PETER PAN & WENDY

Here's the honest answer. This is a great-looking movie built on a thin foundation. The cinematography and computer graphics are excellent, and the film holds onto Barrie's best idea — that growing up "just might be the greatest adventure of all." Along the way, characters learn to forgive, to ask for help, to care for younger siblings, and to sacrifice for others.

But the storytelling is lackluster. Outside of Wendy, the characters barely develop, the leads are one-dimensional, and the movie struggles to hold your attention. Woven into all this are tacked-on "woke" elements — revisionist feminism and on-the-nose "diversity" messaging — that many viewers will find off-putting and out of step with the source.

None of that is coarse or crude; it's largely clean. But the scary images and action violence may unsettle younger children. So watch it at home, where you can pause, talk, and decide together — this is one to see on the couch, not to rush out for.

Peter Pan lives in Wendy Darling's imagination first — a favorite of her mother's bedtime stories. Wendy doesn't want to grow up.

Then the adventure finds her. Swept off to Neverland with her brothers, Wendy discovers a world of flight and wonder — and danger. Captain Hook, Peter's nemesis, menaces them at every turn, and Neverland may not be the escape Wendy imagined. What does this longed-for place truly hold for her?

Two stars, and here's what they mean. The craft is real: David Lowery's Neverland is beautifully shot and rendered, and the film's deep dive into Hook — why he wants a Neverland with no children — is genuinely intriguing.

But the reframing collapses where it matters most. Character development is almost nonexistent apart from Wendy, and the leads are too one-dimensional to keep you enthralled. Some of the changes — Tiger Lily recast as a warrior, the "lost boys" becoming "lost children" — are pursued in ways Barrie certainly wouldn't recognize, and many viewers will walk away scratching their heads. Creative in flashes, mediocre overall.

This is a mixed film. At its core sits a truth worth keeping: Wendy comes to grips with how children are made to grow into something greater — that growing up is "the greatest adventure of all." Characters forgive, ask for help, care for the vulnerable, and act sacrificially to save others. Those are moral, even redemptive notes, and they are the best of what the movie offers.

But that good is bound up with two problems. The first is philosophical: the film concludes that Peter (good) and Hook (evil) somehow need each other for the story to continue. That pagan dualism is muted but present, and it's a real problem from a biblical view — good and evil are not equal partners. The movie's deep sympathy for Hook edges him toward the fashionable anti-hero, the paragon of postmodernism.

The second is agenda. Strong feminism runs throughout: Wendy and Tiger Lily are turned from damsels into warriors who repeatedly rescue Peter and others. The "diversity" messaging is pushed hard — Wendy notices girls among "the lost boys," the girls bristle, and then Wendy concludes it's "not really that important anyway." It's on-the-nose, and it departs sharply from Barrie.

Wendy's discovery — that maturity is a gift, not a loss — echoes Scripture's own call: "When I became a man, I gave up childish ways" (1 Corinthians 13:11).

There's real beauty here and a truth worth hearing — that growing up is a gift, not a loss. But thin characters, muddled ideas about good and evil, and agenda-driven messaging keep it from soaring. So our answer is wait for home, where you can watch with the remote nearby and talk it through. Want a surer bet for family movie night? Try our latest family-friendly picks.