User reviews

We watched this with great expectation of a good to great show. How could it not be great? Christopher Walken as Hook. A live production! Christian Borle from SMASH. Kellie O'Hara. I was even interested in Allison Williams.

But starting from the beginning it seemed as if it just didn't quite jell. "Peter Pan" didn't quite hit the mark when he shows up. Not bad. Just a bit too rushed or nervous sounding. The kids were fine, the mom and dad were fine.

Then we get to Neverland, and "Hook" shows up. Or maybe, just walks on as if exerting energy in the part would be to go against the director's expressed wishes.

I thought from the reviews that people were being unfair to Walken, but no, they were not unfair. Unfortunately, Walken pulled the whole show down. The pirates, for example, were campy and energetic and and clearly trying to have a good time. But Walken in the middle of them all? Scene after scene just sinks. It might be that he's tired, or that he doesn't care, or that he is just horribly miscast. Whatever the reason, he was completely wrong and spoiled the production. (Even the previews of the production show him as giving way less than 100% in rehearsal--which is disastrous for any production--a professional *must* be at 100% at *every* rehearsal and production.

Other people were fine. I wasn't overly impressed with the choreography, but it was fine. The sets weren't distracting--it's a representation of a live show, and so the sets are larger than life like they would be for a Broadway show.

I liked some of the new songs they inserted (one of them was from the 1954 production, if I understand correctly), and I thought the music was great--great production values.

All in all, given anyone else as "Hook," this would have been a good-to-great production. Give a fantastic "Hook," it would have been fantastic.

But with Walken, it was just a so-so production.

Five stars. Good enough to maybe watch again with your kids or grandkids, but not something you'd watch again on your own.

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.

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.

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 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.

I'm just going to say what we are all thinking.

Wendy looked about ten years too old, but worse, Peter looked post-op.

Never, have I cared that Pan was played by a woman until now. Never has Pan looked so much like a woman, every single view.

I don't think I'll ever want to watch any version of Peter Pan again, not even Hook. This has ruined everything.

I'm sorry if you disagree, dislike my post, that is fine.

Worst Pan and Wendy, ever.

I still don't have enough lines...it's terrible.

It's awful, it's the worst.

I am surprised at all the negative reviews. This was live television. It is not supposed to be perfect. Many theater plays do not always go well and this is the same thing. It is precisely that spontaneity that comes with a live performance that makes it so much fun to watch. There is no post-production work when you do live, so that can't fix the occasional crew member or light that gets in the picture.

Most of the cast did a great job. If you know the history of Peter Pan productions, you would not be surprised at a young woman playing the title role. Allison Williams pulled it off beautifully, with a great singing voice and the guts to hook up to a wire on live TV.

As far as the stone-faced Christopher Walken, he played the role as he saw it. It worked, but it wasn't Dustin Hoffman or Cyril Ritchard. They saw it differently. It is called artistic license and Walken kept to his own style.

I gave it a 7 out of 10 because I thought the lost boys and the Indians were too old. They were extremely talented as dancers, actors and singers, but they looked almost perverse as they attempted to act like kids. Had they cast kids in those roles, the dancing and singing may have suffered, perhaps, but it would have looked better.

Some reviewers also complained about the sets. With very little CGI and only sparing use of green screen, the set designers did great! Neverland is a product of a child's imagination...it should be colorful.

I grew up watching Mary Martin play Peter Pan on our 9" black and white television. This was a modern tribute to that legendary performance. Watch the original again and you will see how archaic it looks. The performances are why it is a classic, and I hope time will show that this is no different.

Other than the too old ensemble to bring it down just a little, live television is something we need to see a lot more of.

The Mary Martin version of this play was a staple of my childhood. I watched it time and time again, idolizing Peter Pan, harboring a crush on Wendy, and singing along to every song. Even as an adult now, I can appreciate the fun themes of this story, along with the obvious nostalgia factor When NBC announced that Peter Pan Live would be following in the tradition of last year's Sound Of Music, I was overjoyed! Unfortunately, that joy lasted all of about 15-20 minutes. Instead of making me hearken back to my time of youth (like any Pan production worth its salt should do), "Live" actually served to disconnect me from the story and characters.

The main, obvious, glaring problem with this production is that the casting is utterly terrible. I mean, some of the worst casting I've ever seen. The only one even passable was Wendy (Taylor Louderman), and she was just "okay". Allison Williams (as Pan) can't hold a candle to classic performers such as Mary Martin or Cathy Rigby. The energy just isn't there. There is also no innocence in the interactions between pirates/lost boys/indians/mermaids in Neverland, as they are all played by older actors that (once again) struggle to match the energy of previous productions I've seen.

Then, there is the train wreck that is Christopher Walken as Captain Hook. Whoever made that choice should probably be packing his/her bags right now, as it was the final (and largest) nail in the coffin. Walken is a great deadpan actor...which makes him completely wrong for the part. Hook needs to have a swashbuckling air about him, full of pent-up energy and frivolous anger. Instead, Walken does his traditional deadpan (maybe that's all he knows how to do, though, so again it probably just comes down to casting) and never alters his facial expressions once. During his times on the screen, I found myself reaching for something else to do...it was that bad.

