Let's be realistic.

Just what I expected

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The first must-see film of the year.

The strength of this movie is the story, which is now over 100 years old. Neverland uses many lines of dialog and situations from the original Peter Pan story, but tries to put them in a modern context. Peter Pan now hangs out in a theme park, and Captain Hook is a custodian trying to kick him out. Tinkerbell is a drug addict who follows him around, and Wendy and her brothers are adopted teens who can't wait to get away from their spoiled parents.The acting was poor. The visuals and editing are amateurish. There were some especially silly montages that really weren't well timed at all, such as the one where the camera tries to focus on hook the same way Metallica's "Enter Sandman" video studied the wrinkled old man. The emotion that it evoked for me was a weary, defeated feeling.If this was an attempt at commentary, it wasn't very effective. The actress who plays Wendy has a lot of scenes where she gets emotional, and the sentiment feels so false that the best word I can use to describe it is sappy. Same with Peter--his character tries to be very earnest, but his acting is so silly that no one can really care what happens to him. Hook was a bit more fun, as he got to play to the rafters, and Tink was likable. No one else really stood out, except when delivering lines as poorly as possible.Overall, a very amateurish effort with a depressing tone.

What can I say. BRILLIANT!!!! and I love the Peter Pan stories by James Barrie. I feel very protective about the Peter Pan legacy and don't like to see it ruined. that's why I hated Steven Spielberg's horrid film version 'Hook'. Spielberg missed the whole point. ALL CHILDREN GROW UP EXCEPT FOR ONE. 'Hook' didn't take liberties with the story, it missed the whole point and ruined it. plus Robin Williams silly ass was too big and fat to be flying around in that green Peter Pansy costume.My favorite version is the one with Cathy Rigby. she is much better than Mary Martin,and the Rigby production is so beautiful and faithful.Cathy Rigby owns the role. the 1953 Disney version is adorable and the Universal/Columbia studios version is quite good too.That brings us to the Damon Dietz version. iconoclastic, with lots of liberties taken but still a amazing interpretation. much of James Barrie's original dialogue from the play and book are here intact which only makes this whole thing seem more surreal. this is a good adaptation. it knows the story and understands it well.The characterizations here are very funny. Peter,Wendy,John,Michael and the Lost Boys are all appropriately sweet and endearing. Tinkerbell is a bitchy potty-mouthed meth dealer. Tiger Lilly is a beautiful transvestite,(and I do mean beautiful, for a moment I wasn't even sure that was a guy) and Hook is a scary creepy predator that no self respecting parent would want around their kids. and the croc is a filthy low-life perve who needs to get a real job.The music is first class. especially the musical number that Tiger Lilly sings in the Native American Musical Revue.This wonderful film should be commended for achieving such brilliance on such a low budget. like the incredible Cathy Rigby, this film flies you to the second star to the right and straight on into space. I wonder what the Great Ormond Sreet Hospital for Sick Children in London thought of this film? oh well, anyone that doesn't like it can kiss Tiger Lilly's BIG FULL MOON.

It takes a lot to surprise me, but I was shocked by this. This has to be one of the most subversive things I've ever seen... and not like a porn version of "Alice in Wonderland" or something like that. This low-budget movie very subtly and gradually melted away the Peter Pan mythology and rebuilt it in the most disturbing way. It was as if the filmmakers took the story of Peter Pan and forced it to grow up, without changing its core. A masterful concept that was handled extraordinarily well despite some obvious budget limitations. My wife cried at the end of this film and couldn't stop. While I found it challenging on an intellectual level, I didn't have the emotional response that she did. When I asked her why she found it so sad she told me that when she was young she would always dream that Peter would show up and fly her away to Neverland, and as she got older she of course had the "prince charming" fantasy. She told me that watching this movie was like the symbolic nail in the coffin of that dream. So not only did this movie freak me out, it made my marriage more depressing. In any case, it was powerful, entertaining, and thought provoking... and very captivating. So when someone says they hate this movie and they want to throw the DVD against the wall, I can understand where they are coming from.Neverland delivers a strong, sometimes harshly realistic message, but we can't hate the messenger now, can we? Neverland gets an 8.

I agree with the other commentary on this movie. This movie is interesting in that it takes an otherwise "children's story" and sets in a hyper-reality, very much adult, setting. This allows the more adult aspects of the story to be explored. Adult issues such as drug abuse, sexual "norm" deviance, and avoidance of responsibility take center stage in this update. While a grand experiment, this movie ultimately failed for me on several levels:The cast of characters is far too large to allow for meaningful character development for ANY of the characters. The most prominent victims of this flaw are the lost boys. There are too many of them, and as such their decision to follow Wendy and leave Neverland seems more of a plot device than a real decision on their part, as is Peter's ultimate decision to return to Neverland alone.The Darling kids' decision to leave their home in the first place home was another problematic issue for me. Sure, they try to explain it during Wendy's "story" to the Lost Boys in Tiger Lily's dressing room, but as is the case with literary writing, showing is always better than telling. And the short sequence with the parents in the beginning is not enough to show me the kids' rationale. Wendy telling it to me just didn't cut it.And then there's the acting. Oh, the acting. "Bad acting" is being kind. It's a shame that an experiment of this caliber couldn't gain major funding and established actors, because the premise is fabulous. I find it very interesting that through most of the movie, the acting is horrendous from each member of the cast; however, the actors playing Wendy and Peter show their real chops during the last scene they play together. They both moved me incredibly during this final scene, and the fact that they were able to do so clearly demonstrates to me that the problem (at least for these two) was not the acting, it was the writing and direction. Both actors seem promising during this final scene, languishing in otherwise poor material. This movie felt like the writer began with the final scene and worked backward.Overall, I love the premise. I related to Wendy's concern for the drug-addled man-boy refusing to grow up because, yeah, I've dated him, and she completely conveyed the frustration in trying to break through the haze and reach him intellectually. The DVD is watchable, although grainy in parts and particularly blurred during the pirate dungeon scene. Watchable once.