Peter Pan (2003)
Directed by P.J. Hogan
In stifling Edwardian London, Wendy Darling mesmerizes her brothers every night with bedtime tales of swordplay, swashbuckling and the fearsome Captain Hook. But the children become the heroes of an even greater story, when Peter Pan flies into their nursery one night and leads them over moonlit rooftops through a galaxy of stars and to the lush jungles of Neverland.
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This is the first time Peter is being played by a real-life boy, a fact much hyped by the filmmakers, and 12-year-old Sumpter ( Frailty ) does his best to live up to the expectations.
The live action contributes to the new focus; Peter Pan is played by Jeremy Sumpter , who was so effective in Bill Paxton's " Frailty ," and Wendy Darling is played by Rachel Hurd-Wood , who was selected at an open casting call and is delightful in her first role.
Now, to you and me, soft and pretty Jeremy Sumpter ( Frailty ), who plays Peter, may not be all that sexually dangerous, but give him a chance: he's only 13 or whatever.
It must have been a pickle to find the right Pan, but while Jeremy Sumpter's American accent is a little irksome, his performance here is otherwise just as good as his turn in Bill Paxton's directorial debut Frailty.
In this new rendition of the classic fairytale Jeremy Sumpter (the younger brother in 2002's "Frailty") is Peter Pan, who spies on Wendy Darling (Rachel Hurd-Wood) and loves to listen to her stories as much as her brothers, John (Harry Newell) and Michael (Freddie Popplewell).
Jeremy Sumpter (Frailty) is a playful and arrogant Peter.
Indeed, visually the picture's above reproach, opening up the play well beyond the parameters of the stodgily theatrical Hook and 2003's lovely but claustrophobic Peter Pan.
A perverse lollapalooza of loaded images and disquieting implications, P.J. Hogan's live-action Peter Pan is this year's most intriguing Freudian shipwreck, resurrecting the darkness and poetic pessimism of J.M. Barrie's play--and Peter and Wendy, Barrie's own novelization--that has been all but forgotten since Disney's well-regarded 1953 treatment.
Oddly, the most notable additions are the wonderful character of Aunt Millicent (the always marvelous Lynn Redgrave); a touching, last-moment adoption of a Lost Boy who is straight out of an early talkie Our Gang short, Small Talk; and plot devices lifted from the film of Mary Poppins.
Hogan's film is pitched somewhere between the director's cut of Ridley Scott's Legend and the ravaged theatrical version of the same, a picture at war with itself between the desire to present the source faithfully black and the instinct (or financial imperative) to appease a popular perception of the story as one without edges, a schizophrenia underscored by James Newton Howard's light-hearted musical accompaniment to the film's murder and eroticism--misdirection akin, almost, to the attendant banjo music in the rape sequences of Last House on the Left.
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And the crew list, which reads like a Dream Factory Who's Who, includes cinematographer Donald McAlpine (Moulin Rouge!), production designer Roger Ford (Babe) and editor Michael Kahn (Raiders of the Lost Ark).
Hogan, who did a rewrite of Michael Goldenberg's ("Contact") adaptation (they share screenwriting credits), brings Pan's themes of abandoning childhood squarely to the forefront in his version without sacrificing fun and adventure.
Now along comes a live-action rendering that enhances the storybook allure, whimsy, danger, adventure and literary nature of Barrie's beloved story, with some exhilarating special effects and poetic license from director P.J. Hogan and his co-writer, Michael Goldenberg (Contact).
But writer-director P.J. Hogan (My Best Friend's Wedding) and his co-writer Michael Goldenberg (Contact) have the courage to imagine Peter Pan as a tragic figure, the ultimate narcissist.
There hasn't been a movie this purely gorgeous to look at since Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge! graced theater screens nearly three years ago.
Indeed, my first impression of the movie was that it was essentially Moulin Rouge! for children - and that was before I found out that they shared a cinematographer, Donald M. McAlpine - given how absolutely unreal everything looked, and given the disorientingly energetic treatment the director gives to everything, visually.
And the crew list, which reads like a Dream Factory Who's Who, includes cinematographer Donald McAlpine (Moulin Rouge!), production designer Roger Ford (Babe) and editor Michael Kahn (Raiders of the Lost Ark).
The flight to Neverland unleashes the visual wonders of Donald McAlpine's ("Moulin Rouge'') vibrant cinematography and some stunning digital effects.
Director of Photography Donald McAlpine ("Moulin Rouge") captures Pan floating outside of the nursery window with a vampiric eroticism that is as unsettling as it is magical.
The camera flies with Peter and Wendy over the town, constructed with the dark constriction of Moulin Rouge's Montmarte; Tinkerbell, too, in a sort of reverse plagiarism, is Luhrmann's Green Fairy, who embodies Luhrmann's sexual overtones with her skimpy outfit and erotically sparkling fairy dust.
His Neverland combines an endearingly storybook quality (the bouncing on clouds looks just exactly as it should) with a modern action aesthetic (Hook’s crocodile has become a post-Jurassic Park predator of almost dragonish proportions).
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It has even spawned what could be called sequels, such as the 1991 Spielberg-directed Robin Williams/Dustin Hoffman vehicle Hook and the conventionally animated Disney cartoon Return To Never Land , released just under 2 years ago.
As a result, I kept comparing in my mind the sets from this movie and from Hook, and thinking about Hook is never a good thing while trying to get comfortable in the world of Peter Pan.
It's the first time an actual boy has played a live-action Peter Pan (not counting Robin Williams in "Hook," because that Peter Pan was grown up), which makes it possible to examine the romantic underpinnings to Peter and Wendy's relationship.
If the thought of returning to Neverland brings back shivers of horror as you recall Spielberg’s abysmal Hook, then fear not – there is no Robin Williams-style gurning or tear-jerking here.
Mr. and Mrs. Darling (Jason Isaacs, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" and Olivia Williams, "The Heart of Me") provide a uniquely creative home for their three children.
There's a scary CGI-rendered crocodile to contend with (well, not scary to the pair of five-year-olds with whom I saw the film) and some perilous situations but for the most part the film is bright and breezy, faithfully adapted by the director and Michael Goldenberg and winningly performed by all especially Olivia Williams, so wonderful in last year's "The Heart of Me" who, as Mrs. Darling, sits by the open window awaiting her children's return.