What happens when the boy who never grew up ends up doing exactly that? ‘Hook’ takes the familiar Peter Pan story and asks a surprisingly interesting question: what if Peter has become the very thing he was once trying to escape? Robin Williams plays him as a hard-driving businessman, someone absorbed by work, acquisitions and deadlines, prioritizing career over family life. But he is also, of course, Peter Pan, and the film becomes a meditation on what happens when we lose touch with our most authentic selves. In a sense, Peter has taken on another identity and forgotten who he really is, and the journey back to Neverland becomes less an adventure than an attempt to rediscover himself.

So off he goes to Neverland for what is effectively a rite-of-passage story, though admittedly Neverland often resembles a gigantic theme park attraction – something between a Disney spectacle and Pirates of the Caribbean. There are giant sets, magical lights largely embodied by Tinker Bell, doors opening into fantasy worlds and elaborate journeys where characters rediscover lost parts of themselves. There are even Christological undertones here, with Peter occupying a curious space between the human and the immortal.

The film almost reverses Peter Pan’s famous line about dying being ‘an awfully big adventure’, instead suggesting that living fully is the greater adventure. It reminded me a little of ‘Flatliners’, released around the same period, with its notion that perhaps we do not need to wait for some afterlife to find fulfilment or meaning; perhaps we can reclaim those things now.

There’s also a Freudian playfulness running through the film. Peter himself jokes at one point that he’s having some sort of Freudian hallucination, and the film repeatedly explores buried memories and forgotten desires. Meanwhile, Dustin Hoffman’s Captain Hook is a magnificent pantomime villain – swirling moustache, oversized mannerisms, buck teeth and theatrical grandeur.

What struck me most, however, was that the pre-Neverland material is in some ways even more effective than the fantasy itself. Spielberg’s version of London is highly romanticized – all snow-covered streets, grand houses, eccentric grandparents and a kind of Mary Poppins-style nostalgia for an older world. There’s warmth and emotional texture there that I found deeply touching. It reminded me a little of ‘Shirley Valentine’, where the setup becomes so compelling that the adventure itself almost risks becoming secondary.

That creates a paradox within ‘Hook’. Once Peter reaches Neverland and encounters the Lost Boys, some of the wonder strangely gives way to spectacle. The Oscar-nominated visual effects are impressive, but the endless crowd scenes, sword fights and elaborate set pieces occasionally feel less magical than the emotional ideas beneath them. It’s almost as though Spielberg buries the heart of the story beneath its visual extravagance.

There’s also something here about cinema itself. Peter represents the world of adults, business and profit – the suit focused on the bottom line – while Neverland embodies imagination and wonder, the very reasons people go to the movies in the first place. And unlike the CGI-driven spectacles that would soon follow with films like ‘Jurassic Park’, this feels more like a throwback to old Hollywood epics such as ‘Ben-Hur’ or ‘Cleopatra’, built around physical sets and huge ensemble scenes.

Some critics, including ‘Empire’ magazine, have called ‘Hook’ one of Spielberg’s weakest films. I’d argue the opposite. It may occasionally become overcrowded and overdesigned, but beneath all the spectacle is something surprisingly touching about memory, family and the fear of losing the child we once were.