2. Peter Pan & Wendy (2023)
This week’s “Peter Pan & Wendy,” from co-writer/director David Lowery, is an absolute treasure. Lowery has been through the Disney remake gauntlet before; he directed the similarly excellent 2016 remake of “Pete’s Dragon,” which seemingly got him the job to redo “Peter Pan” (the announcement was made before “Pete’s Dragon” had even been released). Now, after all this time, his version of the classic 1953 Disney movie is here. Lowery wisely includes elements familiar to fans of both the story and the animated film, and even-more-wisely removes unnecessary and problematic material that would clash with the sensibilities of modern audiences. (Tiger Lily, for instance, is played by an actual indigenous actress, the great Alyssa Wapanatahk and there’s a young actor with down syndrome who plays one of the Lost Boys.) And most of all this movie is both fun and thoughtful; there are some rousing set pieces (including one with a terrifically reimagined crocodile) but more than that, he makes an effort to embed everything with an emotional realism that has previously escaped previous iterations. And Jude Law is clearly having the time of his life as the tortured Captain Hook, with his prosthetic looking less like the gleaming Christmas ornament of Spielberg’s “Hook” and more like something Candyman would find appropriate. This is arguably the very best of the Disney live-action remakes and could solidify itself as a classic in its own right in years to come. (Streaming on Disney+.)
