So, what happened?
If youve never quite warmed toHook, then youre not alone.
Its director,Steven Spielberg, apparently isnt much of a fan of it either.
In fact, lets leave the apparently out of it.
In an interview with the Kermode & Mayo radio show while promoting the filmLincoln, he was pretty candid.
I want to seeHookagain, he told them.
I still dont like that movie.
Im hoping some day Ill see it again and perhaps like some of it.
Hookwas something of a disappointment all around.
AnotherE.T.-scale success was expected.
But it never happened.
Not thatHookflopped (although the far cheaperThe Addams Familydid equivalent business in the US around the same time).
That was a lot of money in the early 90s, although so wasHooks $70 million budget.
Ad content continues below
We Dont Wanna Grow Up
So how doesHookstand up?
I recruited my children to help answer that.
Thus, my six-year old daughter and my 11-year old son feasted their eyes on the film.
they quite liked it.
And in fact, bloat is one ofHooks problems.
The film, as you probably know, is the tale of what happens when Peter Pan grows up.
Worse, he goes to a meeting at the office, rather than his sons baseball game.
Worse, he shouts at his kids.
Worse, he takes a phone call during his daughters play.
Worse, he… well, you get the idea.
She leaves you rooting for the fact that her stories are true.
The Media Circus
Enter Tinkerbell.
Primarily because of the troubles she was going through off-screen rather than her work on it.
In fact, set rumors and this was in a pre-internet age were damning.
Roberts, we were led to believe, was difficult to work with.
If that was indeed true, who could blame her?
That, and every tabloid on the planet was seemingly after a story about her.
Watch Hook on Amazon
At the time of shootingHook, Roberts was still in her early 20s.
Who of us could deal with what she went through at that age, for better or worse?
Spielberg, to be fair, defended his star.
I bring all this up because it does seem to have had some impact on the screen.
And for whatever reason, she seems a bit flat.
His Captain Hook makes you pine for Jason Isaacs, as we regularly do.
Its as if theres a tonal misjudgement here.
Hook himself, bluntly, comes across as a pantomime fool (hes even de-wigged at the end!
When he kills Dante Bascos Rufio, theres a sense of where did that come from?
Even in the early 90s, that felt wrong.
Even if theres still, even now, a sense of was that it?
Instead, the script focuses more on Peter Pans family problems, Tinkerbell, and the Lost Boys.
But did anyone go in to seeHooknot knowing that Banning would become Peter Pan?
Yet the process issovery drawn out.
Peter doesnt find his happy thought until over halfway through the movie over 70 minutes in!
Until then, hes been the grumpy, confused twit with the mobile phone.
But even Cameron knew he had to release them eventually.
Hookjust takes too long to do anything.
Its as if all concerned got blinded by how attractive the idea of the movie was.
After all, Steven Spielberg directing a grown-up Peter Pan movie?
When the press wasnt obsessing over Julia Roberts personal life, that was the other key message.
The Peter Pan of modern cinema, directing the story of when Peter Pan grew up.
They must have doubled the budget for the Christmas party there and then.
Yet placed in the context of Spielbergs career,Hookcame at a crossroads of sorts.
Without that, its a long film, one that has just enough material and moments to sustain it.
In both, he hit the mark.
WithHook, he missed.
And somewhat inevitably, theres a sense that this is a mid-40s Spielberg going through a transition.
But thats easy to see now.
The Upsides
Having said all that, theres still more to like here than I remembered.
Furthermore, John Williams score is quite, quite brilliant.
Not something thats said lightly.
The double CD release is an absolute treat.
Nothing is done in half measures.
And maybe the genesis of the screenplay didnt help there.
Hookstarted as one thing, after all, and ended up another.
Michael Jackson was considered for the lead at that point, but he declined.
Spielberg, who had been circling the film, dropped out in the mid-80s after pre-production had begun.
Enter Nick Castle, and the idea of an older Peter Pan.
Paramount hired him to direct, andThe Last Starfighterhelmer got to work.
The film was then greenlit when Spielberg was installed, and a large scale success was expected.
But maybe it was all too perfect a fit.
This one hadnt gone to plan.
I liked those bits, though, notwithstanding the narrative issues.
And my kids did too.
Yet contrary to reports,Hookwas and is no disaster.
