‘Bangarang!’: Relive These Memorable Lines From ‘Hook’ And Never Grow Up

Steven Spielberg’s Hook wasn’t exactly well received critically when it first came out in 1991. This is probably because those critics weren’t 13 when they saw it. It’s got pirates and fairies and sword fighting and flying and Robin Williams saying things like “ca-ca mouth.” How can you not like that? Not convinced by that sales pitch? Here’s a bunch of quotes and scenes from Hook that should finish the job and make anyone a convert.


“Bangarang!”

A nice bit of Jamaican slang tossed into the mix of the movie, this can be heard shouted in nearly every scene that the Lost Boys are a part of.


Peter Banning: “I’m not a pirate. It so happens I am a lawyer.”
Rufio: “Kill the lawyer!”

Cut him some slack, you guys. He’s not that kind of lawyer.

Rufio: “Rufio! Rufio!”
Peter: “Oh, Rufio, why don’t you just go suck on a dead dog’s nose.”

Let’s be honest. Who didn’t want to go out and call every one of their friends a “substitute chemistry teacher” after seeing this? Everybody but me? Oh. OK.


Smee: “I’ve just had an apostrophe.”
Captain Hook: “I think you mean an epiphany.”
Smee: “[gestures his fingers to his head] Lightning has just struck my brain.”
Captain Hook: “Well, that must hurt.”

The relationship between Bob Hoskins (Smee) and Dustin Hoffman (Hook) is an unforgettable yet under-appreciated element in the success of this film.


Toodles: “Lost, lost, lost….”
Pete Banning: “Lost what?”
Toodles: “I’ve lost my marbles.”

Why didn’t he look behind the couch? That’s where pretty much everything else ends up.


Captain Hook: “Stop me! This is not a joke! I’m committing suicide!”

“Death,” Captain James Hook proclaims, “is the only adventure I have left.” Words spoken by a man who obviously hasn’t seen Taco Bell’s new breakfast offerings yet.


Captain Hook: “I hate… I hate… I hate Peter Pan!”

He hates Peter Pan, you guys.


Peter Banning: “You’re a… you’re a complex Freudian hallucination having something to do with my mother and I don’t know why you have wings, but you have very lovely legs and you’re a very nice tiny person and what am I saying, I don’t know who my mother was; I’m an orphan and I’ve never taken drugs because I missed the ’60s, I was an accountant.”

We don’t know if this rambling, hysteria-induced monologue was in the script or ad-libbed by Robin Williams (neither would surprise us). In either case, it’s the perfect reaction to seeing a tiny, flying Julia Roberts shortly after your children have been abducted while visiting a foreign country.

Considering that, I’d also like to point out that if Liam Neeson had played Peter instead of Williams, this movie would have been a lot shorter.


Captain Hook: “The boo box.”

Remember when kids movies had scary junk like this in them? Getting trapped in a box with scorpions dropped on you is nightmare fuel of the highest grade.

Rufio: “You can fly! You can fight! And you can…”
Peter: [crows]

Actually, the level of impressiveness sort of diminishes as he lists them. Flying? Yeah, that’s pretty damn astounding. Fighting? Not impossible, but it certainly requires some skill. Crowing? A 2-year old can do that.


Rufio: “You know what I wish? I wish I had a dad like you.”

So, a probably unnecessary spoiler alert, but — Rufio dies here. After spending the first half of the movie antagonizing Peter, he finally comes to accept him as both Pan and as a friend. And then Hook goes and shishkabobs him right in front of everybody. Rufio drops this line with his dying breath and excuse me, are there tissue over there? *sniff*

Wendy: “So… your adventures are over.”
Peter: “Oh, no. To live… to live would be an awfully big adventure.”

That’s some real talk right there.

×