First off - save yourself the time and don't watch this movie - it's painful. If you are on the fence, and need to know why it's awful, and aren't afraid of a few spoilers, then read on.
That being said, This film attempts to create a modern-day version of the original Peter Pan, with some very bizarre substitutions:
The film attempts to draw strange, inexplicable parallels between the story of Peter Pan, and the lives of a number of multi-cultural children who were adopted by horrible parents, and who eventually meet another group of horribly misguided kids who also hate their parents, but have an escape. This escape is what they refer to as "Neverland", which is actually a theme park, where they do all sorts of drugs and just have fun. I wish there was more to it, but that's pretty much it.
I think the deeper meaning that was *attempted* by this film was to ultimately produce a grandiose "Ah-HA!" for teenagers and people who have major issues with their parents the message being that 'they're not as bad as you think, and neither is being grown up'. It tried to accomplish this goal by showing how screwed up the lives of these delusional run-away kids really are. Unfortunately, as the ancient proverb goes, the path to failure is filled with good intentions. Such is the case with Neverland - a movie that is about as incoherent as it is shallow, slow-moving, and just plain boring.
If you liked Lost in Translation, you'll love this movie. Then again, if you liked lost in Translation, there's something seriously wrong with you. On the strength of the IMDb and Ebert and Roeper ratings and reviews, I watched both Lost in Translation, and Neverland, and in both cases I found myself 20 minutes in saying "man, I cannot wait until these bizarre plot lines and totally random scenes start making sense" and in both cases, they simply never did, continuing on their merry path to obscurity.
Humorously, I actually thought this movie until just recently, was actually called "Finding Neverland" and didn't realize that it was in fact, a year-old movie called "Neverland". Only just now did I realize that Johnny Depp was supposed to be in "Finding Neverland" and that of course he was not in what I just watched, so I searched for the term "Neverland" and found this. I read the plot outline, and sure enough, here it is.
I think one scene in the movie really sums everything up nicely - it was about a 3-minute series of shaky, blurry, bizarre camera angles watching a car drive around - at which point, I nearly turned it off, but I just couldn't do it - I had to find out if it would ever begin to make sense, and it just..never..did...
That being said, This film attempts to create a modern-day version of the original Peter Pan, with some very bizarre substitutions:
- a theme park called Neverland instead of an imaginary Neverland
- Janitors in exchange for Pirates
- A Janitor obsessed with S&M in exchange for Hook
- drug-obsessed run-away kids living in a secret room in the theme park instead of, well, normal kids living in a fairy land
- cocaine instead of pixie dust ... you get the idea ...
The film attempts to draw strange, inexplicable parallels between the story of Peter Pan, and the lives of a number of multi-cultural children who were adopted by horrible parents, and who eventually meet another group of horribly misguided kids who also hate their parents, but have an escape. This escape is what they refer to as "Neverland", which is actually a theme park, where they do all sorts of drugs and just have fun. I wish there was more to it, but that's pretty much it.
I think the deeper meaning that was *attempted* by this film was to ultimately produce a grandiose "Ah-HA!" for teenagers and people who have major issues with their parents the message being that 'they're not as bad as you think, and neither is being grown up'. It tried to accomplish this goal by showing how screwed up the lives of these delusional run-away kids really are. Unfortunately, as the ancient proverb goes, the path to failure is filled with good intentions. Such is the case with Neverland - a movie that is about as incoherent as it is shallow, slow-moving, and just plain boring.
If you liked Lost in Translation, you'll love this movie. Then again, if you liked lost in Translation, there's something seriously wrong with you. On the strength of the IMDb and Ebert and Roeper ratings and reviews, I watched both Lost in Translation, and Neverland, and in both cases I found myself 20 minutes in saying "man, I cannot wait until these bizarre plot lines and totally random scenes start making sense" and in both cases, they simply never did, continuing on their merry path to obscurity.
Humorously, I actually thought this movie until just recently, was actually called "Finding Neverland" and didn't realize that it was in fact, a year-old movie called "Neverland". Only just now did I realize that Johnny Depp was supposed to be in "Finding Neverland" and that of course he was not in what I just watched, so I searched for the term "Neverland" and found this. I read the plot outline, and sure enough, here it is.
I think one scene in the movie really sums everything up nicely - it was about a 3-minute series of shaky, blurry, bizarre camera angles watching a car drive around - at which point, I nearly turned it off, but I just couldn't do it - I had to find out if it would ever begin to make sense, and it just..never..did...