Hook (2000, DVD)

There are certain movie scenes that really stuck with me as a kid. Among the most traumatic of them: Willie the whale getting harpooned at the end of The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met, Han Solo being frozen in carbonite in The Empire Strikes Back, some poor schmuck of a pirate getting shoved into "the boo box" in Hook. It probably shouldn't have made such a profound impact on me, but I can't think of that movie without a shiver of dread coursing through my body, and whenever I watch the film, I leave the premises when I know the scene is approaching. It's a black stain on an otherwise enchanting movie. My brother thinks my reaction is silly, but there it is.

Maybe I needed one really nightmarish scene to plant James S. Hook (Dustin Hoffman) firmly in my mind as a villain. Oh, the man is loaded with vice, but he's so elegant and so utterly comical that it's hard to really want Peter Pan (Robin Williams) to smite him. I always felt that way with the Mary Martin musical, my favorite version of Peter Pan, and in a movie in which Hook is the titular character, my sympathies are even more finely attuned to the man with the long black wig, bright red duds and extravagant mustache.

Hoffman throws himself so completely into the character that the exquisite portrayal manages to outshine the manic Williams - though admittedly, his performance is rather subdued throughout much of the film, since Peter has long since grown up and become just the opposite of what one might expect. It's not enough for the Pan to stop flying, fighting pirates and conversing with fairies. He has to go and become a workaholic businessman who's afraid of heights and has no time for his family. He's dull and disconnected. Until Tinkerbell's (Julia Roberts) crash course in reviving the old Peter clicks and the man suddenly becomes an exuberant boy.

As much as I love both men's performances, my favorite portrayal would have to be Bob Hoskins, sporting a perfect grog-drenched waterdog accent as Smee. Hook's right-hand man is such a fun character; I tend to like the lackeys, and they don't come much better than this. Hoskins garners a lot of laughs but makes Smee more than just a stooge. He's got a brain and a heart, and the movie allows him opportunities to demonstrate both. I also love Maggie Smith as the still-twinkly Wendy, who never forgot Neverland with all its enchantments, and Raushan Hammond as an expansively jolly lost boy with deep dimples and a cache of memories stretching back far beyond his apparent years.

When I was in high school, an art teacher of mine not particularly noted for sentimentality - in fact, this was the guy who routinely threatened students with the "bag o' glass" from the SNL Christmas sketch featuring Dan Aykroyd as a shady toy seller - admitted that he thought the most touching moment in any film he'd ever seen was when Peter's young daughter Maggie (Amber Scott), seeing her dad in the heat of battle, cries out in awe, "Peter Pan's... my... daddy?!" And after all, despite all the swashbuckling swordplay, the fantastical feasts and the exhilarating fairy-dust flights, Hook ultimately is the story of a father who has lost his way returning to his family.

It's pretty typical Steven Spielberg, but despite all the child abandonment issues that run throughout his films, we can be pretty sure that although Peter Pan was a fairly frivolous youth, he will not frolic on his merry way while his children - sweet Maggie and rebellious Jack (Charlie Korsmo) - are endangered, and he will not allow the seductive charms of long-unrequited Tinkerbell to lead him too far astray from his beloved wife Moira (Caroline Goodall). Still, there's something undoubtedly elegiac about Peter's eventual departure from Neverland; his own kids may have him back, but what of the ost boys who looked upon him as their leader? What of waspish but long-suffering Tinkerbell? It's sad to think of Neverland without Peter Pan, and of Peter without Neverland.

But as the movie closes, there at least remains the sense that Peter will take some of the joy of Neverland with him wherever he goes, never again becoming so bogged down in work that he forgets how to play. And if that youthfulness can be retained, I don't see why he and Moira couldn't fly off to Neverland a few decades down the road. What an idyllic retirement that would be!