Peter Pan was a
film that Walt Disney had wanted to make for quite some time – in fact, it was
originally planned to be the second Disney animated feature, after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – and you
can certainly see why. The spirit of adventure in the story and, more
importantly, the idea of keeping one’s youth and never growing up, is right in
line with Disney’s traditional style and attitude. Unfortunately, despite the
film’s childlike energy and sense of adventure, it never really explores the
issues of childhood or motherhood in an interesting way, nor does it deliver a particularly fun adventure, meaning the finished
product is a little disappointing.
The animation hasn’t got much better than Alice in Wonderland, there’s nothing
wrong with it, but there’s nothing special about it either. There are some
pretty impressive uses of it for physical humour (even if it’s not really very
funny), particularly in characters such as Captain Hook or Smee, who are
constantly moving and doing multiple things at once, but it’s nothing we haven’t
seen Disney do better before. The art style of the movie is nice, but basic and
a bit unoriginal, you can definitely see the style of Alice in Wonderland and to a lesser extent, Cinderella in some of these character designs, particularly Wendy,
who has the exact same wide-eyes and facial expressions as Alice. There isn’t much
attention to detail and though there is an
attempt to give some characters a sense of unique personality in their design
and animation style – again, Hook and Smee in particular, as well as Tinker Bell
– many of the other characters have pretty flat designs and end up just blending together: the Darlings are a group of generic looking
children, the Lost Boys are another group of generic looking children that just
happen to be wearing animal skins, the pirates are a group of generic looking
pirate clichés and the Indians are a group of stereotypically generic looking
depictions of Native Americans in the 50’s. It’s certainly not as lifeless or derivative
as in Cinderella, but the art design
and animation here still leaves something to be desired.
Peter Pan, about to enter the bedroom of some young children. No wonder Michael Jackson liked this film so much
The basic premise of Peter
Pan seems like a pretty interesting one, a strange boy named Peter Pan
shows up to collect his shadow from the Darlings’ house, then takes them on an
adventure in Neverland, a place where children never grow up, where they meet
Mermaids, Indians, fairies and pirates; this sounds like a pretty exciting
adventure! There are a lot of creative ideas here too, my favourite of which is
the idea that Wendy has to sew Peter’s shadow back onto the soles of his feet,
there’s just something so fascinating about that strange image. However, I don’t
think the film ever really gets a grasp on how to use these ideas well –
instead of being amazed or surprised by the idea that she has caught Peter’s
shadow, or suddenly being struck by the surreal idea of sewing it back onto
him, Wendy seems casually nonchalant about the whole situation and appears to just inherently understand that she has to sew it back on, as if that is an
immediately obvious solution. I confess to not being that familiar with the
original J.M. Barrie play or novel, so I’m not sure exactly how he approached
this idea, but in my opinion Disney take an interesting situation and fumble it
and continue to do so throughout the film.
Neverland should be an outlandish
and amazing place filled with wonder and enchantment, like Wonderland or Willy
Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, instead, it mostly comes across as an island you
could find in the real world with few fantastical elements. Indians, pirates, crocodiles, jungles, beaches, lagoons, these are all things that exist or have existed in our world;
though there are a few magical elements such as Tinker Bell and her pixie dust
and the mermaids, Tinker Bell is more like a magical creature who just happens
to follow Peter around, rather than some being who is intrinsically linked to
Neverland and the mermaids appear in only one scene. Even in the moments with
fantastical elements or at least, real-life elements that should be exciting
such as the pirates, Peter Pan doesn’t
have much of a sense of wonder, as said before, the children seem pretty nonchalant
about all the strange things happening to them and since we mostly see the film
through their eyes, that means that so we are we; there is no sense of awe or gravity
to Neverland or its inhabitants, we do not marvel in childlike wonder at the
discovery of mermaids, for example, but rather, are merely expected to laugh at their
childish bullying of Wendy. I found only a couple of scenes to have this feeling of awe, the first being the wonderful final image of the pirate ship sailing across the moon at the end of the film and the second being the scene when the children first arrive in Neverland and must dodge Hook’s
cannonballs from atop the clouds. The world above the clouds looks beautiful
and Peter’s playful toying with Hook, as the cannonballs sail past him and
right through the clouds, fills the audience with a sense of awe and excitement
that is sorely lacking in the rest of the film.
Oh, hello there Ariel...?
