305: Hook

[00:00:00] Chapter 17, Classic Film. Let's talk Hook from 1991. And obviously it's a 90s movie. I'm not saying classic film is necessarily silent film or early film. Classics can come at any point in time so I'm not

[00:00:18] trying to change the rules there. But at least when it comes to 90s movies this is one that I always hear brought up so I figured I'd tackle it. Hook is directed by Steven Spielberg, stars Dustin Hoffman, Robin Williams,

[00:00:33] Julia Roberts, Bob Hoskins, Maggie Smith and a few others. And the synopsis is when Captain James Hook kidnaps his children an adult Peter Pan must return to Neverland and reclaim his youthful spirit in order to challenge his old

[00:00:48] enemy. So Steven Spielberg as I say oftentimes on the show is my favorite director. I think he's the greatest director of all time. That's not really big news there or surprise but that's definitely how I feel. I love him and

[00:01:03] this is one that I saw for the first time probably in high school and hadn't watched it in its entirety since then about 10 years or more. At the time didn't love it. I think most people have sort of lukewarm feelings on it. Some

[00:01:19] people I know maybe growing up with it or whatever might be really enjoy it but I think for the most part people see this as a Spielberg failure in a lot of ways and I don't think it's a failure. I think it's still passable. It has some

[00:01:32] very good moments. Love Robin Williams. This is definitely one of Dustin Hoffman's best roles for sure. One of my favorites at least in a personal opinion. And one thing that I can sort of forgive Spielberg for knowing all of his work and

[00:01:47] having watched interview after interview with him, he is such a obviously such a lover of movies and wanting to expand his skill set, his reach, his styles of genres that he tackles. This is one that he's even come out and said I wanted to

[00:02:04] try and tackle this sort of movie. You know what hadn't I done yet and so he went and did this and he has that across his whole career. Hey I haven't done a

[00:02:12] musical yet. I haven't done a horror film yet etc etc and this is one where I think he tries and again doesn't fail but overall the movie is way too long. It does not need to be two hours and 15 minutes. I think especially the part with

[00:02:29] the Lost Boys goes on way too long. It feels like the movie is just spinning its wheels so I really don't dislike it but I'm really waiting for the climax to appear at that point in the movie. But Robin Williams as I said love him. RIP. He

[00:02:44] is incredible in the movie and he and Dustin Hoffman are perfect together on screen. The design of Hook is great and one thing that is throughout all of Spielberg's movies really is since Spielberg grew up with a very absent

[00:02:59] workaholic father most of his movies deal with a father-son relationship usually a troubled one and in this case Robin Williams is a workaholic father who's always missing his son's games and losing out on his family time and all of

[00:03:14] that sort of stuff and then the movie is really about him regaining that. So that I like and that always hits for sure especially knowing that personal connection from Spielberg but other than that with Peter Pan as well I don't know

[00:03:30] how many Peter Pan movies that we need and I don't know how many people actually love Peter Pan. Like I know this is one of the bigger ones in terms of the early films or like modern films of Peter Pan but I never hear anyone

[00:03:45] mention oh we need a Peter Pan movie like we need another one we need a reboot we need a cinematic universe or a prequel like I think it's one that because it has that iconic household name a lot of them tend to get made

[00:04:00] somewhat frequently and they almost never do well like for example Peter Pan and Wendy didn't do well. Pan from 2015 didn't do well so on so forth and so I think that I inherently just don't have a huge connection to Peter Pan I can

[00:04:16] appreciate the fairy tale nature of the story but it's not one that really grabs me and this is the same way even done by Spielberg but it's still an enjoyable film it's charming it's got some fun action some fun visuals it's a little

[00:04:31] dated in terms of the special effects but sort of makes sense in terms of the Peter Pan world itself so if you haven't seen it check it out it's worth a watch

[00:04:42] for sure and if you like Spielberg hey give it a look maybe give it a rewatch I don't know if it'll ever be one that really grows on me much more than it has at this point I think it'll probably stay about the same because I think the

[00:04:55] flaws are fairly apparent it's not really much of a grower at this point so a little disappointing but by no means a disaster like some people may make it out to be so that one is a three out of five