Hook Details

Purists will shudder at what Steven Spielberg has done to JM Barrie's classic tale, but their protests are likely to be ignored by those children who prefer old-fashioned derring-do to be brightened up with some 1990s trimmings. In this take on Peter Pan, Robin Williams is the grown-up Peter, a ruthless business pirate who has no time for his family and no memory of his magical past. That all changes, however, when his children are kidnapped and he gets a visit from Tinkerbell (Julia Roberts). As good as Williams is, the film is stolen by an almost unrecognisable Dustin Hoffman, whose Hook is suitably pantomimic (he is said to have modelled his performance partly on the larger-than-life screen image of Terry-Thomas) yet oddly sympathetic, a villain lost without his nemesis. The scenes between him and Bob Hoskins as Smee are a delight and, although the sentimentality gets a little sticky at times, this remains rousing entertainment.

Sprawling, overlong, often camp extravaganza with splendid special effects and settings that may appeal to the small child in most of us, even if it is time that Spielberg himself grew up.