It is here that we find the film’s biggest problem, namely,
its awkward tone; like Alice in
Wonderland, Peter Pan is more
light-hearted and silly than some of the other Disney films we’ve seen so far
and seems to be intended to primarily be a slapstick comedy. The difference is,
while Alice in Wonderland commits to
purely being a fantastical comedy, Peter
Pan also fancies itself an adventure flick, but ultimately finds itself
unable to reconcile these two different genres into one cohesive product. The
film tries so hard to be funny and cute, that it completely undermines any
sense of action or adventure it tries to create, Captain Hook is such an
over-the-top character who engages in frequent slapstick and is consistently
embarrassed by Peter, that how can we take him seriously as a villain? Peter is
clearly superior to Hook mentally and physically and effortlessly defeats him
at every encounter, so it is pretty clear that neither he nor the Darlings are ever
in any danger; the film has no stakes and little sense of conflict, so it fails
as an exciting adventure. There is nothing wrong with an adventure story being
light-hearted and funny, in fact, the best ones often are, but if you want to have an exciting and meaningful adventure
that actually has a sense of purpose and threat, you need to be willing to take
the story seriously, or how can you expect your audience to do the same? Even
the more action packed moments fall a little flat, in particular Peter and Hook’s
sword fights, which are animated in a slow and clunky manner, making them a little dull to watch, the
only entertaining element is the slapstick as Peter continues to ridicule Hook,
which once again, completely eradicates any sense of threat or danger in the
scene. Where’s the fun in watching a climactic sword fight between a hero and a
villain where the hero is so much better he doesn’t even need to try? On top of that, the comedy is – in my opinion –
not very funny anyway, save for a couple of times, so Peter Pan ultimately fails as both a fantastical comedy and an
adventure flick, its few shining moments notwithstanding.
You’re a crook, Captain Hook
The characters aren’t particularly interesting either,
though some do have pretty strong personalities, they have so little to do in
the story that it usually just feels like they’re going through the motions.
Peter Pan is a pretty decent protagonist, at least by Disney’s standards, if
only because he is a little different from what we’re used to from them; rather
than being a squeaky-clean, eternally kind and patient, mild-mannered person
who falls into adventure, Peter is a cocky, carefree trickster who wants to
have things his own way and isn’t afraid to play rough. It’s a refreshing
change of pace to have a hero who’s more active and a bit of a troublemaker,
you actually feel kind of sorry for the pathetic and hard-working Hook, who
constantly falls prey to the lazy and overconfident Peter, who seems to
genuinely enjoy screwing with his nemesis. I actually would have liked to see a bit more
of Peter - who, despite being the title character, ironically steps out of the action quite often - because he is usually pretty fun, if still a little bland.
Wendy is okay, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about her; on the one
hand, she’s voiced by Kathryn Beaumont, who also voiced Alice in Alice in Wonderland and once again,
she does a great job and has a very sweet and charming voice and a great,
natural sense of delivery. Unfortunately, unlike Alice, who had a sense of independence
and backbone, Wendy is a bit of airhead who just kind of follows Peter around
and is pretty useless, constantly (and annoyingly) calling out ‘Peter!!!’ for him
to swoop in and save her. She returns to the tired Disney model of an ineffectual
and passive girl who is only allowed to be good at “girly” things such as
sewing and mothering, allowing the male characters to take care of anything
important. If the film had actually explored the idea of motherhood in a mature
way, this might have actually been an interesting and complex aspect to Wendy’s
character; unfortunately, it doesn’t have the time for these kind of complex
issues and simply associates motherhood with a perfect, kind, loving, angelic
figure who is always right, while completely ignoring any of the realistic
stresses or difficulties that come with the role, as well as any importance
that fatherhood plays. As a result,
Wendy is far too defined by her femininity; her lack of energy or excitement
even in the face of the fantastical creatures of Neverland also mean she comes
off as kind of dull, wooden and disinterested.
