Hook

TriStar Pictures | Release Date: December 11, 1991

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

52	METASCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews

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Mixed:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Kenneth Turan

For very much like Peter, it has clearly gotten harder for this director to break free of the lure of material things and believe in simple magic. And whatever problems his Hook has, there are none that making the film on half of its budget wouldn't have cured. Read full review

Roger Ebert

Poignancy. Lessons to be learned. Speeches to be made. Lost marbles to be rediscovered. Tears to be shed. The conclusion of Hook would be embarrassingly excessive even for a movie in which something of substance had gone before. Read full review

Staff [Not Credited]

Hook feels as much like a massive amusement park ride as it does a film. Spirited, rambunctious, often messy and undisciplined. Read full review

Dave Kehr

Like the massive shipboard set that is its centerpiece, the film is huge and impressive - though, again like the captain's imposing vessel, it stubbornly and disappointingly remains at anchor. Hook never sets sail. Read full review

Bill Cosford

Hook is shot through with Big Theme, and it's splashy- looking and big of heart, as you'd figure a Steven Spielberg take on Peter Pan would be. But it's not the mega-movie that combination seemed likely to inspire, either. It isn't magic. [11 Dec. 1991, p.D1]

Mike Clark

Peter Pan is the boy who wouldn't grow up, and Hook is the movie that grows unbearable once a grown-up Peter arrives in Neverland with a merciless 90 minutes to go. [11 Dec. 1991, p.1D]

Hal Lipper

Hook is so enormous, so cumbersome, that it resembles a complex machine inching its way across the resplendent three-moon Neverland landscape. It's a brilliant technical achievement, but it hasn't much of a soul. [11 Dec. 1991, p.3D]

David Sterritt

Much of the movie seems wired and overeager when it ought to be refreshing and relaxed. Everybody sweats and strains to be magical, and while they often succeed, the onslaught of so much aggressive charm is exhausting. Read full review

Marjorie Baumgarten

Hook has you marveling at the nuts-and-bolts work of producers and assistant directors, but never at the intrinsic imaginativeness of the story. It's as if Spielberg calculatedly set out to make a perennial classic -- certain folly if ever there were. Read full review

EmpireWilliam Thomas

How did such a dream project on paper turn out so wrong. It should remain one of the great mysteries of cinema. The less said about this one, the better. For Spielberg completists only. Read full review

Vincent Canby

Hook is overwhelmed by a screenplay heavy with complicated exposition, by what are, in effect, big busy nonsinging, nondancing production numbers and some contemporary cant about rearing children and the high price paid for success. Read full review

David Ansen

A good half hour too long, and badly in need of some scares, Hook is a huge party cake of a movie, with too much frosting. After the first delicious bite, sugar shock sets in. Read full review