Let me be clear on one quick thing too: I'm not rating this performance down because it didn't live up to my childhood nostalgia (though it would indeed be easy to fall into that trap). I love the Peter Pan story in all its formats, and can appreciate the different ways the story has been told. I loved Mary Martin, saw Cathy Rigby live, consider Hook to be one of my favorite movies along with Finding Neverland, and even just recently read (and thoroughly enjoyed!) the book Alias Hook. So, I'm definitely not just locked into one version/interpretation of the Pan mythology. This one just really was that disappointing.

As the title indicates, this is one of the saddest reviews I've ever written here on Amazon. I so wanted to enjoy this live production and was looking forward to it for quite some time, and it just severely let me down with the terrible casting and lack of overall energy. I can't bear to just give any Pan effort a single star, so I will give it two (but mainly because Williams and Louderman deftly execute their songs together). I sincerely hope that there are not kids out there turned off by the Pan story because of this lackadaisical effort, as that would be the real shame in all of this.

The very notion of staging a live version of the Broadway musical version of Peter Pan for TV in this day and age was enough to generate publicity. Live TV is a phenomenon ripe for disaster and people knew well in advance that they were going to see a disaster.

They got that cheese-fest and substantially more in a horrific broadcast that was like sitting through three hours of a middle school play your kid isn't in. 'Peter Pan Live' makes Jersey Shore look like Masterpiece Theater.

The culprit in all this is the network NBC who evidently gambled they could get ratings just by staging an epic debacle that people would watch with the same fascination of rubber-neckers slowing down to check out a car wreck.

The sets were cheap. The make-up and costuming were atrocious. The acting was appalling throughout with performers seemingly always thrown out of rhythm by each other. The singing looked lip-synched in parts. The choreography was very often painfully out of synch.

Alison Williams in the title role kept flying up and back down again with obvious cables tied to her. Props kept falling and the camera crew appeared rattled and confused. It actually looked unsafe - like the cables could have broken leaving the star at the mercy of gravity.

Christopher Walken as Captain Hook walked through his performance injecting about as much personality as a wax museum sculpture and looked like he was reading every one of his lines off a teleprompter.

The low point came with a lackadaisically mimed sword fight between Pan and Hook near the end. The cast seemed tired at that point and beyond caring what the disaster looked like.

Absolutely the worst live broadcast to date. Very awkward. A disgrace to the work of Barrie, Charlap, and Styne. For those not familiar with this musical, do yourself a favor and watch either the Mary Martin or Cathy Rigby productions. And what's with all the political correctness? To make changes to the work of another is a great insult.

Get out the cranberry sauce - you will need it for this turkey!

This stinkeroo should forever end any pretension that Alison Williams should be in the Entertainment Industry. The only reason she was castis because her Father, Brian Williams, is a powerful part of NBC news.NBC hyped the daylights out of this production, and it still crashed and burned.

As bad as Alison Williams was in this production, she was by no means the worst performer - that distinction has to go to Christopher Walkin. Walkin confuses "pirate" with "really bad drag queen " as he prances his way through his scenes. His Captain Hook comes across more as an aging pedophile than a serious villain.

This is a lovely family friendly story. I encourage you to watch any of the previous versions of this production which have been filmed over the past fifty years.

The film if that's what it can be called is soft, not sharp, as if it's old.

The film mostly has a yellowish tinge.

Like the last "live" debacle, this one has the songs lip-synched, not live. Except that lips are out of sync. Is this because the actors are out of sync with the singing? Or because the transmission is out of whack? Worse. Dialogue too is out of sync, As if it it is prerecorded, thus not live.

Alison Williams is way too thin. And smiles all the time which is quite phony. Much better on GIRLS.

Credit to them for doing it live, if that's what it actually is. Two hours to go and I quit.

PETER PAN (Live) was suppose to be a big event for NBC. What we got was a production poorer than some high school plays I have seen. Alison Williams was so blah as Peter Pan. She brought no excitement to the role. Than we have the biggest shocker Christopher Walkens as Captain Hook. He slept-walked through the entire show. He spoke his lines like he was holding the script in his hands. Walken seemed totally bored with the whole thing. Now we come to lost boys who were played by grown men. I'm surprised we couldn't see any hair on their chests. The dance numbers were nothing and the sword fight between Pan and Hook was laughable. If you can, watch the Mary Martin version or the Cathy Rigby production of PETER PAN. They will make you forget this truly awful presentation of a classic musical play.

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.

I thought it was good not great but good. I thought Allison was a good pick for Peter Pan considered she's wanted to play the role since she was 3. I honestly would have picked Tim Curry or Jason Issacs to play Hook . Christopher Walken had no energy behind his interpretation of Hook. Sad really. The One thing I LOVED about Walken and Williams together was the duet "Duel" SO GOOD! The actress that played Mrs. Darling was also GREAT.

My favorite version of the musical was Cathy Rigby's version. I have seen her twice live in 1997 and 2005, I have also seen Mary Martin and Sandy play Peter as well.

I'd give Peter Pan Live! a 6/10. Allison was the best part of it honestly. I would see her on Tour if she goes on tour with it.