Hook (Film Review)

1991 Tri-Star Pictures
Directed by: Steven Spielberg; Written by: Jim V. Hart, Malia Scotch Marmo, and Carrie Fisher (uncredited)
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Robin Williams, Julia Roberts, Bob Hoskins, Maggie Smith, and Charlie Korsmo
MPAA Rating: PG; Running Time: 142 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 7/10

Peter Banning is a high-powered lawyer, specializing in corporate takeovers. He neglects his family, and when he does spend time with his kids, he's doing things like shouting, "Stop acting like a child!" A trip to London to celebrate his adoptive mother, "Granny Wendy," offers a chance for redemption, but Peter can't stop obsessing about a deal he's brokering. That all changes when he, his wife, and Wendy come home after a ceremony to find that the kids have been kidnapped, there's a huge scrape mark running up the staircase to their room, and there's a ransom note from Captain James Hook stuck to the door with a knife. The police can't help, but Granny Wendy spills a secret to Peter that changes everything: he, Peter Banning, is actually Peter Pan. As Peter gets sloppy drunk to this news, he's visited by a fairy calling herself Tinkerbell, and gets hauled away to Neverland, which is full of grungy pirates, hyperactive Lost Boys, and a mentally unhinged Hook, who wants one last battle with his old adversary...Peter Pan.
Hook is an uneven film. Steven Spielberg brings some of his most magnificent camera work and staging to this film, but can't seem to help himself sometimes, demonstrated by Hook's bloated running time, and some bafflingly over-silly moments. At the same time, the film's themes about fatherhood and childhood seem to deeply resonate with the legendary director, and he knocks every emotional beat here far out of the park. Meanwhile, Robin Williams, as Peter, puts in one of his most nuanced and moving performances. He's just as believable as the early cynical, world-weary, bad dad as he is the high-flying, swashbuckling, greatest dad ever hero of the film's final acts.
More bizarrely, Dustin Hoffman plays Captain Hook as a depressed nihilist who just wants a suicide by Pan. It's a strangely dark work, and yet Hoffman's also chuckling and seemingly having some fun with all the scenery-chewing weirdness, as well. Overall, Hoffman's performance ends up working as the antithesis of what Peter becomes by film's end, as this goofy, sometimes resoundingly ridiculous film starts to hint at untold depths. The greatest hero of Hook though, is the inimitable John Williams, who works musical magic throughout this film, from its early, mysterious London scenes, to its soaring and whimsical moments in Neverland. 
Considering Spielberg's sometimes struggles with pacing here, and some of the film's more outrageously goofy moments, Hook won't be for everyone. However, for those willing to look past those flaws, there's a magical, resonant experience here, touching upon timeless themes, with exceedingly high production values, incredible set design, and otherwise great work from all the heavy-hitters involved. Even without nostalgia glasses, this unfairly dismissed work by one of humanity's greatest living directors is worth watching.