I will start by saying the CGI in this was pretty terrible, and this is coming from someone who couldn't really catch Henry Cavill's upper lip in Justice League or the bad CGI in Black Panther. What I'm saying is that the CGI is very noticeably bad, but this is a TV special back in 2011, so...If that doesn't bother you, then let's talk about the story. It was pretty solid and I enjoyed it. This is certainly not a prequel to Disney's Peter Pan or even the original J. M. Barrie novel. The events of the actual "Peter Pan" story would play out somewhat differently following from the events of this prequel. But the prequel itself had a solid plot, pretty good pacing, and kept me engaged. However, what surprised me the most were the characters. I really didn't expect that a low budget TV special would put so much care into fully realizing the characters. It seems like the creators put a lot of thought behind every one of the characters, even the minor ones. Even if most of them didn't have arcs, they all had distinct personalities and their motivations were well drawn. And all of their choices made sense and were put together with thought. (Even the reason behind why time stands still in Neverland made sense.)I also liked the diversity in the cast. It was of course 90% white, but there was diversity with respect to what time the characters came from, and their class differences, all of which were evident in their accents. And in the pirate ship, they had pirates from other nationalities which was also reflected in the accents. And I liked the portrayal of the Natives. (I don't know if they were all played by Native actors (and also, idk what was up with Q'orianka Kilcher's acting; I've seen her do a better job elsewhere)). I liked that they didn't call her Tiger Lily, but rather the Native name (of which "Tiger Lily" is the English translation). I like that all of them couldn't magically speak English, only two of them could and they had to translate for the others.These seem weird little things to give this TV special credit for - but I've come to expect TV shows of this sort to be very careless about details like this. And attention to detail is always a win in my book. I would have LOVED this as a kid. I had heard about it in college and wanted to watch it back then, but hadn't got around to it. But even now, I think it was a good use of my time!

not better than others. not worst. only new adventures in a new frame. for fans of Peter Pan - a must see. for the others - good occasion to discover a prequel who did few explanations, who use magic and the enthusiastic young characters for a trip in essence of a well known story, same fascinating, seductive and charming. it is difficult to say anything about "Neverland" . bad or good. because it has an interesting start point of story - Dickens would be proud as source of memories - and the technology did a great job. but the film has not the force to be a revelation. decent acting, nice adventures. and nothing else. but enough for a nice evening after a work day.

This is an excellent job explaining how Hook, Peter, the boys, the Indians, and the Pirates all ended up in Neverland and many other unanswered questions are revealed. You will be pleasantly surprised how Nick Willing brings this tale together with great CGI, actors and sets to bring you back to Neverland where no one grows old. Willing borrows from Dickens' Fagin character to mold James Hook into the leader of a lair of boys from old London including Peter who, of course, is the cleverest. Keira Knightley as the voice of Tinker Bell holds up well. The CGI is great, and even though Willing borrows from Star Wars, Dances with Wolves, Pirates of the Caribbean you really don't mind since he does it in such a charming way that you don't notice it because you can believe that this is actually how they all got to end up in Neverland. Highly recommend this movie.

Think you know the infamous fable of Peter Pan and Neverland? Yes you say? Well, after watching the original television movie on Syfy titled Neverland almost all those questions you never thought to ask are finally revealed: Who's Peter Pan (Charlie Rowe)? Where did he come from? Who are the lost boys? How did they find Neverland? Why doesn't Peter Pan ever want to grow up? How did Peter Pan's friendship with Captain Hook even started? Why did they become sworn enemies? Why so many questions?I certainly love to answer all these questions but that would take the fun out of watching it for yourselves. What I can reveal is that the story takes us before Peter and his orphans friends got trapped in Neverland back in their hometown of London at the turn of the century. These poor kids have to survive hunger and find shelter from the police or whoever wants to turn them to the jail or the orphanage, these kids have learned the hard way of living and surviving without the supervision of an adult, except for a charismatic grown man by the name of Jimmy (Rhys Ifans). Peter and Jimmy have a special bond that is very apparent from their meetings and they both are streetwise and have learned to cheat and steal in order to survive. Apparently Peter and his gang are to going to help Jimmy rob this jewelry store in search for this magical "orb" which is valued at a very high price but apparently the robbery goes awry and Jimmy finds the orb inside a chest among with other valuables and is transported along with Peter's friends to Neverland: a world contained within this magical orb, it's sort of like a world or dimension caught within the real world inside this orb (as pictured above with Peter), a place where nobody ages one bit and time seems to be still, thus Neverland. When Peter finds he orb and follows his friends and Jimmy he realizes that his friends have been captured by pirates who had apparently been abducted more than a century before into this Neverland and he must now find a way to help them. Along the way he meets a tribe of American Indians that help Peter get his friends back, every one except for one: that's Jimmy who is now romancing his way out of trouble with the Captain of the pirates (don't worry, she's a female although it would have been interesting had it been a male, huh?) When Peter learns that Jimmy is still in the ship, he comes back to help Jimmy get away in a boat that's waiting for their escape but Jimmy, as it turns out, deceives everyone by turning his back on his best friend Peter, who is as astounded as I was. SPOILER ALERT: You know what's Jimmy's full name? James Hook.Throughout Neverland, Jimmy gets a chance to redeem his actions to Peter however every time that he gets Peter's trust (along with ours) he goes and does something even worse than the time before. All these lies and deceits lead to the death of one of Peter's friends, many Indians and even some creatures from Neverland as the fairies. As you may know, Tinker Bell helps Peter Pan recover from an injury where he almost loses his life (thanks, in part, to Jimmy-or should I say Hook?) and she takes Peter to a land of fairies somewhere in the forest and they give Peter back his life as well as new fairy-like properties like the ability to fly. It's still exhilarating to see the excitement in Peter's eyes when he learns that he's actually flying and with his new found power he has the courage to confront Hook and the pirates and try to restore peace to Neverland which may never happen, as long as we have Hook and pirates, there's always bound to be trouble. There's many great actors in Neverland, by the way: Charlie Rowe is a charming boy who is just as bit precocious and likable as Peter, then there's his best friend turned enemy James "Jimmy" Hook played by Rhys Ifans (remember him as Hugh Grant's roommate in Notting Hill, always with his underwear and no pants?), as well as Q'orianka Kilcher as the American Indian girl that helps Peter and friends despite everything he's caused on her people (she was Pocahontas in 2005's The New World with Colin Farrell), Bob Hoskins as a pirate (just like in 1991's Hook) and Keira Knightley as the voice of Tinker Bell. I recommend this movie for the whole family and make sure to catch both episodes since it's quite long so they had to break it into 2 parts, great special effects by the way you'll be blown away as to how much detail they were able to do here and it's on basic cable, it doesn't get better than that. Now about those pesky commercials though...