Review: Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare (2025)

Looks like I am committed to the Poohniverse.

Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare follows Wendy Darling (Megan Placito) as she tries to find her brother Michael (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney) after he is abducted by child killer Peter Pan (Martin Portlock).  Featuring a second appearance of Mary Darling (Teresa Banham reprising the role after her first appearance in Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2), this is the first broadening of the Poohniverse (it released before Bambi: The Reckoning and features returning characters unlike that film).

This one took a little longer for me to get into than the other movies in the series. There's some brutality early on that isn't any more off-putting than anything else in this series.  Maybe it is the (to me) unnecessary grotesqueness that permeates the early going.  Peter Pan (as seen in the above poster) gets scarred during a prologue abduction, but it doesn't end there: Tinker Bell (Kit Green) and Hook (Charity Kase) also lean heavily into extreme makeup.

The first 30ish minutes are spent getting us to the main plot (Wendy searching for Michael), at which point the movies has to do some serious padding to not resolve in record time.  Weirdly, this is when the movie picks up a bit for me.  Even more weird, the scene that starts the padding but brings up the energy of the movie is one where Peter Pan kills a very large number of people (that I am keeping vague to avoid spoilers).

The stakes thus raised, Wendy continues her search, with an assist from her friend Tiger Lily (Olumide Olorunfemi) and Tiger Lily's brother Joey (Hardy Yusuf).  She ends up crashing with them when Mary blames Wendy for not noticing that Michael snuck off earlier when she was supposed to pick him up.  This doesn't end well for Tiger Lily or her family.

Which, an aside: There have not been a large number of black characters scattered throughout the Poohniverse, but almost every single one has died, usually quite violently.  The movies are pretty brutal across all kills, but maybe allow one of these characters to survive?  It's a very low bar to clear, but these movies haven't managed it so far.

We cut between Wendy's search and Michael's captivity which is where we get to meet Tinker Bell and guys, I don't know how to approach this.  Tinker Bell is a previous abductee of Peter's who wasn't 'sent to Neverland' (killed) because they were a 'fairy.'  They are trans and while I can appreciate the inclusion of a trans character, they way it is done is... messy.  Other people are better equipped to break down all the ways this is problematic than me, but trust that I'm not sure this is the best of representation.

The movie sprints towards the ending at this point, and I won't spoil how it all goes, but the ending, for me, was unsatisfying.  I get that part of it is a set up for Monster Assembled, but I still think it could have been better.

6 out of 10