Neverland (2011)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Just perfect...

I'll tell you why so serious

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I will start by saying the CGI in this was pretty terrible, and this is coming from someone who couldn't really catch Henry Cavill's upper lip in Justice League or the bad CGI in Black Panther. What I'm saying is that the CGI is very noticeably bad, but this is a TV special back in 2011, so...If that doesn't bother you, then let's talk about the story. It was pretty solid and I enjoyed it. This is certainly not a prequel to Disney's Peter Pan or even the original J. M. Barrie novel. The events of the actual "Peter Pan" story would play out somewhat differently following from the events of this prequel. But the prequel itself had a solid plot, pretty good pacing, and kept me engaged. However, what surprised me the most were the characters. I really didn't expect that a low budget TV special would put so much care into fully realizing the characters. It seems like the creators put a lot of thought behind every one of the characters, even the minor ones. Even if most of them didn't have arcs, they all had distinct personalities and their motivations were well drawn. And all of their choices made sense and were put together with thought. (Even the reason behind why time stands still in Neverland made sense.)I also liked the diversity in the cast. It was of course 90% white, but there was diversity with respect to what time the characters came from, and their class differences, all of which were evident in their accents. And in the pirate ship, they had pirates from other nationalities which was also reflected in the accents. And I liked the portrayal of the Natives. (I don't know if they were all played by Native actors (and also, idk what was up with Q'orianka Kilcher's acting; I've seen her do a better job elsewhere)). I liked that they didn't call her Tiger Lily, but rather the Native name (of which "Tiger Lily" is the English translation). I like that all of them couldn't magically speak English, only two of them could and they had to translate for the others.These seem weird little things to give this TV special credit for - but I've come to expect TV shows of this sort to be very careless about details like this. And attention to detail is always a win in my book. I would have LOVED this as a kid. I had heard about it in college and wanted to watch it back then, but hadn't got around to it. But even now, I think it was a good use of my time!

This is a portal science version of Peter Pan. The story explains away all the fantasy with logic and reason. Instead of J.M. Barrie's "Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning." You find an ancient scientific invention and get teleported to a planet called "Neverland".Peter Pan the never-ending male child adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang, the Lost Boys, explained away as street gang of old England.A Native American tribe found the device and poof! Pirates found the device and poof! Even the "fairies" are explained as the native lifeforms on the planet. Fairies don't need to be explained away by science, they are the stuff of childhood fantasy.So after watching this on Netflix, I came to the decision this was written by the same mean man (Nick Willing) who you see in parks popping children's balloons, stealing their ice cream, and telling them there is no Tooth Fairy.Peter Pan remains a great book for fathers and mothers to read to their children. Childhood fantasy is what makes us dream of better worlds and enhances the imagination. This movie is a stale "adult only" remake, made to suck the life and art out of the masterpiece.

This is a prequel dealing with Peter Pan (Charlie Rowe) as an orphan on the streets of London. Peter and his band of thieves work as pickpockets. Their evil mentor Jimmy Hook (Rhys Ifans) gets them to steal a magical treasure which transports them to Neverland. Once there Hook join with a group of pirates led by Elizabeth Bonny (Anna Friel) in search of more magic dust. Peter lands with the Indians and the beautiful Aaya (Q'orianka Kilcher) where the people don't age.The story lack any pace. It drags along. With 240 minutes, this is way too long. It doesn't help that they explain away the magic. It reminds me of Star Wars explaining away The Force. Why can't they leave it alone? The acting is acceptable. All the big name give the expected performance. Charlie Rowe as Peter Pan is average. As for the production, it's got TV movie level. It's nothing to brag about. It's dark and dreary. Again all the magic is gone.

I've always enjoyed the story of Peter Pan and I'm glad to see it done once again in a new way. I thought this movie was well written and executed, it does not follow the exact story of Peter Pan but it's what makes telling this story different from the many others we've seen such as the movie Hook.It was fun and adventurous that had some really interesting effects and twists all through the movie. This is one the whole family can enjoy watching over and over again.The actors all did a great job and I enjoyed the music score, the one thing this show will be missing is if there isn't a sequel the way this ended it could be expanded on and I would truly love to see a sequel happen.