rad.
He kidnaps children and convinces them that being an adult is bad. It’s not!It’s not always bad, but it’s not always great lol. Being free from any real responsibilities as a kid is definitely a plus.
Bill Willingham was heavily considering using that very premise for his comic series “Fables”. He eventually decided against it, mainly because he only felt comfortable using completely public domain characters, and Peter Pan is still under a form of copyright in the UK due to the charity it was donated to.
Make him Catholic and you’ve got an Oscar winner on your hands there, bud.
If it makes you feel any better, Wendy’s arc in this one is realizing her happy thoughts are of growing up, and ends up bringing all of the lost boys home with her so they can find their mothers and grow up, too.
In the books it’s established canon that he boots any kids who hit grow up – which is apparently the result not merely of time but of some kind of metaphysical failing – back to the real world. Or, more worryingly, “takes care of them.” Those who remain inevitably join the pirates. When you consider that all the Lost Boys are literally children who have almost died horrible Victorian accidental deaths and been spirited away at the last minute, a la the villains in Spider Man: No Way Home, there’s a bit of a karmic wheel element where children who are good enough grow up and get a second chance at life, those who are neither good nor evil are simply erased, and those who are morally depraved try to escape the wheel through violence and discord.If I were to really interrogate this, I would point out further that Pan himself has more than a few similarities to Eastern Trickster/Mischief gods like Susanoo, embodying as he does impetuous, self-indulgent action extended to the point of elemental force. Pan is not inherently evil, and in fact desires to heroically serve others, but his choices inevitably result in violence and alienate the predominantly female figures of balance to whom he is attracted. And like, I’m not saying Wendy is associated with Amaterasu, but she IS continually associated with the Dawn, and plays the dual role of engendering feelings of familial love in Pan while also chastising him for his childish nature.It would further support my point if Pan’s world was also plagued by some sort of powerful supernatural serpent like the Orochi, which represented both judgment and existential dread, but sadly there is nothing.
To be clear I’m not saying Peter Pan is a literal retelling of Shinto, I’m just saying that under it’s hood of “silly modern fairy tale to make wee urchins whose baby brothers just died of Scarlet Fever feel better” there’s a profound awareness of global myth that we should appreciate.
Honestly, this whole trope of “being a child is great and it is a tragedy that kids have to grow up” needs to die. My understanding of Barrie’s original concept of Peter Pan wasn’t to make him an idealized hero of childhood, but rather to make him superficially attractive but somewhat tragic underneath in that he will never develop emotional maturity.
This exists and is a very good book, and over 20 years old. Brom’s The Child Thief.
Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella is up thereYou have got to be fucking kidding me.
Counterpoint: The adorable Lily James.
Hey now, that movie has the wonderful Nonso Anozie and…uh…it also has…um…but Nonso! Nonso!!!
Should’ve just made a Ruffio feature instead.
“Wendy [has] a stronger arc than in previous incarnations…She’s courageous and witty while facing down obstacles and figuring out that growing up is an important step towards her happiness.”The latter describes what I remember from the 2003 version. So I’m wondering what exactly makes her arc stronger in this version.Speaking of the 2003 version, let’s not forget the insightful essay written some years ago by this very website. https://www.avclub.com/the-best-peter-pan-film-is-the-one-you-ve-forgotten-abo-1798285126
So I’m wondering what exactly makes her arc stronger in this version.The writer forgetting about the 2003 version that you linked is what makes her arc stronger this time around.
If that’s what the cinematography looks like you should have given it a harsher grade.
You mean dark and colorless aren’t the first words that come to mind when you think about the magical world of Never Never Land?
The world of Neverland in this film looks like it was filmed by Tim Burton on one of his least creative days.
The same murk the characters of the upcoming Little Mermaid appear to inhabit.
There’s way too much fuckin’ grading going on in this, if you ask me:This is what you get when you underexpose by a stop. And shoot with a tungsten white balance. Then you realise everything’s fucked when you get back to the editing station. And then you bump the brightness up in post. And then you realise the sky’s blown out now. And so you open up the Curves and try to unfuck it back down. And you’re so obsessed with the sky you don’t realise the shadows are now crushed like a Goth’s velvet dress. And then the producer’s yelling at you and you still haven’t fixed the colour balance so you just chuck Adobe’s generic 81A over the whole lot and call it a day.
See? When you don’t have Captain Hook and Mr. Darling played by the same guy, it just doesn’t work!
Especially when you have Alan Tudyk as that guy. C’mon, he’s already played a pirate!
is the cinematography as bland and the CGI as terrible as it all looks in the trailers? The people flying look like they’re just lying on an ironing board and getting CGI’d, it’s like you can see the borders around them
Peter Pan and Wendy isn’t that bad. It doesn’t pretend like it’s trying to do something new—it knows that Peter Pan stories have been told—and it still manages to make its own mark. Improvements are made with respect to Hook and to diversity. Plus, the pirates sing some awesome sea shanties. I mean, come on.
D for Diverse
Critics seem to be wondering why this is bad when Pete’s Dragon was good. As someone who disliked that remake, I can only shrug. Put these films side by side, and they have the same problems because they are doing the same things: Stripping something colorful and fun down to be more moody and drab. This movie being what it is, tracks with his previous work.
In the same way Lowery’s first Disney remake misses the point that the dragon was escapism; a guardian angel to a boy who had been suffering from abuse, his new Disney remake misses the point that Peter Pan is a childhood ideal; representing everything fun about being a kid. I hated the “boy and his dog” interpretation from Pete’s Dragon because that is not what that story was. Elliot was his own character with a personality, that got reduced to just an animal. Now again Lowery hits us with an interpretation of a Pan (an entire Neverland, really) devoid of charm or whimsy.
With that rant out of the way, I also want to call out the bad flying and wirework in this movie. Practical stunts are appreciated over CGI, but if it’s going to look this janky, I’d rather they go ahead and ask computers for help.
Tiger Lily and her tribe are no longer Native American caricatures as
offensively portrayed in cartoon form, but authentic people speaking
Cree and not being mocked by a bunch of bigoted white kids.
While this is a nice correction, how much of a win is it really, when now the tribe has less screen time than ever before? (They’re in the movie for 30 seconds, maybe?)