WENDY – Rated PG-13 – 1 hour 52 mins.

This Review is brought to you by Kathy Kaiser

WENDY – Rated PG-13 – 1 hour 52 mins.

DIRECTOR/WRITER:  Benh Zeitlin

WRITER:  Eliza Zeitlin

STARRING:  Yashua Mack, Devin France, Gage Naquin, Gavin Naquin, Ahmad Cage and Shay Walker

From the Writer and Director who brought you the Academy Award nominated Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012), comes a wild reimagining of sorts, as we venture to a mysterious island, notoriously known as the home of one Peter Pan (Yashua Mack), who still has not grown up.  When Wendy (Devin France), heeds Peter’s call to join him, and his band of other children too, it seems that Wendy is up to the challenge, dragging her twin brothers along too, on her secretive, and vast adventure.

As Wendy embraces her new life of never growing up, it seems that many on the island weren’t quite as lucky, as she now must face staying a child and living our her greatest adventures by Peter Pan’s side, or face the harsh realities of saving her family, and facing growing old, as they both might be the path that fulfills her adventurous spirit, after all…

I give WENDY a rating of WAIT AND CATCH THIS FILM ON NETFLIX or OTHER STREAMING SERVICE:  Billed as a wild reimagining of the classic Peter Pan tale, Benh and Eliza Zeitlin did manage to bring the classic tale of Wendy and Peter Pan into the 21^st century, but with a rather peculiar existence for all the characters within this new take. This film is was so peculiar throughout that it left me scratching my head as to why they created this very disjointed film.  Don’t get me wrong, young actress Devin France is superb as Wendy throughout every inch of it, as she can’t wait to venture outside the humdrum and poverty-stricken portions of her life, she is forced to endure.  But her performance alone, is where the accolades for this one end for me.   The rather strange storyline throughout, combined with the other rather mediocre performances by the remaining cast, did nothing to pique my interest in what was actually happening on screen.  And even though I realized going in that this film wasn’t a literal remaking of the story of Peter Pan from my childhood, it also didn’t feel fantasy-like either, giving it a sense of warped realism that was rather unnerving throughout for me too.  I also found myself searching for a mere moment of engagement, that would entice me to want to continue following along with this rather eccentric storyline, and film…but sadly I must share, that never happened for me either, forcing me to tell you that I definitely would just catch WENDY on Netflix or other streaming service to take this one in…