There is a vast, gloomy castle and all manner of paths into the darkness, but then scenes will turn as delicate as "A Midsummer Night's Dream." At a point when lesser films would be giving us swashbuckling by the numbers, Peter and Wendy dance in mid-air, emulating the fairy ballet.Īs the film narrows into its crucial themes, we realize there are two: Wendy's desire to free Peter Pan from eternal boyhood, and Hook's envy of the affection they have for each other. The movie's not simply a riot of pretty pictures, but begins with a Neverland that seems overgrown and pungent - more like Louisiana than Middle-earth. The special effects of course are endless, but there is a method to their excess. They're attractive young people in roles that in the past have been played by such actors as Robin Williams and Mary Martin, and there is chemistry on the screen. 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. It's not that the movie is overtly sexual it's just that the sensuality is there, and the other versions have pretended that it was not. Hook, who takes an uncomfortably acute interest in both Peter and Wendy, there's enough inspiration here to have Freud gnawing on his cigar.
When the other major player in Neverland is the one-armed Capt. Barrie book, which is about to celebrate its centenary, and also closer to the book's buried themes, which are sidestepped by most versions of "Peter Pan." When a muscular and bare-chested gamin appears on the windowsill of the prettiest 12-1/2-year-old in London and asks her to fly away from home and family to join with the Lost Boys in Neverland, he is exactly the kind of strange man her mother should have warned her about. Hogan, best known for the Julia Roberts comedy " My Best Friend's Wedding." Here he stays closer to the J.M. They are at precisely the age when it is time to share their first real kiss - and they do so, astonishing the other characters (they've never seen that before - not in the cartoon, not on the stage - never!). This expensive new production, shot in Australia and unveiling a young unknown as the beautiful Wendy, is aware of the latent sexuality between the two characters, and Peter is a little scared of that. "Peter," asks Wendy, "what are your real feelings?" Those are precisely what Peter is unable to share.
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