Hook (Peter Pan)

Steven Spielberg filters J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan through a distinctly 1990s sensibility in Hook. Peter Pan has become Peter Banning (Robin Williams), a 40-year-old mergers and acquisitions lawyer with a permanent scowl on his face and a cellular phone in his belt. Banning has lost any memory of being Peter Pan, and he is also in danger of losing his wife Moira (Caroline Goodall) and two children, Jack (Charlie Korsmo) and Maggie (Amber Scott). Peter and his family travel to London to visit Granny Wendy (Maggie Smith) who recalls Peter's lost youth and asks him, "Peter, dear, don't you know who you are?" With Peter's children asleep in the same bedroom where the original Peter Pan story began, there is a blinding flash. Peter comes into the room to discover a note from Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman), informing Peter that he has kidnapped his children. Granny Wendy now tells him who he really is and encourages him to re-discover his happy thoughts, transform himself into the Peter Pan of the past, and go rescue his children. With the encouragement of Tinkerbell (Julia Roberts), Peter recalls the birth of his son and once again takes wing. Then it's off to Never Land to rescue his kids.

I hate children's movies.

That might not be so strange, as I am no longer a child myself, but that is not what gets to me.

What gets to me is that the makers of children's movies usually rely on their audience's stupidity.

It would seem that these people think that since they are making a film that will be watched mainly by children, they don't have to adhere to common sense and logic. Too often do we see so called "family films" which consist of nothing but a bunch of one dimensional cute characters strung together by predictable clichés, leaping over hurdles of plot holes and stumbling to an ending where we find out that the evil bad guy(s) is actually only misunderstood, lonesome and good on the inside.

Most the stuff coming out from Disney and Pixar are hardly even movies, but the filmatic equivalent of shaking a key-chain in front of a baby.

There are exceptions however, and some films try to see things from a child's point of view, without simplifying life and all the situations a person (of any age) might stumble into.

Momo is one of these rare films.

Based upon an equally great novel by Michael Ende (more known for his Never Ending Story) and brought to life through the best of 80s special effects (these amazing screenshots speak for themselves) it tells a story that is both entertaining and on the button in terms of social satire.

Instead of ignoring the complexities of their characters' adversities, the makers of Momo used it as tools to portray a world that is both magical and brings a sense of recognition.

Momo is a 1986 fantasy film directed by Johannes Schaaf and based on the 1973 novel Momo by Michael Ende. It is about the concept of time and how it is used by humans in modern societies. The film features the final acting role of actor/writer/ director John Huston

In the ruins of an amphitheatre just outside an unnamed Italian city lives Momo, a little girl of mysterious origin. She is remarkable in the neighbourhood because she has the extraordinary ability to listen — really listen. By simply being with people and listening to them, she can help them find answers to their problems, make up with each other, and think of fun games.

This pleasant atmosphere is spoiled by the arrival of the Men in Grey. These strange individuals represent the Timesavings Bank and promote the idea of timesaving among the population, time which can be deposited to the Bank and returned to the client later with interest. In reality, the more time people save, the less they have. The time they save is actually lost to them, consumed by the Men in Grey. Momo, however, is a wrench in the plans of the Timesaving Bank thanks to her special personality.

In the cartoon Momo finds her way up to an elevated realm of a master time keeper who contrives to stop time long enough for Momo to sabotage a meeting of the gray men long enough to close their time vault when they need it, causing them to all disappear into their own cigar smoke, after which she can open the vault and release everyone's time which returns as a river of flower petals.

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