Bang, zoom, straight to the moon
The other Darlings are as boring as can be, you know when
all you can say about them is that one is younger and one has a hat and
umbrella that something is wrong. They lack any sense of personality and the
younger boy, Michael, is basically just there to be cute, emphasised by the
fact that he has an American accent despite being from London – they just couldn’t
be bothered. The Lost Boys are an entire group of this same kind of character
type, even if they are a little older and less overtly cutesy, they clearly
exist just to be cute little kids, but they only come off as irritating. I must
also admit that I don’t really care for Captain Hook, I know he’s really
popular and beloved and everything, but I just don’t really enjoy him that
much; to me, Hook is just too goofy and ineffectual to take seriously as a
villain, I know he’s supposed to be silly and funny, but there are much better
examples of villains being ineffectual and stupid, while still posing a
credible threat and quite frankly, I don’t really think Hook is funny anyway. I
see why he’s supposed to be funny, all the over-the-top slapstick with him and
Peter, his extreme fear of the Crocodile and his double act with Smee, but it
just didn’t make me laugh; I dunno, I don’t dislike him, he’s harmless, but
that’s the problem really, he just has no edge. Almost all of the characters of the movie, even the villain, are just too goofy and cutesy for my tastes and it gives the whole movie an overly silly tone that makes it very hard to really care about the story or characters.
The only character I
particularly like is Tinker Bell, who seems as exasperated as I was having to
deal with all these stupid characters, getting understandably annoyed with the
dull and irritating Wendy and her stupid brothers. A silent character, Tinker
Bell is approached in a better way than say, Dumbo for example, whose lack of
voice meant that he expressed very little sense of personality; in contrast,
Tinker Bell arguably has the biggest personality of the cast – except for Hook
and Smee – because her use of mime is so good, as well as legitimately funny. Her animation is so strong and
energised that she expresses so much personality just through her exaggerated
movements and facial expressions, some of the looks Tinker Bell gives in the
film are priceless, such as a moment where she looks down on a mirror and realises she has big hips, to which she gives a look of
mortified realisation and attempts to measure them out; even though she doesn’t say a word, just from those actions you understand her motivation and thoughts of ‘Is my butt really that big?’ showing how effective a vehicle she is for silent comedy. Though
Tinker Bell’s character has been kind of over saturated these days by the
constant merchandising and... let’s just say “simplistic” looking movie spin-offs
where they make her talk, she’s very enjoyable to watch here and it’s
understandable why she became such a huge mascot for Disney.
Hips don’t lie, Tink
The songs are boooooooooring, it’s starting to look like
Disney just didn’t want to do musicals anymore, cos the songs are becoming less
and less like musical numbers and more and more like brief songs shoehorned in
to pad out the films. “What Makes the Red Man Red” is one of the better songs and
has a memorable chorus and good sense of rhythm, but the lyrics are silly,
poorly thought out and bordering on racist, the very premise is at least
blindly ignorant of any sense of good taste, being about how all the Indians
used to be white men before they met women and are now constantly blushing; what
a stupid concept, even for a joke. The other songs are really lacking in any
merit; “You Can Fly!” is pretty well remembered and I guess it’s not too bad
but the lyrics are just the most generic, sugary platitudes of ‘Believe in
yourself! You can do it! Follow your heart! Think happy thoughts!’ It just comes
off as tired and phony. “Following the Leader” has some of the most basic
lyrics you’ll ever hear in any musical, and is effectively a rhythmic chant
that grows more and more annoying, especially because it is sung in the shrill
and irritating voices of the younger characters, it sucks; these songs are just
no good.
Peter Pan is a
movie that’s difficult to dislike but even harder to really enjoy; it has a
great sense of joy and youthful exuberance and has a lot of interesting ideas,
but it struggles to tie them all together into an interesting or exciting
narrative. It’s much easier to like this film than some of Disney’s other weak
efforts, because unlike Cinderella
for example, Peter Pan is not lazy
and in fact exudes a sense of passion – you can tell that Disney really worked
hard on this one and wanted it to turn out great and that definitely shines through.
Sadly, I don’t think they achieved in making an especially good film, just an average
one, but the love and thought put into this movie makes it difficult to
completely dismiss; despite its faults, Peter
Pan has its heart in the right place and that is something I can definitely
appreciate.
Other Thoughts
- I feel so bad for the Darling’s Dad, he’s a bit stuffy and pompous but they really treat this guy like shit for no real reason and very obviously favour their mother and even THE DOG over him, what a bunch of brats.
‘I tell ya I get no respect’
- Yeah okay, I don’t think the crows in Dumbo are really that bad but the Indians here are pretty racially insensitive. Not hateful or anything just, uh, yeah. Not okay.
What makes the red man offensive? (He’s actually literally bright red, Jesus Christ what were they thinking)
- Captain Hook just straight up SHOOTS A GUY what a psycho!
PACK THE GAT IN THE SMALL OF- wait no I already did this one
5/10
Next Week: Lady and the Tramp!
Email: joetalksaboutstuff@gmail.com
Twitter: @JSChilds
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