Peter Pan & Wendy 2023 Movie Review
Director: David Lowery
Cast: Alexander Molony, Ever Anderson, Jude Law, Yara Shahid’, Alyssa Wapanatahk, Joshua Pickering, Jacobi Jupe, Molly Parker, Alan Tudyk, and Jim Gaffigan
Music: Daniel Hart
Cinematography: Bojan Bazelli
Editor: Lisa Zeno Churgin
Streaming: Disney+ and Hotstar
Synopsis:
Wendy Darling, a young girl looking to avoid boarding school, meets Peter Pan, a boy who refuses to grow up. Wendy, her brothers,
and Tinker Bell travels with Peter to the magical world of Neverland, where she encounters an evil pirate captain.
Peter Pan & Wendy 2023 Movie Review:
Peter Pan & Wendy is the next in Disney’s maddening and tiresome efforts to turn every classic animated film into a live-action adaptation. Peter Pan shouldn’t have been that hard to do, but Disney shows again how they’re more interested in a cash grab than making something good. Take all the fun, entertainment, comedy, wit, and joy out of the original animated film and you got this movie in a nutshell.
The acting is awful. Alexander Molony does a dreadful job as Peter Pan. Peter is supposed to be this energetic, fun, charming, and confident. Molony’s Peter Pan comes off as boring, uninteresting, and so bland that you wonder why anyone would follow this guy at all. Ever Anderson isn’t that much better at all and seems disinterested in this whole film.
The one actor who does stand out is Jude Law as he does a great job portraying Captain Hook. He’s easily the best thing to come from this movie. Too bad Law’s talents are wasted here. The effects are somewhat passable.
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There’s at least some form of effort and some of the sets do look nice. They’re nothing to write home about, but they at least look alright for the most part. Much like every other Disney live-action remake, portions of the story are cut out, shortened, or flat-out changed.
The Lost Boys now include girls which makes no sense considering that in the source material boys would tend to get lost often while girls were smarter. So are they implying girls are that dumb too? Peter Pan takes Wendy to Neverland for little to no reason.
The plot points in this movie are given virtually little to no explanation. It doesn’t help the pacing feels very rushed and all over the place. The film is incredibly boring to sit through as well. There’s very little of the wit and charm of the original animated film at all.
Everything feels like it’s going through the motions with no passion. I only got a tiny bit invested by the time of the final battle and the speech Hook gave to Peter before he fell to his doom.
The best scene in the movie is a moment shared between Peter & Hook as Hook is famously about to fall to his peril. Hook’s line at this moment is genuinely sad and in these parts, the movie works.
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Verdict:
Look, don’t waste your time on this film. It’s just another awful live-action adaptation from Disney. The only thing this movie has going for itself is Jude Law’s performance as Hook, but that can’t save this film at all.
While I’ll grant them they put it on Disney+ this time instead of theaters, it doesn’t excuse how bad this is. It’s frustrating that Disney continues to do these instead of putting any creativity and heart into their movies these days.
How many more of these live-action remakes need to be made before Disney finally stops and gets back to being creative and innovative again? If you want a great live-action Peter Pan film, go see Hook starring the late great Robin Williams. It has more heart, love, and passion than this film ever will.
