Pan

Joe Wright has had a great amount of success adapting books like Atonement and the 2005 film version of Pride and Prejudice to the big screen.  But when he tries to come up with an origin story for Peter Pan, the result is a soulless 3D thrill ride that does little to enchant and even less to entertain.  Pan is far from the worst movie of the year, but it's easily the loudest and one of the most cumbersome. 

This is one of those movies where things are constantly happening, but they seldom make sense, or they're potentially good ideas that aren't fleshed out.  Pirate ships fly through the air, complete with bungee jumping pirates who look like something out of a Cirque du Soleil show, mermaids swim, martial arts fighters bounce off of and battle one another on massive trampolines, crocodiles leap out of the water to snatch their prey, and fairies flittle about.  At the center of it all is Hugh Jackman, unrecognizable under a lot of make up and weird facial hair, as the leader of the pirates, Captain Blackbeard.  Jackman has a twinkle in his eye, and he seems to be trying his hardest to sell this stuff, but it gets lost in the clutter of all the CG and gimmicky 3D effects that overpower the human characters.  There's little to care about, and it doesn't take long before the movie starts to feel like an overproduced assault on the senses.

This origin story of how a young orphaned boy named Peter eventually became Peter Pan kicks off in London at the height of World War II.  Why, you may ask?  Simply so the filmmakers could throw in a scene where a flying pirate ship has a dogfight with some war planes would be my guess.  In a prologue, Peter (played by Levi Miller) is dropped off by his mother at a crooked orphanage run by a bunch of blustering, cartoonishly evil nuns who are secretly hoarding food from the children and selling the kids off to the pirates of Neverland.  The pirates take the children to mines where they are forced to dig for Fairy Dust, which apparently is the only thing that can keep the evil Blackbeard immortal.  When Peter and the other children arrive at the slave camp, they are greeted by a chorus of pirates singing Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit".  Later, when Peter is being made to walk a plank, the pirates sing "Blitzkrieg Bop" by The Ramones.  Again, why, you may ask?  Why, indeed.  Perhaps Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge) had a hand in this film somehow.

While Peter is being made to walk the plank, he suddenly learns that he can fly, however briefly (he promptly crashes seconds later).  This makes Blackbeard fearful, as there's a prophecy that a boy from another world with the gift of flight will defeat him.  Before the pirate can do anything to the boy, he escapes from the slave camp with the help of a fellow prisoner named James Hook (Garrett Hedlund), who in this movie has not yet become the vengeance-seeking villain that we all know.  At this point of the story, he's dressed like kind of an Indiana Jones knock off, talks like a young Sam Elliott, and wants to help Peter fight against the pirates.  They escape to the forest, where they encounter the warrior princess Tiger Lily (a bored Rooney Mara) and her tribe.  They explain more of the prophecy surrounding Peter, some of the questions behind his birth, and why he's the "chosen one" who will unite the different creatures that inhabit Neverland against the tyrannical Blackbeard.

The plot of Pan sounds like the premise of a dozen or so movies crammed together.  Not only do we get the standard "chosen one" plot, but we also get nods to "the ally who will eventually turn traitor and become the villain", as well as "the mythical prophecy that everybody seems to know and talks about all the time".  But no matter how many plots screenwriter Jason Fuchs (Ice Age: Continental Drift) tries to slip in, none of them matter.  Pan clearly wants to be a thrill ride movie, but it keeps on confusing noise and chaos for spectacle.  I was quickly exhausted, and was ready for it to be done long before it reached its end.  Nothing resonates - Not the actors, who seem lost within the massive sets and flashy costumes they wear, and not the special effects, which seem more gimmicky than imaginative.  There's so much being thrown up on the screen that there are long stretches where we feel like we're watching money burn.  The movie reportedly cost $150 million to make.  It certainly looks expensive, but it makes no impact and we get little time to enjoy any of it.

In fact, this movie is so obsessed with throwing gobs of special effects at us, it forgets that it's supposed to be telling us the backstory of Peter Pan.  Young Levi Miller makes for a likable young hero, but the movie gives him little to do, nor does it flesh his character out much.  He gets lost among the big budget clutter and overacting adults to the point that he sadly comes across as a non-entity for a good part of the film.  His struggle over whether or not he should accept his destiny should have bearing on the plot, but it never does.  This is not the actor's fault, as he's fine with what he's been given.  He actually gives the best performance in the film, and I hope this movie doesn't derail his career before it can truly begin.  With everybody either overacting (Jackman) or underacting (Mara), Miller serves as a small pillar of sanity among the chaos of the film itself.

Rather than subjecting yourself to this, may I recommend an alternative?  There is a fine live action adaptation of the Peter Pan story from 2003 directed by P.J. Hogan and starring Jason Isaacs that was a very faithful adaptation of the original J.M. Barrie story.  It was an intelligent and beautifully done film that sadly got overlooked at the box office when it came out.  It will make you appreciate the story and the characters more.  All Pan wants to do is bombard you with so much junk you can't even think straight while watching it.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

0 comments