Peter Pan & Wendy’s controversial dark visuals are the whole point of the movie
Most live-action Disney remakes feel like perfunctory re-treads. The exceptions, which are few and far between, include Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella, whose emphasis on kindness through adversity makes for a wonderful addition, and David Lowery’s Pete’s Dragon, which transforms the middling original into a tale that captures the wonder of childhood. Lowery also directed the straight-to-Disney-Plus feature Peter Pan & Wendy, the live-action remake of Disney’s animated 1953 Peter Pan, which makes a solid argument for its existence through its aesthetic approach.
When the first trailer arrived, the moviecame under fire for its murky appearance, but that isn’t the whole story. This isn’t a film about retaining a love for childhood whimsy: Lowery’s remake is about conflicted feelings on growing up, and what it takes to face this inevitable step. The film’s alterations to the animated classic are admirable (though occasionally wobbly), with a renewed focus on its theme of children struggling with leaving childhood behind. Lowery not only returns to the original source material, J.M. Barrie’s 1904 play, to borrow a handful of minor plot points, but his thematic focus is also much more in line with Barrie’s than that of the Disney film.
Simply copying and pasting the 1953 movie’s wide-eyed approach to wonder would mean re-treading the ground Lowery already covered in his version of Pete’s Dragon, so instead, he attempts a closer examination of childhood fairy tales, filtering them through a lens that’s both nostalgic for Disney’s original movies and critical of their wistful musings. On paper, the result is one of the more meaningful departures from convention that Disney has seen in recent years. In execution, though, it falls
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