Neverland

Neverland was released in 2003, directed by Damion Dietz and played by Melany Bell and Rick Sparks. It's another adaptation of the classic tale of Peter Pan, this time set in the present. It tells the story of three teen-agers (not really teens as one of them is actually 23 years old) that follow a strange boy, Peter Pan, (not so boyish as he too is a little bit too grown up) into a theme park. There they live some adventures and understand the meaning of growing up. 

 When I first started watching this movie I was somehow sure that it was the work of some just-graduated college kids that had done a low budget movie. It turns out that Damion Dietz is actually a somewhat known indie director, but it was low budget. So this explains a lot. 

The movie starts in a quick and unpolished way. I was at first a little bit confused about the fact that Wendy was black while all the rest fo her family where white people - but that's explained (much) later in the movie, so it makes sense in the end. The begining is like the original tale but instead of going to a party which is important for the fathers reputation - like in the original - these parents dress up into their best dresses to go to a dancing contest and won't come back in a few days time. It's a little bit wierd that they dress up to travel, but ok. Let's leave it there. By changing their destination the director - who's also the writer - tryes - and somehow fails - to make them into shallow, depicable people. But as they don't appear again in the movie, it's ok.  

One has to admit that putting the whole action into moddern times was a risky and difficult work. Giving the same script - some of the parts are just copy-pasted from the original play into this one - to teenagers is really, really, really not good. I mean the children that go to Neverland in Barrie's play are really young. Wendy's the oldest and I'd dare say she's around 10 years old. One has to think about that: 10 year-olds in 1904 act very differently than 20 year-olds in 2003. It is plausible in the case of Peter, who's the representation of a child but not in the case of Wendy's brothers and deffinitively not in her case. 

The acting could have been a whole deal better. But Peter and Wendy do a fine job. Plus I really liked one of the lost boys. The presence of a small child that the Lost Boys seem to babysit is a complete mistery for me and I won't get into it. 

The setting of Neverland in a theme park is acurate, yet I don't think that one has to put the lost boys as junkies. There's a difference between a drug addict and a child and I don't think that "childish men" need to be portraited as adicted. Inmature, childish, uncareing, ok. But not addicts. I think that's only a frivolisation of a really serious problem and a cheep excuse, that wants to stand for 'social critique' that really bothered me. Plus Tinkerbell. There's something really off with her, and I think she  - and I say this from my total loathing of the original Tinkerbell - disgraces the character. I think the movie would have improved a lot without her. And somehow Captain Hook is a creepy, perverted, gay man, and I didn't really get what his problem with Peter was or what the whole deal with the hook was about but after seeing this, I don't think I want to understand. 

The editing of the movie is really quick and at some points the images and the audio doesn't really mach. The loads of silences aren't very apealling either, but the music's not bad, if scarce. 

Another thing that really bothered me was the texture of the movie. It starts of with a home-made-movie texture, and it improves a little bit when the characters arrive at Neverland, but through the whole movie there's something odd in it, something I can't really place, but that bothers me no end. I think that (profesional) movies are so great because of their texture, something in the image- I think that it has to do with the light - makes every frame special and I think that's one part of the great magic of cinema. And this movie just don't have it. 

To this movie's credit I have to give it the last 2 or 3 minutes of it. The final dialogue between Wendy and Peter is a master piece. 

Here ends my disertation about Dietz Neverland: I think you either love this or you will hate it. I didn't like it. In fact, if it weren't for the last 3 minutes of action, I wouldn't put a single good word for it. But those made me rethink my review. So, if you're into indie lowbudget movies, or if you're fond of Dietz, go ahead.