Peter Pan Predicaments: Hook

Strap in kids, this is gonna be a long one.
    As someone who is a gigantic Spielberg fanboy, with his classics being some of the first films I watched when I became obsessed with film years ago, and also as someone who is very interested in the morality of Peter Pan, Hook hurts...a lot.
    For those who are unaware or just don't remember this film, which is very likely, Hook is centered around the idea, stated in the tagline, of "What if Peter Pan Grew Up?"
    Keep this concept in mind as I dive into the characters and story that Hook sets up in the first act. So Peter Pan is a money hungry, business-obsessed banker that completely ignores and never cares about his kids and spending time with his family. Peter Pan. And how does the movie explain this complete 180 of Peter, a character that has become known to society as the boy who would never grow up and stay young and adventurous forever, into the worst grown up parent ever? By not doing it at all. The movie shows us this one-dimensionally horrible adult figure and expects us to not only accept that it's a realistic character, but also that it's Peter Pan. The problem is that a movie can say whatever it wants, but we can't believe that it's true unless it gets developed. Especially if it's an idea as hard to believe as this. It could've been an interesting set up for a character if we got the backstory, the transformation from the youthful high spirited hero that we all know him as to a terrible adult and father. It seems like with "What if Peter Pan Grew Up?" being the tagline that this movie was heavily advertised with and supposedly centered around, there would be at least a little focus on Peter actually growing up. It's a whole two and a half hours long yet with that extensive amount of time the question never gets delved into. Really, it doesn't even get answered. The closest we get is a flashback scene at around the end of act II where Peter finally remembers being Peter Pan in Neverland, but even then it feels like a missed opportunity. It completely avoids any possible character depths and just shows a totally nice Peter even as a grown up, so now it makes even less sense why we only saw him be a terrible person in the beginning. The scene also comes too late, as by the time we see Peter acting as a genuinely good person, we're way too far into the movie to care about this sudden development. Where were any of these redeemable moments at the beginning of the movie, to make a more dimensional character that the audience is more interested in following?
    And to add on to how much the backstory for grown up Peter is basically non-existent, remember how I've said that Peter Pan is a character who is established in culture as "the boy who would never grow up"? Well the movie needs a better reason for Peter to leave Neverland, move to London and grow up than the one given in the movie. What the movie provides is that Peter watched Wendy's granddaughter, Moira, sleeping and "something changed in him forever". In that moment he officially decides to leave his only home he's always been scared of leaving, with the only incentive being, to remind you, watching a girl sleep for a few seconds. I really don't believe Peter would make such a life changing decision that he's doggedly refused to make before based on something as flimsy as that. And there are better ways to go about it, too, like if Peter took Moira to Neverland and decided he didn't want to lose her like he lost Wendy, so he stays with her. That makes a lot more sense with the character. And this movie is already two and a half hours, would adding in another few minutes for that really be too much?
    But really, everything about the completely unbelievable reverse in Peter's character was done just for the shock effect of Peter Pan being the opposite of what we all know him as. And it being done without any effort in creating a believable backstory or any dimensionality, making the whole concept impossible to swallow, well it's all only the tip of the iceberg of what's wrong with this movie. Really. Because that is all just the set up of the character, but the character arc is a whole other mess.
    So Peter's basic character arc is that he has to relearn how to be the child hero Peter Pan and find his happy thought so he can fly and fight Captain Hook, therefore getting his children back. Ok, fine, that is an acceptable plot that can work. Reading through a synopsis, it really isn't that bad. The biggest problem with the arc is that the movie exists too heavily in extremes, and it switches between the extremes way too quickly. How the movie makes Peter to be this one dimensionally terrible person that isn't believable at all, well that same rule about a feeling of falseness applies to when Peter goes through the character arc. Where Peter turns from stick in the mud to acting like an over active child, it happens in one scene, not even a montage, just a scene. I can't believe that  the original Peter Pan turned into a cold workaholic, and I can't believe that the cold workaholic turned into the actual Peter Pan within the course of minutes, effected by essentially nothing.
    After that, looking as far as Peter's character arc, it gets a bit better. The rest of the arc is Peter realizing that his happy thought that will allow him to fly is being a father. A good idea, and the scene of realization shows true understanding of Peter Pan. In an otherwise shallow movie that sloppily handles it's ideas and characters, this one scene knows that the original character of Peter Pan is incomplete. He lives a non-life where none of his experiences truly matter and he doesn't get exposure to the joys of growing up and caring for others, actually living. So this movie shows a Peter who actually grew up and has their happiest thought be something that displays a joy and wonder of maturing and growing up. It's a deep little moment that I actually really like.
    But then the character goes right back to being this one dimensional child throughout the rest of the movie. It feels way too forced and lazy that he would become as childlike as to climb up poles to the window and quit his job with no hesitation and then throw the phone out the window. There's a difference between being a good father and becoming a child again, and after what was established with Peter's happiest memory, it feels like this movie doesn't even understand the psychological complexities it tried to add in. Even ignoring that, after spending such a long run time with such an over the top, fake seeming lead character that I didn't connect to, I never to really care in seeing him be suddenly so joyous and fun loving.
    "But it's a family film" might be the first argument I hear in defense of this film, "it has to be extreme to get kids to understand". Well, what about Mary Poppins? A movie with a very similar character with a similar arc and similar ending in the form of Mr. Banks. However, where Peter is just a terrible father because the script says so, Banks is stern because he knows his children are fairly wild in causing so many nannies to quit and believes they need discipline, and his subtler dialogue and actions perceive that he has a believably strict personality, while still seeming human. And while the arc probably benefits from not taking up the entire movie, it works also for showing Banks slowly realize the wrong in ignoring his children for work, gradually go through the arc instead of all at once. Then it culminates in one moment of childishness in his realization of how he can become a better father, before it subdues back and he becomes a sensibly loving father by simply going out and flying a kite, not screaming at the top of his lungs and climbing up poles. Mary Poppins, an absolute classic film in american cinema, works in large part because of the realism of this character and how he learns.

