Review: 'Peter Pan & Wendy' takes Disney's 1953 animated tale as a jumping-off point for an engaging, and different, adventure

Give this to director David Lowery: When he makes a live-action version of an animated Disney movie — as he did with “Pete’s Dragon” in 2016 and does with the new “Peter Pan & Wendy” — he isn’t a slave to the original.

Lowery and his writing partner on both Disney adaptations, Toby Halbrooks, start with the familiar story of J.M. Barrie’s 1904 play: The Darling siblings — older sister Wendy (Ever Anderson), and brothers John (Joshua Pickering) and Michael (Jacobi June) — are playing in their nursery, when a boy shows up through their window. This is Peter Pan (Alexander Molony), the figure of their bedtime stories, a boy who never grows up, and flies with the aid of a fairy, Tinker Bell (played by Yara Shahidi), and her pixie dust.

Peter invites the Darling children to go with him to Neverland, where they can play all day and night, and never have to grow up. For Wendy — who, at 15, has been told by her parents (Alan Tudyk and Molly Parker) that she will be sent to boarding school to become a proper lady — the prospect of not having to grow up is mighty appealing. So soon, the three of them are following Peter’s directions, “second star to the right and straight on ’til morning,” and are flying, thanks to that pixie dust and happy thoughts.

It’s here where animation fans will notice that Lowery has left the marked path. Mrs. Darling sings a lullaby, but it’s not a song from Disney’s 1953 version. In fact, the only music from the ’53 is a brief melody of “You Can Fly! You Can Fly! You Can Fly!” referenced in Daniel Hart’s score when Wendy first goes airborne.

Soon they arrive at Neverland, which is also different from the 1953 version. The Lost Boys now include girls, for starters. And Tiger Lily isn’t depicted as an offensive Native American stereotype, but an authentic-looking Indigenous character (played by Alyssa Wapanatâhk, who is Bigstone Cree First Nation from Canada).

There are still pirates in Neverland, and Peter is more than ready to resume his feud with the nastiest pirate of them all: Captain James Hook (Jude Law). But even that relationship has some twists to it.

The other important upgrade is the movie’s focus on Wendy. She’s no mere damsel in distress, but probably the most pivotal role — because the whole story revolves around her choice of whether to keep enjoying adventures in Neverland or go back to London to start an extraordinary life as an adult. (Anyone who accuses Disney of serving up a “woke” version of “Peter Pan” doesn’t know the character’s history: The title of Barrie’s 1911 novel, based on the 1904 play, was “Peter and Wendy.”)

Young Anderson is a joy to watch as Wendy, capturing the character’s sense of wonder and her growing understanding of what it means to grow up. By the way, Anderson, who is 15 like her character, is the daughter of director Paul W.S. Anderson and actor Milla Jovovich (“The Fifth Element,” “Resident Evil”), and her resemblance to her mother is remarkable.

Lowery doesn’t give us what we think we want in “Peter Pan & Wendy,” like the live-action takes on “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King” did. Instead he gives us something to think about — a variation on a classic story with room to explore and experiment. Not everything comes together perfectly, but it remains (to borrow Peter’s description of death) an awfully big adventure.

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‘Peter Pan & Wendy’

★★★

Starts streaming Friday, April 28, on Disney+. Rated PG for violence, peril and thematic elements.  Running time: 106 minutes.