Peter Pan Live!

I saw this with my mom tonight. She of course loves the old songs (original to the productions in her days) so she has a lot of nostalgia which carries her through it.

I overall enjoyed it too though,surprisingly. Christopher Walken, as always is really fun to watch. And it was interesting to see a live stage production turned into a DVD / movie to watch at home. I think they did manage to capture some of the live magic.

I wasn't a huge fan of the girl playing Peter Pan, but not sure if that's her fault or how she was directed. She didn't ruin it though, she just felt a little flat or something. The other actors did a better job of conveying emotions.

This shockingly awkward and careless production of a classic left me and my family (those who hadn't fled the room after Walken's Hookzombie appeared) numb with disbelief. How could a major studio disgorge so amateurish and unattractive a musical stew? No we weren't expecting performances like those of Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard from the golden age. We didn't demand that, but we did look forward to some higher grade fun than this dreck. Williams tries hard to lend a bit of charm to Peter and succeeds to some degree, but she's swimming against an ugly tide created by the director and production managers. Walken, with (almost literally) one eye on the teleprompter and the other on the studio clock (When can I get out of this nightmare and go strangle my agent?), delivers what has to be one of his strangest performances, mincing around among his equally directionless crew like a geezerly Jack Sparrow. The pacing is nonexistent. The colors and costumes frightening. The Neverland boys are aging chorusliners, and the "Redskins" are ...let's see...what exactly are they supposed to be?

I really wanted to like this. I thought that "The Sound of Music" was better than many said it was. This, however, doesn't work at all. Allison Williams is decent in the title role and there are a couple of troopers who make it work, but how Christopher Walken was chosen to play Captain Hook stretches the limits of credulity. He is terrible. He can't dance. He is a nervous wreck. And he can barely sing. Think of all the possibilities. For goodness sake, the put an embarrassed Christian Borle in the role of Smee. It must have killed him to do his usual classy job next to the stiff Walken (by the way I love Christopher Walken). It just never got off the ground. It begins with some decent stuff, but dies on the vine. There is no clean movement through the plot. It is jerky and endless. I wonder if this is the death knell for these productions. If the only reason to do this is the novelty, it may be time to stop. How about some high quality stage productions of some of the classic musicals, only recorded ahead of time.

Fell asleep twice last night watching this. Now, having spent several painful hours forcing myself to get through it all, I understand why I couldn't force myself to fight the sleep. Ms. Williams turns out to be an excellent singer, but she doesn't know what to do with her hands while she's singing and so keeps repeating the same motions over and over. It was so annoying. Walken is fine, perhaps a bit disappointing. Was this production meant to be seen by adults only? I have to wonder why it was shown on a school night and starting so late at 8 pm at that. Three hours is way too long for this. It was too long between songs and I saw no acting worth watching. I believe I was actually in pain, forcing myself to see it through to the end. One more complaint: why, on earth was the child, Wendy's, gown untied to show just a bit of pubescent cleavage? Remember her father saying she was almost grown-up? Why purposely present children this way? A disgrace for certain.

After "The Sound of Music", I had high expectations for this production, since NBC seems to want to make this an annual event. While I didn't see as many excellent performances as last year, this was quite an accomplishment.

Taylor Louderman was the standout actor. Absolutely wonderful and a fine singer, plus she was beautiful.

Allison Williams was great as a singer and pretty good speaking lines, with occasional moments of brilliance. She was too pretty for me to consider her a boy, but at times I felt I was seeing Peter Pan rather than watching someone play a role and evaluating her. And she was completely convincing as British.

Christian Borle wasn't as spectacular as last year, but he did play two roles and did them very well. Without being told he had two roles, I would never have known. It was like Richard Bucket and his brother-in-law Onslow. Wait, not Richard. More like Hyacinth, but a male version.

Kelli O'Hara is an amazing singer.

The two young actors playing the Darling boys did a fine job for their age.

I liked the three pirates who spent the most time on screen other than Hook himself. I knew Shmee (that's how Hook pronounced it; live TV!) but I could never keep track of who the other ones were. But they were great and very funny. And not threatening at all. As dangerous as the pirates sounded in the Macy's parade and their first scene, they couldn't live up to their reputation and that's just fine. A kid-friendly movie can't have villains that are TOO scary. And these bumbling idiots reminded me of The Three Stooges or perhaps Dumb and Dumber (and Dumbest).

As for the pirates, they were very talented indeed as singers and dancers. Not since Michael Jackson's "Beat It" video have such sinister types shown so much musical talent. And no, I've never seen "West Side Story". Imagine, tap-dancing pirates. And pirates doing the tango. And waltzing! And an Esther Williams routine from overhead! What a silly yet magnificent production!

The Lost Boys were great too. Once again, I didn't really try to keep up with which one was which, but the three with the most lines all did a great job. Not just speaking lines but also singing and dancing.

Minnie Driver did a fine job as narrator and later as adult Wendy.

Finally, there is Christopher Walken. Sufficiently goofy, but I never once forgot this was Christopher Walken playing Hook. I don't know the man all that well but his distinctive style was there. Still, he was frequently overshadowed by his talented subordinates and he often didn't enunciate in a manner to stand out, or even be heard. He was entertaining enough, especially after I got used to (on a competing network on Sundays) seeing Pan as villain and Hook as handsome and dashing hero.

Tiger Lily wasn't given much to do. Alanna Saunders was pretty and a good dancer but she was kind of a disappointment.

In the "making of" special that aired a week earlier, I learned the people in charge of flying had a lot of experience with Peter Pan. They executed their jobs nearly flawlessly. Watching Pan fly was amazing. I couldn't see what held him (her) up except at the end. There may have been a slight problem with the youngest Darling because I could see an edit; apparently this wasn't completely live, because I saw the same thing happen 20 years ago in the sitcom "Roc". Ever since the Janet Jackson incident, "live" can't really be "live" because things can happen. Still, excellent work on the flying.

On the same special we were told how Tinkerbell would work. "She", of course, was presented spectacularly. And on this kid-friendly show, we were apparently lucky not to hear her talk. On that subject, the Macy's parade had one inappropriate word which I didn't hear here, and the worst thing we were told Tink said was a synonym for donkey. Yeah, that's it.

The well-known music, of course, was great. New songs were added, but this is real music and kids need to know that when I was their age, this is what music sounded like. Back then, rock and roll was this evil presence which mostly stayed in the shadows.

Once, again, NBC gave us something to be proud of, something the whole family could watch.