Peter Pan 2: Return to Never Land

image for Peter Pan 2: Return to Never Land

Short takes

Not suitable under 4; parental guidance to 5 (scary and violent scenes and themes)

Age
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
classification logo

This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Peter Pan 2: Return to Never Land
  • a review of Peter Pan 2: Return to Never Land completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 22 July 2022.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 4 Not suitable due to scary and violent scenes and themes.
Children aged 4–5 Parental guidance recommended due to scary and violent scenes and themes.
Children over the age of 5 Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Peter Pan 2: Return to Never Land
Classification: G
Consumer advice lines: The content is very mild in impact
Length: 73 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Many years have passed since Wendy (voiced by Kath Soucie) was a young girl and first met Peter Pan (voiced by Blayne Weaver) – a boy who can fly and never grows up. Back then, in an amazing adventure, she travelled to Never Land, where she met Peter's fairy friend, Tinker Bell; his companions, the Lost Boys; and also Peter's vindictive archenemy, Captain Hook. Wendy has since grown up, gotten married, and has two children of her own: Jane (voiced by Harriet Owen) and little Daniel. Wendy has never stopped believing in Peter Pan and often tells her children about his adventures. The stories of "faith, trust, and pixie dust" help Wendy to distract Daniel from the terrors of World War II raging over London. Her elder daughter Jane, however, feels like she is too old and does not have time for silly stories. One night, Jane gets really angry with her mother and upsets little Daniel, telling him that Peter Pan is not real and their mother's stories are "childish nonsense". However, even bigger is her shock when, that night, Captain Hook (voiced by Corey Burton) flies his ship to London and kidnaps her – falsely believing that she is Wendy – to use her back in Never Land, as bait to lure Peter Pan into a trap. Peter can outsmart Hook though, and get Jane to safety, but even seeing Peter, Tinker Bell, and the Lost Boys in the flesh, with her own eyes, cannot convince Jane that they are real, instead, she thinks she must be dreaming. Little does she know that her grown-up rationality and doubts have a fatal effect on Tinker Bell, whose light will go out forever unless Jane starts believing in fairies. Without Tinker Bell's pixie dust, Peter is unable to fly and an easy target for Hook. Will Jane be able to make things right, save Tinker Bell and Peter, and make it back home to apologise to Daniel and her mother?

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Disney Classic; Musical; Fantasy and Imagination; Growing up versus embracing childhood magic.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, including:

  • Captain Hook and his crew, equipped with swords and knives, forcefully kidnap Jane from her bedroom, gagging her and stuffing her in a bag.
  • To provoke Peter, Captain Hook throws Jane overboard for her to drown or get eaten by a massive kraken-like ‘beast’. He also fires gunshots and cannonballs at Peter and Jane.
  • Captain Hook knocks his assistant, Smee, unconscious because he is annoyed with him.
  • Captain Hook manages to capture Peter and the Lost Boys, and wants to kill them by getting them to walk the plank. In the final showdown scene in Never Land, Peter, Jane, and Hook all have several close escapes from getting seriously hurt or killed.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • Sensitive children might be saddened and upset that Peter Pan and the Lost Boys have no parents.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

  • Nothing further of concern.

Product placement

  • None noted.

Sexual references

  • None noted.

Nudity and sexual activity

  • None noted.

Use of substances

  • None noted.

Coarse language

  • None noted.

In a nutshell

Peter Pan 2: Return to Never Land is the 2002 sequel to the 1953 Disney classic, Peter Pan, and stays true to the original, Disney animation style. The story is set several years after the original, focusing on Wendy's sincere and practical-minded daughter, Jane, who – unlike her mother – has serious doubts about whether Peter Pan and all the fantastic stories around him are real. Like the original, this movie offers families imaginative entertainment and the opportunity to discuss the central themes of faith, trust, and believing in magic. Even though less intense than the original, the movie still contains scary and violent themes, which is why parental guidance for a young audience is recommended.

The main message from this movie is that children should be allowed – and allow themselves! – to be children, and to live out their vivid fantasy and imagination.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Fantasy
  • Imagination
  • Bravery
  • Family
  • Friendship.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Vindictiveness: Captain Hook is notoriously known to never win because he is so blinded by his thirst for revenge that he gets outsmarted every time.
  • Greed: Captain Hook's crew are so blinded by their greed to get their hands on the pirate treasure that they happily risk their lives in the process.