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| Big stars and high adventure is promised on this craftily done poster for Steven Spielberg's Hook |
Peter Pan has grown up and is a lawyer and a family father, and on his family's Christmas trip to his childhood home in England his kids get kidnapped, and Peter realizes that he also belongs in a fantastical land ...
Hook is written by James V. Hart (Contact (1997)) and Malia Scotch Marmo (Once Around (1991)), with Nick Castle (Escape from New York (1981)) contributing story elements, based on Peter and Wendy (1911) by J.M. Barrie (Better Dead (1887)), and directed by Ohioan master filmmaker Steven Spielberg (The Sugarland Express (1974)), whose 12th feature it is.
Just about everything is wrong here, where, Spielberg paradoxically, - a decade after having made arguably the best family picture of all time (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)), - makes arguably the worst family picture of all time also, - at least one of the worst major budget Hollywood pictures for a very long time. - Infamous turkeys like Waterworld (1995) and Heaven's Gate (1980) are awesome pictures compared to the thoroughly artificial, fake feel of Hook:
Peter Pan has been molded unto an unsympathetic lawyer (as a fan since childhood of Disney's 1953 Peter Pan this just about makes me growl with enmity and lack of understanding), and using cliché #1 straight from the handbook it seems, he is a neglectful father due to his missing his son's soccer game, (according to Hollywood this particular action seems to be the original sin for the modern father.) This all makes me (for the first time) actively dislike Robin Williams (Old Dogs (2009)) here for his participation in this phoney-baloney. Later the same befalls Dustin Hoffman (Chef (2014)), (the dope!), SPOILER who actually murders a child towards the end of the film here as Captain Hook, - a dark ploy that is wholly unnecessary and forgotten immediately after, only making one even more vitriolic towards the ugly, over-produced, fundamentally poorly conceptualized Hook.
Williams' wife in the film, for no discernible reason, loses her composure at being in his childhood home (...). Later he kisses Maggie Smith (Quartet (2012)) (...) and Julia Roberts (The Normal Heart (2014, TV movie)), (who plays Tinker Bell and gets nothing to do), before he returns to family life, changed to his core. Ridiculous, overlong and continually nauseating, the film also boasts two unconvincing child performances from Williams' Peter Pan's offspring, plus a strange detail in that while the children's real life is white only, the fantasy group of children in Neverland are in full Benetton colors. The only mitigating quality about Hook? - Peter Pan flies dreamily.
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The 2000s in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
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Band of Brothers - TV mini-series (2001) - WWII-sacrifice and -comradeship portrayed with skill and integrity (producer)
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A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) - A robot fairy tale with both heart and mind
Amistad (1997) or, Must... Free... Slaves!
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Twilight Zone The Movie (1983) - Fear takes many forms in tragedy-struck anthology
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E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) - Spielberg's greatest accomplishment
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Duel (1971) - Spielberg's truck terror is ideal afternoon fare
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 70 mil. $
Box office: 300.8 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 4.29 times its cost)
[Hook premiered 8 December (Hollywood) and runs 142 minutes. Spielberg developed the film in the 1980s and then left the project. Castle was eventually paid 500k $ to abandon the director's chair for Spielberg's return to it. Spielberg, Williams and Hoffman had a pay deal with no salary but instead they got 20 mil. $ from the first 50 mil. $ in gross rentals, then nothing for the following 70 mil. $ and then 40 % again thereafter. It is unclear if the deal also pertains to the foreign gross numbers. Roberts reportedly was paid 7 mil. $ for her performance. Shooting took place from February - August 1991 in London, England, California, including in Los Angeles, and in Hawaii. The shoot went 40 days over schedule, which Spielberg later stated was "his fault", consequently ballooning the cost from 48 mil. $ to approximately 70 mil. $. Spielberg and Roberts had a falling out during production, and she has stated that he hesitated "to come to my defense" and labeled him a "turncoat". The film opened #1 to a 13.5 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 3 weekends at #1 and then another 3 in the top 5, grossing 119.6 mil. $ (39.8 % of the total gross). The foreign gross numbers have regrettably not been public. The film was nominated for 5 Oscars, winning none. It lost Best Set Decoration-Art Direction to Bugsy, Costume Design to Bugsy, Visual Effects to Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Makeup to Terminator 2 as well and Song (When You're Alone by John Williams and Leslie Bricusse) to Beauty and the Beast by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken from Beauty and the Beast. It was also nominated for a Grammy and a Golden Globe, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 2/4 star review, translating to a notch higher than this one. Spielberg told Empire magazine in 2018 about the film: "I felt like a fish out of water making Hook... I didn't have confidence in the script. I had confidence in the first act and I had confidence in the epilogue. I didn't have confidence in the body of it. I didn't quite know what I was doing and I tried to paint over my insecurity with production value. The more insecure I felt about it, the bigger and more colorful the sets became." Spielberg returned with Jurassic Park (1993). Williams returned in 4 TV, short and voicing roles prior to his theatrical physical return in Toys (1992); Hoffman in A Wish for Wings that Work (1991, TV movie) and theatrically in Hero (1992); Roberts in The Player (1992); and Bob Hoskins (Doomsday (2008)) in The Inner Circle (1991). Hook is rotten at 29 % with a 4.70/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Hook?
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