Most critics like Disney’s Peter Pan, and the praise gathers in two places. The first is the look of it: the Technicolor animation and the colour and design schemes of Mary Blair are singled out repeatedly, even in reviews that have little time for the rest. The second is Captain Hook, whom several critics call the most entertaining thing on screen, with the crocodile, Smee and Tinker Bell close behind. The songs, the flying sequences and the brash energy of the action are mentioned often, and the earliest review is warm about the voice work of Bobby Driscoll, Kathryn Beaumont and Hans Conried.
The reservations are just as consistent. Most later reviews object to the depiction of the Native Americans, and several find that Disney softens Barrie’s darker thoughts about growing up into something thin and muddled. The spread is wide. The Guardian finds Barrie’s magic almost entirely absent, and Slant Magazine, the lone outright negative, calls the film a footnote in Disney’s output.