Peter Pan & Wendy review – serviceable but just a bit pointless retread of a classic

In the last decade, we’ve already had a couple of ill-conceived Peter Pan adaptations with 2015’s critical and commercial catastrophe Pan and then Benh Zeitlin’s instantly forgotten reimagining Wendy, but Disney is not a company to let a good IP lie, so here we are again in 2023 with David Lowery’s Peter Pan & Wendy. A decent “one for them” gig for Lowery, it’s a serviceable family adventure that can’t quite escape its own air of pointlessness, especially with an entirely separate Disney live action remake on the way in just a few weeks with The Little Mermaid.

Though both Peter (Alexander Molony) and Wendy (Ever Anderson, daughter of Milla Jovovich) share the title, this really is Wendy’s show. After an opening few minutes in the Darling house in turn-of-the-century London that follows the 1953 animated take almost beat for beat, Lowery and co-writer Toby Halbrooks switch things up a bit once we land in Neverland. The key ingredients of Tinker Bell (Yara Shahidi), Captain Hook (Jude Law, having fun), Lost Boys, and a big crocodile are all here, but this is a more melancholy take, with Wendy seeing something a bit sinister in Peter and the whole idea of never growing up, whilst Hook gets granted a more sympathetic backstory.

The result is somewhat of a tonal muddle – both the swashbuckling adventure parts and the more introspective look at the fear and thrill of growing up work on their own, but they don’t quite gel together, especially in a baggy middle act that might see some younger audience members check out. It all comes together nicely in the end, though, and it’s a brisk and breezy journey (though it runs at 105-ish minutes, a full 15 of that is end credits) with a hopeful message for the kids that leaving childhood behind doesn’t necessarily mean leaving happiness behind with it.

Anderson does a decent, Emma Watson-as-Hermione-esque job in her first lead role, though Molony only occasionally convinces as an impetuous boy prince. It’s also nice to see the Lost Boys expand its roster, an unfussily diverse set of kids who mostly feel distinct from one another, while Tiger Lily (Alyssa Wapanatahk) is finally handled in a way that isn’t deeply offensive (even in 2015 they got it badly wrong, putting Rooney Mara in the role).

Given his incredible formal work on tiny budgets in A Ghost Story and The Green Knight, it’s a shame to not see Lowery flex his visual muscles more when he’s on Uncle Walt’s dime. There are some neat visual ideas, like a circular rainbow that sits like a halo atop the British Columbia-shot shores of Neverland and the kaiju-like size of the reimagined croc, but dull colours and the fact that Tinker Bell’s VFX never fit seamlessly into any of the scenes are troublesome. It’s not as ditch-dark as some of the marketing threatened, but its relegation to a straight-to-Disney+ debut feels mostly fitting. That said, it’s this same accessibility that saves Peter Pan & Wendy – as a month of long weekends and May half-terms approaches, it’s the exact sort of just-ambitious-enough family filmmaking that the kids can put on in the living room without the grown-ups getting sick of it.

Peter Pan & Wendy is now streaming on Disney+.