Well, they strayed from canon, of course. But they were still closer to it than any other version I've seen yet (do not get me started on the obnoxious "cuteness" and bad songs in the stage musical) - and in short I quite liked it.
The acting of the leads was remarkably good, especially in the case of the two youngsters, Rachel Hurd-Wood (Wendy) and Jeremy Sumpter (Peter). Jason Isaacs makes one of the most sympathetic Hooks ever, which could be argued as a bad thing (Hook? Sympathetic?), but at least it made him interesting to watch.
They made the romance between Wendy and Peter more overt than the book had it, but that's okay, because it always was a romance; it was just couched in "mother" terminology. Man, this story is a Freudian field day. Got to love it.
The movie managed to include most of the things I liked about the book. They showed Wendy as kind, and Tinker Bell as something of a treacherous little twit, which is proper to the story. I don't like the Wendy-bashing some people get into. They also did well at capturing the poignant mix of emotions in the original story. This isn't all sweetness and light. People die. Children kill. Running amok in the wild is fun, but not safe. Nature is beautiful, but dangerous. (Those mermaids will "sweetly drown you" if you get close enough.) Wendy and Peter's mutual love is innocent, but isn't. Peter's eternal youth gives him some joys, but excludes him forever from other kinds.
And, most importantly, being able to fly is really cool.
