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Parents' Guide to

Peter Pan (2003)

By Nell Minow, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 9+

Charming live-action tale has intense peril, some violence.

Movie PG 2003 100 minutes
Peter Pan (2003) Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 9+

Based on 14 parent reviews

age 13+

Violent and disturbing

My 8 year-old boy was so disturbed by the first hour of this film, we had to turn it off. Even I was disturbed. There is a scene where Hook shoots a man point blank in the chest. You see a bloody hole i the man's chest afterward. He had nightmares for days. Really, what are they thinking when they make a film like this for kids?? Not at all appropriate.

This title has:

Too much violence
1 person found this helpful.
age 5+

True to the book, watch with your kids instead of them watching it alone.

Cute movie! I watched with my 2.5 and 5 year old, and it was a bit too intense in places for Ms. 2, and she left to do other things shortly after they arrived in neverland, but Mr. 5 did well with it. Got scared and sat with me a few times, but nothing that stuck with him or gave nightmares. Would suggest it as a movie you watch with your kids instead of something they watch alone. It opened up a good dialogue about how some people are missing limbs, and we talked a lot about how movies are made with actors, and nobody actually got hurt, and whether it was ok to act like Tinkerbell if we're feeling jealous. We watched it because we went to watch Hook and I realised they had no context for Peter Pan, and it was a good, imaginative movie to introduce them to it. Very true to the boom.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (14 ):
Kids say (34 ):

Director/screenwriter P.J. Hogan's sumptuously beautiful retelling of the classic story maintains its timeless charm. The production design is simply gorgeous, with exquisite period detail. Even state-of-the-art special effects like flying and computer graphics are consistently conceived and gratifyingly believable. The jarring notes are Peter's (unforgivably) American accent and some anachronistic-sounding music. Ludivine Sagnier does her best as Tinkerbell, but the fairy is probably best portrayed as a spot of light.

Some Pan lovers will object to some gentle tweaking of the story. But it's not so much to be politically correct or bring it up to date as it is to remove any distractions from what in today's view would be seen as sexism.

Movie Details

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