Steven Spielberg's distinctly nonmagical rendering of J.M. Barrie's tale of "Peter Pan", the flying, fun-loving boy who battled pirates and never grew up, casts Robin Williams as a crotchety adult who discovers his true origin as Pan. He returns to his island home and eventually takes on old nemesis Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman) after his own children are kidnapped. Strained family 'product', with Williams in the unenviable position of playing Peter Pan like an amnesiac. Never Never Land, with its multi-racial Lost Boys, looks rather shoddy, as do the pirates (including Glenn Close, obviously in drag). The cast may have had a ball making this, yet the picture is an expensive lark, a personal extravagance--and everyone here is just playing dress-up. Julia Roberts is single-handedly misused as fairy-sprite Tinkerbell, though Bob Hoskins is well-cast (if too heavily bearded) as Hook's assistant Smee. All that's missing are plugs for Big Macs and Quarter Pounders and this would be the perfect example of a feature-length TV advertisement. *1/2 from ****
Review of Hook
