I watched this film as a child and could always remember how utterly bewildered I was by it especially in contrast to the impressive (if Disneyfied) adaptation of Peter Pan. It was darker and stranger and made little sense to me, I guess I just thought I was missing something.
12 years on and I still don't understand this simply because there is nothing to understand about it. It is a hideously self-indulgent mess of a film. Incoherently structured, one-dimensionally and superficially characterised, implausible (even in the considerably less demanding realms of the the fantasy genre, incomprehensible and ugly.
But what really got me about this film is that I have never seen such a large collection of talent so utterly wasted. Everyone of them should be ashamed for being involved in the conception of this cinematic atrocity. What was the point of this film? The importance of an innocent imagination. All of that was put on screen before and in a much much better way in the Neverending Story, a warm, imaginative, humorous and engrossing children's fantasy. It's everything that Hook wasn't.
12 years on and I still don't understand this simply because there is nothing to understand about it. It is a hideously self-indulgent mess of a film. Incoherently structured, one-dimensionally and superficially characterised, implausible (even in the considerably less demanding realms of the the fantasy genre, incomprehensible and ugly.
But what really got me about this film is that I have never seen such a large collection of talent so utterly wasted. Everyone of them should be ashamed for being involved in the conception of this cinematic atrocity. What was the point of this film? The importance of an innocent imagination. All of that was put on screen before and in a much much better way in the Neverending Story, a warm, imaginative, humorous and engrossing children's fantasy. It's everything that Hook wasn't.