Peter Pan & Wendy is Disney’s latest live-action remake (the animated version was in 1953) and it’s quite the sombre affair. It takes itself and its story so seriously that I kept waiting for it to be fun and it never was. There is an underlying sadness to J.M. Barrie’s original story, but it is also funny and joyous and exciting. Flying! Fairy dust! Ticking crocodiles! Pirates! That’s all here but somehow the magic is missing. Still, Captain Hook is played by Jude Law, who is at that stage in his career where he’s determined to have a good time and, from the look of it, he is definitely having a good time. At least one of us did (she says, resentfully).
The film is directed and co-written by David Lowery who made the live-action version of Pete’s Dragon, which is the best Disney remake yet, apparently. Peter Pan, meanwhile, is one of those stories that, like its protagonist, never seems to get old.
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