The Lost Boys' hideout in Hook

    So the main character, character arc and  morality of "good parent = manchild" is pretty terrible. But even though that's the main focus of the movie, there's still a movie outside of that. A movie that tries to establish a fantasy world and entertaining side characters, and one that already has the basics of that world established from it's source material. And how is that side of the movie? It sucks too. A lot.
    First of all, Hook clearly does not care about J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan despite the fact it keeps trying to fool you into thinking it does. And that's beside  what I've stated of the morality being "good parent = manchild", which is fairly the opposite of Barrie's original message that we all have to grow up eventually. The movie also cuts out famous lines from Barrie's story and haphazardly glues them in the script, without any care for the actual meaning. The most egregious example is in the climax, when Peter is fighting Capt. Hook and says "to die will be a great adventure". In Barrie's Peter Pan, this famous line shows Peter as brave, but also furthers the idea that he really has no respect for life, even his own, a character flaw present throughout the book. It's a bittersweet little delve into the psyche of Peter, but in the movie, when Peter says this it's supposed to portray Peter as incredibly brave. We are supposed to cheer Peter on with this oh so courageous line.
    This movie came out in the 90s, at the time when a lot of family films and t.v. shows had a focus on not being timeless but desperately appealing to the rebellious generation, as Hollywood family producers probably put it: "hip with the cool cats". This was present in the live action family sports films that were  present in abundance and the Disney Afternoon shows that came later in the 90s. And the lost boys are really badly 90s-ified in this film. They ride skateboards and play basketball and say totally hip catchphrases like "Bangarang". And then the movie goes and makes a lost boy that's a fashion obsessed guido and one that's fat and his entire character is just being fat and dumb. Sure, there was a "fat one" in the original set of lost boys, but they didn't make as big of a deal out of it as this. The look of this Neverland and the way the kids act doesn't resemble Neverland; a jungle paradise completely disconnected from society, it just resembles a dated 90s kids hideout. And the movie never tries to explain why it would be 90s-ified with any in world reason either. And then there's Julia Roberts playing  Tinkerbell but clearly not knowing what the character of Tinkerbell is supposed to be, the Captain Hook hookers and the climax keeps going and going till it ends with the laziest "death" of Hook where he just disappears, etc, etc. There are a lot of weird screw ups and lazy dated revisions, but at least Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook is great. He's always extremely in character and delivers every line and action with a real sense of joyfulness. Even the scenes leading up to his reveal are really interesting, where he kidnaps Peter's kids and there's a great scene where a hook is carried to him throughout the pirate village with people starting to follow behind. There's a lot of interesting build up behind the character, and Hoffman doesn't disappoint and keeps you, well, hooked. (Yes I just used a pun related to the movie, sue me)
    Unfortunately, even though the movie is named after the inimitable character of Hook, it's about Peter Pan and his character arc. A character arc with terribly uninteresting emotions centered around an unexplored concept with an ending that seems to further push the "never grow up" idea, in a movie world with awkward screw ups and dated, pandering revisions.