Return to Never Land

Disney has been churning out sequels to its recent animated hits for a while and quietly releasing them straight to video. Now the studio has started plundering the classics, and this Peter Pan retread is the first to reach cinema screens. Hardly an act of sacrilege, but still a pale shadow of the original, it's the story of Wendy's 12-year-old daughter Jane, who grew up too fast during the Blitz and consequently could use a revivifying spell in Never Land. Capt Hook duly kidnaps her to lure Pan out of hiding. Unsurprisingly, this ploy doesn't work. Though the graphic style stays true to the original, the storytelling lacks colour and vibrancy. Pan himself isn't so much fun second time round, and Jane's conversion to the lost boys' cause is disappointingly perfunctory.