Return to Never Land (2002)

Young Jane has lost her faith in imagination and Peter Pan with the outbreak of the Second World War II. With her father off at war and her mother distracted by childish stories, Jane feels she is the most mature, and is looking after her family as she promised she would. But after a falling out with Wendy, Jane finds herself on board Captain Hook's ship, heading towards the second star to the right. It's not until Jane let's go of trying to be a grown up does she truly find happiness and magic. The music throughout is very well written and while modernized does still replicate the feel of the original. Ultimately, I feel this was a great carry-on from the original with all the splendor of Neverland and the perils of the island shared between Peter and Hook!

When I re-discovered this sequel to the original 'Peter Pan' (one of my favourite films as a child) six years ago, I fancied seeing it because I was interested to see how Wendy would look as an adult. Recently I bought this film on DVD in a duo pack along with the original and I really enjoyed it, although some of its aspects could have been better.The animation here is better than that of 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame 2' and 'Atlantis: Milo's Return' (I haven't seen any of these films in full, just clips of them in the Nostalgia Chick's 'Top 10 Worst Disney Sequels'), both of which look like extended Saturday morning cartoons. In this film the animation was vibrant and fluid, which made it adequate for a theatrical release. There are also some funny moments, especially when the giant octopus imagines Captain Hook (and later his entire crew) as a fish but one or two parts of the film relied too much on Looney Tunes-style cartoon violence such as Jane falling through the ground and leaving a hole in her shape. While I'm on the subject of Jane, she is a headstrong character in the film who gets emotional a few times, although I found some of her dialogue similar to that of George's in the original film (I.e. not believing in Wendy's stories of Peter Pan) while Danny is cute and reminds me of Michael in the first film. As for the dialogue, some of it is similar to that in the original. Moving on to the voices, most of them were good, although I found Kath Soucie a rather unusual choice for the adult Wendy but her British accent was convincing enough. The only voices I'm not too sure about are Peter's and Cubby's because they sound noticeably different to how they did in the original. The scenes leading up to Jane being whisked away to Neverland were dark, particularly the war scenes. While the songs in the original matched its style and setting very well, the songs 'I Try' and 'Do You Believe in Magic?' sound a bit too modern pop style for the film's setting, despite the poignant lyrics of 'I Try.' The ending could also have been more substantial.All in all this is an above-average Disney sequel that is nearly as entertaining as the original. 8/10.

The other day I decided to go for the Disney sequels, Peter Pan one of my top favorite Disney films and as nervous as I was to see the sequel "Return to Never Land", but I decided to go ahead and give it a look. You know what? It wasn't that bad, it was actually pretty enjoyable as far as Disney sequels go. I loved seeing the return of Captain James Hook, he and his sidekick, Smee, just cracked me up so badly in the first Peter Pan, they were back in Return to Never Land and are still crazy than ever. Despite the fact that the crocodile wasn't back, I would've loved to see that return, the octopus wasn't a bad addition. The jokes are still fun and the story is still magical. We got to see what life was like for Wendy when she finally had to grow up and had a family of her own.Wendy is all grown up and has a family of her own, a loving husband, daughter, Jane, and son, Danny. Her husband goes to war and tells little Jane that she is in charge, so Jane takes that very seriously and acts as head of the household. Despite that she is still very young, she doesn't believe in Never Land and her mother's tales, but when Captain Hook thinks he grabs Wendy, he grabs Jane and takes her to Never Land to capture Peter Pan. Peter saves Jane and offers her to join the Lost Boys and hopes to restore her faith in his adventures and fairies, but all she wants to do is go home.Return to Never Land is a fun Disney sequel that I have to admit that I was actually more impressed with. There are still a lot of great laughs and the story is still as adventurous as the first time when I watched the first Peter Pan. It was a little disturbing to hear the big difference of the voices, but I'm getting past it. After all, it's been over 40 years since the original Peter Pan, so I think it would've been hard to get the same actors. But I recommend Return to Never Land, it's a cute Disney sequel.6/10

My Take: An insult to its not-so-great predecessor. Walt Disney started a very powerful career since the Golden Age of Hollywood. Even during the 30's, already have they made a mass of pure entertainment, most notable is "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" in 1933. During the 40's and 50's, Disney has made films, animated and live-action that still has the star of excellence, "Fantasia" being my favorite. Their work continued during the 70's and 80's. By the 90's, they still have the power to shine, especially with classics like "The Lion King", "Mulan", "Aladdin" and the bunch.However, the 90's marked the heyday of their animated movies. Starting from the year 2000 and then on, it has become the long awaited beginning of the end for the brilliance that is Disney. Surely, if the great Walt Disney were alive today, and saw what has become of the studio he started, he would have a stopped it before it grew even worse. But alas, we can only think of that on our imaginations. Although some of their live-action films, mainly the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films, are well-done, their animated films have lost some of its touch. Mostly aiding the help of Pixar for some quality computer-animated films, they decided to take things, on their own hands, resulting in to atrocious efforts like "Chicken Little". But before those, there was "Return to Neverland", a sequel to the classic "Peter Pan".Despite starting promisingly, "Return to Neverland" falls from the top to the very deep bottom by becoming a sad effort to boot. While kids are left with their imaginations and the animated characters, adults are left with a film that will lull them to sleep. The original "Peter Pan" wasn't much of a milestone for Disney, but at least it can hold its interest to its viewer for a length of age. "Return to Neverland", as of my opinion, won't even last a five years or less. This is definitely a straight-to-video effort standard compared to what Disney can do, or used to do.So, is it no wonder the film-going public mostly neglect Dinsey's efforts these days, with such disappointing money-wasters like this.Rating: * out of 5.