Pan (PG.)
Directed by Joe Wright.
Starring Levi Miller, Hugh Jackman, Garrett Hedlund, Rooney Mara, Adeel Akhtar and Kathy Burke. 111 mins .
Have you ever wondered how Peter Pan ended up in Neverland? What happened before the events in J.M. Barrie's story? How Peter became Pan. No, of course you didn't. Why would you? Well, Pan (that's a bold, critic goading title) is going to tell you anyway. Because however bored you are of prequels and origins stories, this tale of the early Pan has to be better than Spielberg's take on the older grown up Pan, Hook. Doesn't it?
It starts promisingly enough with a dyslexic Peter (Miller) in an orphanage run by a vicious Kathy Burke during World War II (hmm, WW2?) where boys keep disappearing. Then one night, during the blitz, he is among a group of boys stolen away on a flying pirate ship and taken to Neverland which is run by Captain Blackbeard (Jackman.) Here the film takes an abrupt turns into Moulin Rouge as the captain has a taste for time-period inappropriate singalongs to numbers by Nirvana and The Ramones.
The aim is to fuse the corny fun of a pantomime with the breathtaking thrill of a big budget blockbuster but the mix doesn't take – the naff jokes detract from the spectacle, the spectacle tramples the simple he's-behind-you fun. This uncertainty about its identity, jumping this way and that trying to alight on something that will work, is one aspect in which Pan is just like Hook.
Pan is full of moments that must have looked spectacular on paper but the execution of which are just a little off, don't quite do the ideas justice. Visually the different bits don't fit together and the score often sound remarkably similar to those of the Pirates of The Caribbean movies. Jackman is fun as the baddy but kind of peripheral and none of the other performances really take off. Hedlund, so mesmerizing in On The Road, is closer here to the anonymous non-event lead he was in Tron: Legacy. Worst of all, the film makes Peter Pan yet another messiah narrative, a figure who is foreseen in a prophesy but doesn't know if he can live up to it. Pan is not a messiah; he's just an irrepressible little boy.
Directed by Joe Wright.
Starring Levi Miller, Hugh Jackman, Garrett Hedlund, Rooney Mara, Adeel Akhtar and Kathy Burke. 111 mins .
Have you ever wondered how Peter Pan ended up in Neverland? What happened before the events in J.M. Barrie's story? How Peter became Pan. No, of course you didn't. Why would you? Well, Pan (that's a bold, critic goading title) is going to tell you anyway. Because however bored you are of prequels and origins stories, this tale of the early Pan has to be better than Spielberg's take on the older grown up Pan, Hook. Doesn't it?
It starts promisingly enough with a dyslexic Peter (Miller) in an orphanage run by a vicious Kathy Burke during World War II (hmm, WW2?) where boys keep disappearing. Then one night, during the blitz, he is among a group of boys stolen away on a flying pirate ship and taken to Neverland which is run by Captain Blackbeard (Jackman.) Here the film takes an abrupt turns into Moulin Rouge as the captain has a taste for time-period inappropriate singalongs to numbers by Nirvana and The Ramones.
The aim is to fuse the corny fun of a pantomime with the breathtaking thrill of a big budget blockbuster but the mix doesn't take – the naff jokes detract from the spectacle, the spectacle tramples the simple he's-behind-you fun. This uncertainty about its identity, jumping this way and that trying to alight on something that will work, is one aspect in which Pan is just like Hook.
Pan is full of moments that must have looked spectacular on paper but the execution of which are just a little off, don't quite do the ideas justice. Visually the different bits don't fit together and the score often sound remarkably similar to those of the Pirates of The Caribbean movies. Jackman is fun as the baddy but kind of peripheral and none of the other performances really take off. Hedlund, so mesmerizing in On The Road, is closer here to the anonymous non-event lead he was in Tron: Legacy. Worst of all, the film makes Peter Pan yet another messiah narrative, a figure who is foreseen in a prophesy but doesn't know if he can live up to it. Pan is not a messiah; he's just an irrepressible little boy.
