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This rendition of Peter Pan may very well be better than the classic Disney rendition.

Everyone, by now, should know the story of Peter Pan. He runs away from home and is taken to Neverland by Tinker Bell. In this magical place, he and his band of Lost Boys play all day and never grow old. They do not deal with the tediousness of adult life, however they are very comfortable to talk about death and killing. Creating duality, we have Captain Hook. Unlike the Boys, he lives at sea with his adult band of pirates. His sole obsession is to kill Peter, having lost his right arm to Peter in an earlier battle.

There is an underlying darkness that is appropriate given the situation of the characters. Peter never grows up, however he experiences much. The movie presents us with a very useful question, "What is Peter Pan?" This is a question that Peter himself struggles with.

The casting is well done. Few would argue that Jason Isaacs is the star of this film. His dual role as Mr. Darling and Captain Hook is, as another reviewer put it, "brilliant." As Mr. Darling, he is shy but quite the gentleman. As Captain Hook, he is dashing and as evil as can be. Unlike Dustin Hoffman and the animated Hook in Disney's Pan, Isaacs is a lean mean pirate. Ultimately, he is as alone as Pan. For that reason, they rely so much on one another.

The weakest quality of "Peter Pan" is in Peter himself. Here we have a film of fine British actors (or actors with accents) and Peter is an American. While this works to distinguish him from the rest, his lack of an accent makes his dialogue disjointed in comparison. Could they not find a young British actor with the quality to play Pan? He seems as out of place as Hayden Christensen does in Star Wars. It's not that he's bad, it just doesn't feel right. Well, at least he plays a pan flute in this film.

There is a beautiful scene where Peter presents to Wendy a gathering of dancing faeries, followed by a touching scene in which Peter and Wendy dance, afloat amidst green trees and twinkling starlight.

Roseanne is an obnoxiously loud cow. She also plays one in this cartoon. I saw "cartoon" because "Home on the Range" is just a notch better than the standard, Saturday morning fare. This movie is very reminiscent of Tex Avery, and I mean that as a very big insult.

The animation is as bad as Disney can get (which means that it is still somewhat decent). How can Disney even consider this film as its final send-off? Luckily, the actual last animated movie was "Pooh's Heffalump Movie," which I'm sure is a better movie.

The voice acting is well done. The casting is appropriate. Who can argue with the genius of Steve Buscemi, or the whiny attitude of Cuba Gooding Jr.? Patrick Warburton should be in every animated feature. The three cows have very distinct voices, each with its own major annoyances.

I am as big a Disney fan as anyone can be, but this is a film even a mother could not love.

DreamWorks creates another animated feature that has very little story and ultimately very little resolution. I would place this movie well below Shrek, but significantly above the annoying "Shark Tale." The characters in this movie are very likable, although Chris Rock's zebra occasionally gets annoying. I found Ben Stiller's work to be very funny. The most unique and hilarious character is Julian, the king of the Lemurs. His off-the-wall strange comments add a lot to the movie. The penguins were also great additions.

The plot itself is very thin. The animals escape the Central Park Zoo to see the "wild." There are a lot of New Yorker jokes, and even a crack at Jersey. Occasionally there will be segments that are nothing but back-to-back gags with songs in the background. They would be more tolerable, perhaps, if the gags were actually funny. The abundance of gag-to-songs made me want to stuff my ears with popcorn (I was eating popcorn at the time).

An optimist would call the animation zany. It is angular in nature, very bright, and has very little shading. Unlike "Finding Nemo," there is little realism to the characters (which may be a good or bad thing).

Ultimately, this movie has little to offer except the occasional gag.