Before Never is a dark, budget-constrained thriller featuring characters based on J.M. Barrie’s world of Neverland. Kipp Tribble and Derek Wingo co-wrote and co-directed this reimagining of Peter Pan (Kenny Yates). But this is not a kid’s frolic with magic and mischief. This is a drama of crime and lunacy set in a coarse seaside town near a sinister expanse called “the neverlands.” We open with an attempted abduction of Wendy Darling (Joanne Wilson). She escapes, with the only eyewitness to the crime being Peter Pan, who can’t remember what happened. The circumstances around the crime are nonsensical and suspicious.
The Darling family wants to know who tried to take Wendy and why. They hire a private investigator named Mr. Smee (Derik Wingo), who in turn engages hypnotherapist James Pierrepoint (Kipp Tribble) to help Peter recover his memory. Pierrepoint, of course, has only one hand after losing the other in an accident.
Peter is childlike, as we remember him, full of whimsical theatricality, but here he’s an adult running a home for recovering addicts, men he calls Lost Boys. The drug of choice amongst these devotees of recreational pharmaceuticals is called “pixie dust.” Peter also has his personal muse, Tinkerbell (Elisa Nixon), always at his side to guide and inspire him. From this beginning, we are thrust into a twisted world of criminal madness, cruel evil, lost memory, trauma, betrayal, and hidden truths. The viewer is hauled through a haunted house version of Neverland, shown things that are recognizable, but only as deviant shadows of the original, moving in chaos.
The film drags on to an indulgent two hours runtime. The production is high quality, particularly given the budget, but the performances are uneven, with Kenny Yates pulling his weight as a menacing, weird Peter Pan, but Tribble and Wingo are all over the map as Smee and Hook. There are moments of real brilliance from them, but too few and far between, shining through the muck of drawn out, pretentious dialogue. Nixon’s Tinkerbell is a jealous, malevolent influence.
“… they were once Peter and James, and Wendy was a missing person…”
In attempting to map this script to Barrie’s world, Tribble and Wingo stretch to make them align. They bash to fit and paint to hide. Before Never could easily work as well, if not better, without invoking Peter Pan. The skin of Neverland is spread over it like plastic wrap… occasionally clinging to give it a familiar shape.
The impulse to play with a public domain property is tempting (Barrie’s script entered the US public domain in 2024), but one should have something compelling to add. A wave of films has arisen from IP that has slipped into the public domain, such as Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), Pinocchio Unstrung (2026), Screamboat (2025), and Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare (2025). There is a long list. Some are clever and entertaining.
Adapting a beloved tale will guarantee a built-in audience, and it can be amusing to satirize the original, even when a cherished character becomes a slasher, or a supernatural horror. Before Never attempts an ambitious trajectory with Barrie’s characters shown as not so much magic as they are manic. There’s enough here to entertain a curious viewer who enjoys the thrill of criminal insanity, but for fans hoping to spend time with Peter Pan, it falls apart. Tribble and Wingo took a commendable swing and missed. Respect to them for going big, but there are times, perhaps, when an idea that looks good on paper should stay there.
"…attempts an ambitious trajectory with Peter Pan and Wendy."
