The Age of Commercialism

Highly Overrated But Still Good

From my favorite movies..

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Young Jane has lost her faith in imagination and Peter Pan with the outbreak of the Second World War II. With her father off at war and her mother distracted by childish stories, Jane feels she is the most mature, and is looking after her family as she promised she would. But after a falling out with Wendy, Jane finds herself on board Captain Hook's ship, heading towards the second star to the right. It's not until Jane let's go of trying to be a grown up does she truly find happiness and magic. The music throughout is very well written and while modernized does still replicate the feel of the original. Ultimately, I feel this was a great carry-on from the original with all the splendor of Neverland and the perils of the island shared between Peter and Hook!

I may have seen the trailer at the cinema, and like the critics I thought it looked more like the kind of Disney film better released straight to video, same goes for the atrocious The Jungle Book 2, but when it was available I watched. Basically Wendy Darling (Kath Soucie) has grown up and had two children, maturing daughter Jane (Harriet Owen) and little son Danny (Andrew McDonough) who enjoys the stories Peter Pan and Never Land. With father Edward (Roger Rees) leaving home to fight for the country, and the constant London bombings during the Blitz of the Second World War, Jane is very cynical, especially when it comes to the bedtime stories. But her opinion is to change when she gets kidnapped by Captain Hook (Corey Burton), mistaking her for Wendy, as bait for his enemy, the still not growing up Peter Pan (Blayne Weaver). Even Peter mistakes her for Wendy, and not being up for fun with him, Tinker Bell or the Lost Boys she really wants to get back home, but this cannot happen until she believes in the magic of imagination and finds a happy thought with pixie dust. Meanwhile Captain Hook and his silly sidekick Smee (Jeff Bennett) are trying to find out where Pan is as well as a way to get rid of him once and for all, while the Captain is also terrified by not the crocodile, but a giant octopus. In the end, after realising everything around her is real and that she should believe in it and save the life Tinker Bell, Jane does fly, Captain Hook is defeated, and Peter takes her back home and sees her mother before flying away, and Edward returns home. Also starring The Cat in the Hat's Spencer Breslin as Cubby, Jumanji's Bradley Pierce as Nibs and Additional Voices from The Simpsons' Dan Castellaneta and Jim Cummings. Essentially it is recycling all the themes from the J.M. Barrie book, the voices all sounding different doesn't help, the animation is average, and there isn't much to the story, but for the kids, not a terrible family animated musical adventure. Okay!

The other day I decided to go for the Disney sequels, Peter Pan one of my top favorite Disney films and as nervous as I was to see the sequel "Return to Never Land", but I decided to go ahead and give it a look. You know what? It wasn't that bad, it was actually pretty enjoyable as far as Disney sequels go. I loved seeing the return of Captain James Hook, he and his sidekick, Smee, just cracked me up so badly in the first Peter Pan, they were back in Return to Never Land and are still crazy than ever. Despite the fact that the crocodile wasn't back, I would've loved to see that return, the octopus wasn't a bad addition. The jokes are still fun and the story is still magical. We got to see what life was like for Wendy when she finally had to grow up and had a family of her own.Wendy is all grown up and has a family of her own, a loving husband, daughter, Jane, and son, Danny. Her husband goes to war and tells little Jane that she is in charge, so Jane takes that very seriously and acts as head of the household. Despite that she is still very young, she doesn't believe in Never Land and her mother's tales, but when Captain Hook thinks he grabs Wendy, he grabs Jane and takes her to Never Land to capture Peter Pan. Peter saves Jane and offers her to join the Lost Boys and hopes to restore her faith in his adventures and fairies, but all she wants to do is go home.Return to Never Land is a fun Disney sequel that I have to admit that I was actually more impressed with. There are still a lot of great laughs and the story is still as adventurous as the first time when I watched the first Peter Pan. It was a little disturbing to hear the big difference of the voices, but I'm getting past it. After all, it's been over 40 years since the original Peter Pan, so I think it would've been hard to get the same actors. But I recommend Return to Never Land, it's a cute Disney sequel.6/10

My Take: An insult to its not-so-great predecessor. Walt Disney started a very powerful career since the Golden Age of Hollywood. Even during the 30's, already have they made a mass of pure entertainment, most notable is "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" in 1933. During the 40's and 50's, Disney has made films, animated and live-action that still has the star of excellence, "Fantasia" being my favorite. Their work continued during the 70's and 80's. By the 90's, they still have the power to shine, especially with classics like "The Lion King", "Mulan", "Aladdin" and the bunch.However, the 90's marked the heyday of their animated movies. Starting from the year 2000 and then on, it has become the long awaited beginning of the end for the brilliance that is Disney. Surely, if the great Walt Disney were alive today, and saw what has become of the studio he started, he would have a stopped it before it grew even worse. But alas, we can only think of that on our imaginations. Although some of their live-action films, mainly the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films, are well-done, their animated films have lost some of its touch. Mostly aiding the help of Pixar for some quality computer-animated films, they decided to take things, on their own hands, resulting in to atrocious efforts like "Chicken Little". But before those, there was "Return to Neverland", a sequel to the classic "Peter Pan".Despite starting promisingly, "Return to Neverland" falls from the top to the very deep bottom by becoming a sad effort to boot. While kids are left with their imaginations and the animated characters, adults are left with a film that will lull them to sleep. The original "Peter Pan" wasn't much of a milestone for Disney, but at least it can hold its interest to its viewer for a length of age. "Return to Neverland", as of my opinion, won't even last a five years or less. This is definitely a straight-to-video effort standard compared to what Disney can do, or used to do.So, is it no wonder the film-going public mostly neglect Dinsey's efforts these days, with such disappointing money-wasters like this.Rating: * out of 5.