Nick Willing

"Neverland" has a clever premise, combining the notion of a "Peter Pan" origin with some Oliver Twist-esque elements and an explanation for Neverland that is almost as much science fiction as it is fantasy. The cast is quite good, too (Ifans, Friel and Dance in particular stand out), and the visuals are very inventive and striking, even if the special effects can't always live up to the admirable design ambitions. What it's missing, really, is some more memorable dialogue. The scenes and show more character moments are all there, as are the performances, but the dialogue (while not bad) is not sufficiently funny, cool or dramatic to make the events stand properly out. It should also probably have been about 30 minutes shorter (the total running time is 2 hours and 40 minutes), as the pacing at times feel much less action-packed than it should. All in all a good way to spend a couple of hours for a Peter Pan fan (at least if you can stomach the 2011 TV-level of the special effects), but lacking that little something extra that would make it truly great and memorable. show less

In spite of some clunky dialogue and oddly wooden performances (especially by Deschanel, who doesn't quite seem to buy the world she's in), "Tin Man" is a memorable look at Oz some hundreds of years after Dorothy Gale. It looks good (dated CGI elements aside), has some strong castmembers (McDonough in particular is good enough to really elevate the material), and the story is quite good on paper, even as its execution is sometimes a bit uneven. With a lot of tighter editing and some fixes to show more the dialogue, this could have been quite brilliant, but even as it is, it's well worth a gander if a pseudo-dark but still family-friendly adventure Oz sequel sounds like your thing. show less

I remember watching this as a kid and enjoying it, some parts were really weird.

The most faithful narrative to the original written work I've so far observed