Since CGI and cross-generational wit have become de rigeur, Disney has struggled to compete in the animation market - hand-drawn, single-cell flicks are a hard sell when they're competing with Toy Story, Shrek and Monsters, Inc. Return To Neverland isn't going to break the mould. A re-hash of - - sorry, revisit to - - the classic JM Barrie tale, so expertly executed in Golden Age Disney's 1953 classic, Peter Pan, this kidsploitation flick catches up with Wendy when she's fully grown. Her sprog, Jane (Harriet Owen), is kidnapped by the still-peeved Captain Hook (Corey Burton) and taken to Neverland for adventure and cat-scraps with Tinkerbell.
Starting off with a huge pirate ship looming over Jane's house and a creepy assault from Hook's pirates, any darkness soon gives way to perky drivel. All right, so it'll probably keep under-eights quiet during the mercifully short running time, but anyone older will recognise this for the Saturday morning TV pap it is. When a Peter Pan tale makes Hook look exciting you've got to wonder if the House Of Mouse couldn't use a little of Tinkerbell's magic pixie dust themselves.
