Hook (1991)

"A film that will entertain generations...  Gary Franklin, KABC-TV
"Get ready for adventure. Steven Spielberg has scored another triumph.  Gene Shalit, The Today Show

Editor's Note Director Steven Spielberg brings J.M. Barrie's PETER PAN to the screen with a delightfully modernized twist. Forty-year-old Peter (Robin Williams) has grown up to be a workaholic lawyer with more affection for his cell phone than his wife and two children. When the family travels to England to visit Granny Wendy (Maggie Smith), Peter's son and daughter are kidnapped by the villainous Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman). Peter's faithful pal, Tinkerbell (Julia Roberts), helps him return to Neverland--"Second star to the right and straight on ?til morning"--to the world Peter has forgotten. There the Lost Boys welcome Peter back and try to get him in shape for his fight with Captain Hook. Peter must somehow remember his long-forgotten boyhood in Neverland and learn how to fly again before he can rescue his children away from the evil clutches of Captain Hook. Bob Hoskins costars as Hook's right-hand man, Smee, and Gwyneth Paltrow, in her first film role, plays the young Wendy. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Song for John Williams's "When You're Alone."

	Bob Hoskins
	Dustin Hoffman
	Julia Roberts
	Robin Williams
	J.M. Barrie - Based On Play By
	Dean Cundey - Cinematographer
	Steven Spielberg - Director
	John Williams - Musical Score
	Gary Adelson, et al. - Producer
	James V. Hart, et al. - Screenplay

Steven Spielberg directed this delightfully grown-up fairy tale about an adult Peter Pan and his evil nemesis, Captain Hook. Peter Banning (Robin Williams) is a 40-year-old corporate lawyer too busy with his work to notice his family. But when Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman) kidnaps his children, he is forced to remember who he really is: Peter Pan. With the help of Tinkerbell (Julia Roberts), he returns to Neverland and leads the Lost Boys in a fight against Hook's dastardly pirates. Rolling Stone
"...Williams is a hoot..." 01/09/1992 p.54-5

New York Times
"...Gargantuan....A hugely funny bravura performance by [Hoffman]..." 12/11/1991 p.C17

Los Angeles Times
"...Smith has the regal, otherworldly air of the perfect fairy-tale enchantress..." 12/11/1991 p.F1

Total Film
"...Dustin Hoffman is excellent..." 07/01/2000 p.110

Film.Com 7 of 10
...for a while Hook rises above the formula... The film is sprinkled with lovely Spielberg touches: a latch on a window that resembles Hook's hook; a kissing couple on a bridge who levitate when they're accidentally sprinkled with pixie dust; the young Peter chasing his shadow; the grown-up Peter trying to resist the proof of Tinkerbell's existence by dismissing her as a a firefly from hell; a spectacularly funny comeuppance for Hook that's stolen from the finale of Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah. Some of the most poignant touches are lines lifted directly from Barrie's play and applied in a different context. Smith's Wendy, like the aging model for Alice in Wonderland that Coral Browne played in Dreamchild, is a creature who must contend with the rich fantasy life that has grown up around the books she inspired... There are clever touches throughout the second half, but they don't build toward anything... It's difficult to assign a rating to a movie like this... Parts of it are well worth a three-star rating, but maybe 135 minutes is too long for any version of Peter Pan. Still, the good moments represent Spielberg at his best, and that's something we haven't seen enough of lately. - John Hartl