Hook Review

Film fans today I asked myself a question and that question was simple what film should I review the choices were either The Living Daylights the first James Bond film to feature Timothy Dalton as Bond or this film. If i'm honest i'm glad that this film was chosen just because it was something that I loved as a kid heck I loved it so much that in 2016 I think it was a bought the blu-ray but just because I liked it a kid doesn't mean it's good and so let's see if the film still holds up here is my review of Hook.

The plot of the movie is Peter Pan now going by the name Peter Banning has left Neverland and grown up and got married and had kids. Now decades later Banning and his family have finally been found the Captain Hook who is looking to seek revenge on Pan and so kidnaps his kids with the aim of turning them against him and now Banning has three days to remember that he's Peter Pan and fight hook one last time.

Wow was this story super long so long in fact it took my a whole paragraph just to describe and that's the shorter version by the way. The story I thought was very well told and it does a good job of capturing the spirit of what it's like to be a kid. The whole angel of Peter Pan growing is something that I don't think has been done since this film and it certainly wasn't done before it and the film makers really go as far as they can with that idea.

Starring in the film is the late and always great Robin Williams as Peter Banning / Peter Pan , Dustin Hoffman as Captain James Hook , Julia Roberts as Tinkerbell , A Sober Bob Hoskins as Smee , Dame Maggie Smith as Granny Wendy , Charlie Korsmo as *looks dramatically in the sky* My Jack , Caroline Goodall as Moira , The American Dragon Jake Long as Rufio and Amber Scott as Maggie. 

Ok before I give you my thoughts on the acting all of right now do yourselves a favour and look up Amber Scott on IMDB she's one hell of a stunning lady right now. In terms of what I thought of the acting from some of the actors it was good Robin once again kills it he's such a delight in this as are Dustin Hoffman , Bob Hoskins and Julia Roberts however tho alot of the bad acting does sadly come from the kid actors which granted can't be helped but there playing a key component of the film and so it needs to be addressed.

Let's be honest when we were all growing up we all liked Rufio and what's not to like the kid is a pint sized bada*s with a cool looking hairstyle. However tho after watching the film for this review Banning was kind of in the right at the start The Lost Boys hideout looked very unsafe and the kid's weren't eating anything at all so while Banning could and should have gone about telling them so differently that doesn't mean he was in the wrong to do so.

Rufio is chief example of rebellious The Lost Boys have become and because of that they've become more big headed. This is something that wouldn't have happened under Pan's leadership while I don't doubt that Rufio could be a great leader for them but the fact that they've also had no one really to fight against since Banning left to grow up really didn't help things at least that's my personal opinion.

Now shockingly the film has a really low critics score on RT currently sitting at just twenty six percent while the audience score is much higher at seventy six percent. This really is one of those films that will always divide the critics and the audiences because of the fact that the critics are looking at it as a film where as the audience members are looking at it as a way to reconnect with their inner child.

Speaking of reconnecting with your inner child that's something that this film does really well at least in my opinion. By the end of the film it made me feel like I was a kid again and those feelings of what it was like being a kid watching this movie for the first came flooding back to me as I was watching it and that is the best thing I can say about the film because I feel that that was the intention of the film and the film makers to make the audience feel like they were a kid again.

Even people who like this film have to admit that the neverland set is so obviously a sound stage it's not even a joke. I feel that they could have done a better job of hiding the fact that's obviously a stage even director  Steven Spielberg admitted that if he did the movie today he would have filmed it on a virtual stage which in this case I thing would have made the film a little better but not by that much tho since the film does have a lot of faults.

One thing that I didn't really pay attention to all the other times i've seen the film is the fact that whenever Peter regains some of his childlike habits (using his imagination for example) he becomes more like the pan we all know and love. That was such a cool idea and it's something that nine of the other Pan films have even tried to do because there all busy telling the exact same story with the exact same characters where as this film is doing it's own thing with this same characters I think the closest we got to Pan film including this aspect was the animated film Return To Neverland.

Now of course we can't have a Peter Pan movie with out Tinkerbell and well they really toned her down in this movie. Tinkerbell is a character who has a mischievous side to her as well as a jealous side now they do kind of show of her mischievous side a little bit in her introduction but that's really the only time we see it and her jealous is never even brought up Tinkerbell would have allowed Peter to leave neverland through fear of loosing him forever let alone letting him go twice she would have tried something underhanded to keep him there and all to her self.

The effects for the film were handled by ILM and I have to say that even tho this film out in 1991 the effects still hold up really well. I can't think of one bad effect in the whole film that's how well they hold up and if i'm being honest I don't think anyone would have cared if the effects were bad by today's standerd because we all know that when this film came out the effects were new and fresh and so the fact that they hold up really well is an added bonus in my opinion.

Overall this was a really fun film but it was also one that's really flawed film and so I can see why the critics didn't like the film. I however had a blast with it and so it gets a modest 6.5 out of 10 from me this was honestly a joy to revisit since it was a film that I grew up with and it's one that I think more people should go and watch since it does have the great Robin Williams in it and the fil,m is worth seeing just for him.