Peter Pan & Wendy: the best Disney live action?

It’s finally happened: Disney has made a live action of its animated films that doesn’t make you want to run out and watch the original film. Ok, ok… maybe I’m exaggerating a bit with this premise, but considering that we’ve just come off the back of such barbarities as Pinocchio, Mulan and The Lion King, and that we’re about to see others that look terrible – ahem, The Little Mermaid, ahem – it doesn’t hurt to celebrate a film that has done well.

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This film is none other than Peter Pan & Wendy, the somewhat loose adaptation of 1953’s Peter Pan which, 70 years after the original – it is soon to be said – has once again proved that James Matthew Barrie’s story never goes out of fashion. Clearly, if you put your heart into it, it is still one of the best children’s stories that can be adapted.

However, Peter Pan & Wendy has a big problem: it has only been released on Disney Plus. This is something that Disney has been doing for some time now with live action films that it considers “minor”. It has happened with Pinocchio or Lady and the Tramp, and Peter Pan & Wendy has also had to suffer the consequences of a year in which The Little Mermaid is getting all the attention in cinemas.

Moreover, the promotion of the film has been rather lacking. Not only does it have a smaller budget than most Disney remakes, but it has not been given any hype. But the result, despite all this, has been fantastic, so we are here to vindicate one of the best exercises in nostalgia well understood.

David Lowery: Disney’s best asset

The main factor that makes Peter Pan & Wendy so good is the direction. The camera keeps moving all the time, as if it were another Neverland fairy, and every shot seems to be taken from a painting. Thanks to its technical prowess, the film never lets up, and the pace surpasses that of the animated film.

Moreover, the actors are surprisingly good. Despite the fact that most of them are children, almost all of them work perfectly. Ever Anderson Jovovich’s Wendy – and she’s the daughter of Milla Jovovic and director Paul W. S. Anderson – proves that she has nothing to envy her mother in front of the screen, and gives one of the best performances of all the remakes we’ve seen in the company.

On the other hand, Alexander Molony’s Peter Pan manages to convey the charisma and stubbornness of the animated character, and although at times he almost makes us love Jude Law’s Captain Hook more than he does himself, he proves to be a phenomenal Pan. Law, by the way, achieves something very complex: he doesn’t look ridiculous or outlandish in his performance as Hook. He is the pirate we all know, not a mere disguise, and now he also manages to make us empathise with him.

Perhaps the worst performer is Yara Shahidi’s Tinkerbell. This adaptation could have done without her role almost entirely and it would have worked just as well, but she is compensated for by some lost children – including Disney’s first Down’s Syndrome actor, Noah Matthews – who are on a par with the main characters.

But how has a story as seemingly old and forgotten as Peter Pan been made to work like clockwork? The key lies in the person in the director’s chair: David Lowery. With very few films to his credit, but very striking, Lowery has become one of Hollywood’s biggest up-and-comers, and has little to envy from filmmakers of the stature of Jordan Peele or Ari Aster.

The director made his name with Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013), but has made it to the top with two fantasy films that have conquered festivals and platforms: A Ghost Story (2017) and The Green Knight (2021). But he is also the genius behind another of Disney’s best adaptations: Peter and the Dragon (2016).

Between independent gems that show his pulse as a director and Disney adaptations that reveal his good work in the mainstream, Lowery has become one of the few great auteurs who can make big studio films. And in Peter Pan & Wendy he has proved it once again.

A new victim of Review Bombing.

Despite working perfectly and being a great film for the little ones, Peter Pan & Wendy doesn’t have great scores on Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic, and the explanation is quite simple: it has suffered a textbook review bombing. As happened with Captain Marvel, the female version of Ghostbusters or the She-Hulk series, the most toxic users of the internet have flocked to rate it badly on the review pages, something that is sure to happen again with The Little Mermaid.

The reason? Easy: neither Peter Pan nor Tinkerbell are white. Tinkerbell in particular has provoked a lot of complaints among those who consider themselves fans (lol) of the original film. Add to that the fact that there are girls among the Lost Boys and Hook’s pirates, and that there is a child with Down’s Syndrome, and Disney’s allright has his head completely exploded.

Precisely, the best thing about Peter Pan & Wendy is how it manages to mix the classic elements of the story with a much more modern and functional narrative. Without shoehorned messages, it manages to tell a story of friendship between Peter Pan and Hook that works much better than in the original film, and adapts the role of Wendy, making the character much better.

Unfortunately, Peter Pan & Wendy is going to go somewhat unnoticed both because of its online release and its hatred by the less inclusive. But it is one of the few grains of gold to be found among all the sands of current Disney remakes and live actions.

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