Hook ** (1991, Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, Bob Hoskins, Julia Roberts) – Classic Movie Review 1421

Director Steven Spielberg’s 1991 family film is a long, lumbering and unwieldy, Disney-style version of J M Barrie’s Peter Pan fantasy tale. Unusually for a Spielberg movie, it lacks the magic spark it needs.

Rather than making a live-action version of Peter Pan, Spielberg goes for a film that acts as a sequel to Barrie’s 1911 novel Peter and Wendy. Robin Williams stars as a successful but jaded corporate acquisitions lawyer, a grown-up Peter Pan called Peter Banning, who is married to Wendy’s granddaughter Moira (Caroline Goodall). He has forgotten the joys of his childhood and lost contact with his two children.

When wicked pirate Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman) kidnaps his children, Peter has to go back to Never Land to find the Lost Boys and link up with the winged fairy Tinkerbell (Julia Roberts) to get their help to battle with Hook and his henchman Smee (Bob Hoskins) once again. The idea is that, in the process of challenging his old enemy, Peter can rekindle and reclaim his lost youthful spirit. 

Hoffman is the show’s hit turn with an appropriately cartoonish, pantomime-style performance as a knockabout version of cut-throat Hook. He’s very engaging, and good fun. Williams is fine too, even if his part is none too exciting, though there’s not really much that Hoskins or Roberts can do with their roles. In her second film, aged 19, future star Gwyneth Paltrow plays the young Wendy Darling. It also stars Maggie Smith as Granny Wendy, Charlie Korsmo as Jack Banning, Amber Scott as Maggie Banning and Phil Collins as Inspector Good.

There’s a first-rate film trying to get out from under this over-egged pudding, but unfortunately Spielberg just can’t get in touch with it for a lot of the time. Hook is a bizarre 144 minutes long and would certainly have been far better half an hour shorter, but still it’s a watchable disappointment. The 2003 live-action Peter Pan is the movie Steven Spielberg should have made, or maybe the 2004 Finding Neverland.

Unusually for a Spielberg movie, it earned mostly negative reviews, but was nominated for five Oscars at the 64th Academy Awards. Its box office take was lower than expected but it was still a commercial success, and it spawned lucrative merchandising, including video games, action figures and comic book adaptations.

Hook was shot almost entirely on sound stages at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1421

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