You'd never guess it from the wisecracks in my reviews, but your modest reviewer is a radical feminist. Most men who claim to be feminists are just trying to get laid. I will make no attempt to allay any suspicions concerning me in this regard, but I do want to explain what I mean by "radical." Your ordinary run-of-the-mill feminist believes women are equal to men in worth, but I believe women are vastly superior. Sure, men are superior to women in upper-body strength and certain specific endeavors that require analytical intelligence (chess, math, musical composition, military engineering, etc.), but women are superior to men in ethical intelligence, the range and appropriateness of their emotions, and practicality. Put these qualities on the scales of justice and tell me which side carries the most weight.

Keeping in mind my opening remarks, let us now turn our attention to RETURN TO NEVER LAND. In nearly every respect this recent animated feature from Disney is mediocre – nay, not just mediocre but submediocre, banal, and insipid. Rather than striking out in a new direction, the plot is basically a retread of the PETER PAN Disney did 50 years earlier, disguised by a few small changes, for example, the crocodile has been supplanted by an octopus, and those inexpressibly cheesy Indians who stunk up the original have been removed altogether. Most of the action and humor is so routine and childish that even the younger kids in the audience are likely to start yawning and glancing at their Pokemon digital watches. I was looking forward to John Sebastian's "Do You Believe in Magic" during the closing credits, but even that was a disappointment because instead of the Lovin' Spoonful, RETURN TO NEVER LAND uses a Muzak version performed by someone (or something) named BB Mak.

Based on these deficiencies, my Watson Scale rating would be 1.5. But there is one aspect of this movie that pleases me so much I've doubled the score. In the original PETER PAN Wendy is a weak, passive, domestic little girl, a helpless victim who needs to be rescued repeatedly by the intrepid Pan. In RETURN TO NEVER LAND, Wendy's daughter Jane, already toughened by the absence of her father and the constant blitzkrieg bombings in wartime London, begins her adventure in Never Land by having to be rescued from Captain Hook by Pan, but after that she shows him she's a very different person from her mother. Instead of cooking and cleaning for the Lost Boys, she becomes one of them.  And what about Tinkerbell? Instead of wasting her energy in endless spite, Tinkerbell overcomes her initial jealousy and joins forces with Jane. Each saves the other from certain death, and at the end they work together to rescue Pan and the Lost Boys from Hook – a welcome reversal of the original. During the height of the pandemonium on the pirate ship, Tinkerbell sprinkles pixie dust on Jane, Jane realizes that finally she has the power to fly, and then she uses her new power to defeat Hook and his men and send them paddling off in a rowboat as fast as they can go.

In the original PETER PAN, flight is a metaphor for imagination, and the story as a whole is an allegory designed to exalt and celebrate the power of imagination. RETURN TO NEVER LAND retains this allegorical meaning but adds to it another layer of allegory. Yes, dear reader, this is a movie about the empowerment of women, or as we radical feminists prefer to put it, grrl power, and I'm happy to report that my three-year-old granddaughter Moxie loved every minute of it.