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The live-action remakes of classic Walt Disney animation seem to invite mostly skepticism if not outright derision, but some of them have been delightful: Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella had a sumptuous swagger, and Bill Condon’s Beauty and the Beast was less a striving-to-be-faithful remake than a tribute to go-for-broke musicals of the 1960s like Oliver! These remakes are best in the hands of inventive directors who are allowed to run free with them, reinventing the original material in ways that feel both fresh and respectful.
David Lowery, a director with a gift for rich, evocative visuals, has already given us one of those live-action remakes with 2016’s Pete’s Dragon, and he’s now gotten a crack at a second, Peter Pan & Wendy, a reworking of Disney’s 1953 Technicolor flight of fancy Peter Pan. Perhaps there’s just no getting around the weirdness of Scottish playwright and novelist J.M. Barrie’s initial conceit, first explored in a 1904 stage play: A boy-sprite who refuses to grow up makes it all seem normal by orchestrating the companionship of other lost kids. But they still need a mother, so he tries to persuade a compliant preteen girl to accept the role. Maybe the best approach would be to just lean into the story’s sterling-and-carved-oak Edwardian strangeness. But Lowery instead tries to retrofit Barrie’s vision to fit modern sensibilities, and the result is both a stretch and a slog. If you don’t count the end credits, Peter Pan & Wendy clocks in at a reasonable runtime of a little over 95 minutes. So why does it feel interminable?
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