You can practically hear Spielberg asking, nay, pleading, “Kids still like skateboarding, right?” Indeed, there’s a certain desperation in Hook, from the surreal, overstuffed production design to the army of Lost Boys who mostly skateboard and play basketball despite living on a fantasy island boasting pirates, topless mermaids, and fairies. The rebellious young man who nearly killed himself making Jaws had, as articles exclaimed at the time, grown-up, replaced by a 41-year old father who was no longer in sync with his inner child. At this point in his career, the Beard was at an impasse, wrestling with a desire to produce more adult-driven features such as The Color Purple and Empire of the Sun and living up to his name as the world’s greatest blockbuster filmmaker. Sure, the film boasts his signature visual flourishes, humor, and overtly theatrical directing style, but the beating heart at its center feels artificial, driven more by marketing than a yearning to tell a grand story. Really, though, the problem with Hook is Spielberg himself. MORE: Everything Revealed at The Game Awards 2021 The special effects are surprisingly dated, particularly when compared to other releases of the era, notably James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and the story, in which a grown-up Peter Pan must return to Neverland to take on Captain Hook, never fully comes together in a satisfying manner. At a massive 142 minutes, it’s far too long for a family adventure that owes more to The Goonies than, say, E.T. Steven Spielberg’s Hook recently turned 30 and remains one of those movies that I appreciate as an old-fashioned nostalgic bit of pop culture from my youth, even if I don’t quite love it like I used to.įrom a critical perspective, Hook isn’t a very good film.
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