DISNEY PLUNDERS OLD RICHES.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

JAMES M. BARRIE, who died in 1937, never knew the London depicted in Disney's new animated sequel to his beloved ``Peter Pan'' book and play, ``Return to Never Land.''

The streets have been pockmarked by German bombs, houses and shops smolder, air-raid sirens wail, zeppelins drift on their tethers, and searchlights sweep the night skies for enemy aircraft.

``Never Land'' also portrays sad young children being packed onto trains and shipped out to the countryside beyond the reach of the Blitzkrieg while their parents stay behind.

World War II is a grim backdrop for a children's tale, to be sure, but fortunately most kids who would attend ``Return to Never Land'' are blissfully unenlightened about the genuine danger being depicted. They seem to write it off as just another flash of cartoonish peril, along with trying to fly without enough pixie dust.

There's a reason for this setting that already has sparked some concern with parents and watchdog groups. The original story's central character, the budding young lady Wendy Darling, now is married with two children of her own, serious-minded Jane and young Danny, who hangs on every word of his mother's stories about Peter Pan and Captain Hook.

One gets the sense that Jane was all business even before the war, but her sense of duty (her father, heading to war, asks her to look after her mother and brother) leaves Jane with less appetite than ever for escapist fantasy tales. She would rather pass her free time updating a to-do list.

It is not Peter Pan who whisks her away to Never Land, just beyond the Second Star to the Right, but the evil Captain Hook himself, who believes he has custody of Peter's old chum Wendy.

Jane has a hard time accepting the fantasy setting in which she has landed, even after she soars with Peter and the Lost Boys, but she comes around in time to be anointed the first ``Lost Girl'' (in a delightful number, ``So to Be One of Us'' by They Might Be Giants), to avow her belief in Tinkerbell and to rescue Peter Pan from Hook and his pirates.

Jane, voiced by Harriet Owen, is a spunky, bob-haired girl, very different from the delicate ringletted lass her mother was. And that is a big part of her appeal.

Blayne Weaver as Peter and Corey Burton as Hook don't make the roles their own, the better to serve the story's premise that nothing changes in Never Land. In fact, Burton was hired for his expert impression of the character created by the late Hans Conreid for the 1953 film.

The essences of the bleak London nights and lush Never Land landscapes are still there, and the film gains from computer innovations that allow Hook's ship to loom large above Jane's house and then soar past Big Ben.

However, Jonatha Brooke's contemporary pop vocals seem out of time and place in the weepy ``I'll Try'' and a new rendering of ``Second Star to the Right,'' and anyone with a passing Top 40 acquaintance with the Lovin' Spoonful will feel whiplashed from the early '40s into the mid-'60s with BBMak's cover of John Sebastian's ``Do You Believe In Magic?''

Was it right for Disney to tinker with Barrie's story, even with the blessing of the organization that holds his copyright? Maybe not. Does this raiding, in spirit, of its own vault mean the studio's creative team is burned out or lazy? Maybe so.

The most important question is, is ``Return to Never Land'' decent family entertainment that will find a following with nearly everyone who attended ``Snow Dogs'' and ``The Princess Diaries''? Yes.

RETURN TO NEVER LAND Two and one half stars

(G)

Starring: Voices of Harriet Owen, Blayne Weaver, Corey Burton.

Director: Robin Budd.

Running time :1 hr. 12 min.

Playing: Citywide.

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Photo:

Peter Pan designates Jane, daughter of Wendy, as the very first ``Lost Girl'' in ``Return to Never Land.''