One gets the feeling that writers and producer have a great respect for JM Barrie's original work. They've exercised their personal artistic vision well (the crocs, possible logistics of the power of flight and how Peter came by them, the hooded figure, "Captain Bonnie", friends becoming enemies, Peter's life before "Pan"); while paying a kind of homage to the original work by taking the time to fold elements of it into their story. Things like the possible origin and depths of the animosity between Hook and Pan; what happened to Hook's hand and how the croc got a "taste for him"; why Peter can have such fits of forgetfulness and lack of concern with his past -- remain "forever child-like and innocent; why he had to return to the real world to eventually encounter Wendy and her brothers (I LOVE how they fold this in at the end!). Everywhere one looks, one sees respect for the original story. It was also a pleasure to see Bob Hoskins once again -- and for the last time -- revive the character of Smee as only he can. Well acted, well written, well conceived. Most of the negative reviews seem to hinge upon the story or characters not being what the reviewer wanted them to be. One of the essentials of watching this kind of movie is the ability to put one's expectations on hold for long enough to see just what the writers and producer have in mind and respect that this COULD be a valid prequel to a well-loved story.

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...

Nice but more loaded with details. Charming to the limit of boring. Brilliant to be boring. A movie about beginning of a hero. But, in fact, only a spider web of felt.To much and to strong. A song with many nuances of cry. Savior - Bob Hoskins. But the ambition to say everything is not the best idea.Special effects are good solutions if the limits exists. In this case , the multicolored ball is not expecting cake. Ad usum delphini, it is a tangled game. So, story do not respire and the mixture of science, Amerindians, pirates and lands are only cages for a good impression. But it is not an exception. In our time, fas film is only piece of fast live. Appearances are all. And key for a chaotic culture.

The beginning was boring. Peter is a complete IDIOT. Read RottenToothDecay's thread "Terrible" he summed up almost everything, except a few things. Why did the faries trust Peter in the first place? Why did they think HE would be able to help them get rid of the pirates? Why didn't they give their powers to the indians? The indians respected them and helped them! So why would they give their powers to Peter and NOT TO THE INDIANS??!!! Oh, they gave him their powers because he has innocence. But he's a dumba--!! Even when he saw that Hook betrayed him and the other kids, he decided to trust him AGAIN!! After all that happened. At the end, Tinkerbell had an idea to let the pirates go back to London so that they could get the orb back and give it to the other faries. And maybe the faries would forgive Peter and take all the humans back to Earth. Excellent Idea! But does Peter think so? NO!! The dumba-- stops Hook from stabbing the orb and fights the pirates off and at the end, more people die and nothing gets resolved. In my opinion, Tinkerbell is the only person in this WHOLE series that was SANE. Even though she doesn't appear in the show that much. Nobody in the show was likable, except for Tinkerbell. Everybody else came off as stupid or useless.