Hook (1991)

So much average

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

When it was first released, this movie caught me at totally the wrong time. I was 15 and my taste in movies was changing, I was a Robin Williams fan (thanks to movies such as The Fisher King, Good Morning Vietnam and Awakenings) and I knew Dustin Hoffman was great due to the movies of his I had seen (Marathon Man, Rain Man, Tootsie and Midnight Cowboy) and based on the trailer, I was expecting something different to what was delivered. Dull, Bland, boring and (to steal a word from BobbyKlump) saccharine!! Spielberg's Daddy issues are right at the front and centre of this over long movie. Williams is your typical Spielberg Dad, in that he is absent (although he is present) with no time for his kids, as he is always at work. Or ignoring his kids whilst he deals with phone calls to do with work. When he is there he is usually snapping at them to shut up or grow up.It takes to long to get going, there are too many characters, too much bad acting (The Lost Boys are especially bad) and too many props. The whole thing looks like what it is, a movie set, right down to the unconvincing backdrops. Then there are the endings!! Not since LOTR: Return Of The King have I seen a movie with this many endings!! One after another. Farewells. Poignancy. Lessons to be learned. Speeches to be made. Tears to be shed. It is embarrassingly excessive.Of the cast Hoffman seems to think he is in a panto, Maggie Smith is a joy, I think the woman can do no wrong. Charlie Korsmo and Amber Scott (as the Branning children) are probably the best performers in the movie. Blink and you will miss Gwenyth PaltrowJulia Roberts was nicknamed "Tinkerhell" because she was difficult to deal with, a reaction to her working conditions of solitude and green screen. Production had to be temporarily shut down, when she fled California after calling off her wedding to Kiefer Sutherland. A furious Spielberg threatened to fire her if she didn't return immediately.Hook grossed $119 million at the domestic box office, to end 1991 s the 6th highest grossing movie!! Finishing behind T2, Prince Of Thieves, Beauty & The Beast, Silence Of The Lambs and City Slickers.

I have seen interviews where Spielberg looks back on this film not so enthusiastically, feeling the Neverland sequences weren't his best. Yea, not exactly perfect, but I'd have to say "Bullsh*t" if he, or anybody else, says this movie sucks. It doesn't. The positives outweigh the negatives: The fantastical music score by John Williams will pull at your heartstrings, the premise of Peter Pan leaving Neverland and growing up is an interesting one, and I'd say Dustin Hoffman (who is totally unrecognizable) and Robin Williams are outstanding as Captain Hook and Peter Pan.This was a childhood favorite of mine, I grew up with it, and even when I'm about to turn 25 in the next couple months, I STILL LOVE this movie. And it has appeared that I am not alone in this, as I've seen people come up and say how much they love it. Right now I'm watching it after so long and I had shed tears during the "There you are Peter" scene, man does time fly.But still, I say this is one of Spielberg's most underrated films, and if you need a big reason to watch it, watch it for John Williams' music score, it will take you into the film on an emotional level. I need to watch this with my nephew in the future.

When l saw this movie in 1994 l found confuse and silly,after DVD advent l decided to re-watch hopeful to see something more which l probable missing in the past...but unfortunately l lost my valuable hours in this foolish movie,the big sets are fake,statics and awful...the whole idea to make this in sound stage struck the picture,Captain's Hook's ship never could be static...all the kids were used in wrong way,too corny sentimentalism spoil the story,who needs a father to see the games anyway...in my childhood l used to play football with my friends only...no father or mother nearby....anyway so boring movie and too long,Hoffman as Hook deserves keep apart this mess!! Resume: First watch: 1994 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 6

The legend of Peter Pan goes way beyond the play that James Barrie wrote in the early 1900's and has been performed mostly in the 1950's musical version that has been filmed several times for TV. Few plays not only get produced as much as this has, but along with prequels, sequels and dramatized studies of how it was created, it is even a far greater dramatized children's tale than "The Wizard of Oz". For this 1991 Steven Spielberg smash hit, the sequel (or "fantasy follow up" which I prefer) takes place many years after the original play occurred, and deals with an aging lady named Wendy (Maggie Smith in one of her sweetest performances) who is rumored to be the original, even if the tale is only indeed a legend. She is being honored for her philanthropy for finding homes for orphaned boys, and her grandson-in-law (Robin Williams) is one of them. He's a hard nosed lawyer, too devoted to his career to pay much attention to his wife and young children, but flying to London to see the woman who found a home for him get this award shows that in spite of all that, he's got a soft spot somewhere inside his prickly personality.While there, strange things start happening. Granny Wendy has a seemingly senile brother (the adorable Arthur Malet) who keeps looking for his lost marbles, and a big sheepdog buries Williams' cellphone which his wife threw out of the window after confronting him over his angry outburst towards his children for interrupting a business conversation. During Smith's award ceremony, sudden winds burst open the sleeping children's giant windows, and when the group returns home, Williams finds a note from the alleged Captain Hook who wants one last showdown with his old rival Peter Pan. This leads Smith to reveal the truth, that Williams is indeed the aging Peter Pan, having abandoned Neverland to marry her granddaughter and turning into the grown-up he always resented. Thanks to wise- cracking Tinker Bell (a perky Julia Roberts), Williams ends up back in Neverland where the lost boys, at first not believing that this paunchy middle aged man could be their beloved pal Peter, put him through the rigorous exercise of being able to recapture what he's lost so he can reclaim his children from Hook (a delightful Dustin Hoffman, emulating Terry-Thomas) and live happily ever after with them in Neverland.Sounds great, right? Yep. In many cases, it is, but the script doesn't know whether this is a family movie geared towards children or an allegory for adults. Some of the screenplay is very wise in its message, and at other times, it sinks to the depths of what makes little boys giggle and adults groan. Most of the boys are fine, although a few (especially the very overweight grinning black kid) will grate on some viewer's nerves with their insipid "cuteness". The Asian actor playing Pan's rival for power in Neverland is very good, giving a little political twist to how they run their little community, as is the little black boy who is the first to believe that Williams is Peter. A violent twist involving one of the boys towards the end will be shocking to everybody and horrifying to the very young. At times, the interaction between the kids comes off as a cross between the youthful gangsters of "Bugsy Malone", a re-hash of the "Bowery Boys" movies and the juvenile humor of "Scooby Doo". Where this film succeeds is in the lessons that Williams learns from this adventure. Hoffman, as well as Bob Hoskins as a delightful Smee, are the acting stand-outs. It is also successful artistically, making me wish there was a Peter Pan theme park that expanded it beyond a Disneyland look. It's also ironic to see Arthur Malet getting the final shot (getting to fly after regaining his marbles), having nearly 30 years before trying to prevent banker father Dick Van Dyke from floating to the top of the ceiling in "Mary Poppins". Spielberg combines the joy of childhood and the disillusionment's of adulthood come together, but the conflict in moods and messages prevents it from becoming fully successful. With constant revivals of the musical "Peter Pan", the successful prequel ("Peter & the Starcatcher") and the fairly successful historical docu-musical ("Finding Neverland", based upon another hit movie) having hit Broadway, I wouldn't be surprised if somebody tried to musicalize this, but after seeing the movie, that seems like a nearly impossible task.