Pan

Peter Pan is given a re-boot which is more like a kick in the teeth.

Levi Miller

It’s one thing to imagine a boy who can fly, quite another to explain the fact.

For those with fond memories of, say, Robert Altman’s Popeye and Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Joe Wright’s reboot of the Peter Pan story may have some appeal. Wright, in collaboration with the scenarist Jason Fuchs (Ice Age: Continental Drift), goes back to the drawing board and dissects the beginnings of J.M. Barrie’s’ beloved myth. Drawing on Dickensian clichés and the anything-goes tenor of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Pan replaces charm and wit with rollicking action and an overdose of special effects. Hugh Jackman makes an agreeable Blackbeard (singing Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ on his entrance), but Garrett Hedlund is a tiresome presence as a young (pre-Captain) James Hook. As the 12-year-old Peter, Brisbane-born newcomer Levi Miller is cute as a sausage and spirited enough, but is swallowed whole by the relentless CGI and storm of impacts and collisions: crash, bang, boom! It’s a punishing diet of excess (on a budget of $150 million) with dialogue of the calibre of, “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be…” Obviously, Pan is a film begging to be panned.

JAMES CAMERON-WILSON

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Garrett Hedlund, Rooney Mara, Levi Miller, Amanda Seyfried, Adeel Akhtar, Kathy Burke, Nonso Anozie, Lewis MacDougall, Cara Delevingne, Bronson Webb, Paul Kaye, Brian Bovell.

Dir Joe Wright, Pro Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter and Paul Webster, Screenplay Jason Fuchs, Ph Seamus McGarvey and John Mathieson, Pro Des Aline Bonetto, Ed Paul Tothill and William Hoy, Music John Powell, Costumes Jacqueline Durran.

Berlanti Productions/RatPac Entertainment-Warner Brothers.
111 mins. USA/UK/Australia. 2015. Rel: 16 October 2015. Cert. PG.