I am, perhaps, a sentimental fool for thinking that Hook is one of Spielberg’s criminally underrated films. Telling the story of a grown-up Peter Pan returning to Neverland to rescue his children, it is a hearty and wonderfully whimsical romp filled with a fantastic cast, sets, and of course, music. It sees Williams at his most familial and spirited – a child-like sense of adventure and joy. This piece represents the final confrontation between Pan, the Lost Boys and the pirates, switching between the various themes for the pirates as well as Pan’s motif.
Everything about the film and its soundtrack harks to a time where so-called family films were not as formulaic as the majority of them are today. Williams did not compose a soundtrack with this kind of vigour until Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and even that didn’t compare to his output for Hook. Listening to this soundtrack and re-watching the film is an experience that can only be looked at with fondness: an opportunity to reawaken the joys of childhood, and a reverence for a time (and even actors) lost.