Review: Pan Raises Some Serious Questions.
- Jan 19, 2017
- 2 min read
Why do the meanest nuns run orphanages? Does no one in WW2 London notice the bungee jumping pirates? Why are they singing Nirvana? Who thought this movie was a good idea? What bet did Hugh Jackman lose to act in this?
The orphan Peter (Levi Miller), an inquisitive and rebellious child, is kidnapped by pirates who promptly do battle with the RAF because this movie can’t go 15 minutes without doing something stupid. This is followed by a mildly psychedelic section that confused me more than anything else ever has. But, inevitably, they arrive at Neverland, sing a little Teen Spirit and are introduced to Blackbeard, played by Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman. Then they’re sent to work in a mine, digging for fairy dust, and no one knows why. It was at this point I gave up on following the plot.
There are few redeeming qualities to be found here. It’s just confusing, possibly absurdist art at its finest, but maybe even to out there for that. The tone is all over the place. It goes from Blackbeard being truly outrageous one minute to KILLING ORPHANS the next. And that’s just a bit. James Hook shows up, played Garrett Hedlund, who is Peter’s companion and serves to reference the original Peter Pan story in hamfisted and strange ways. He doesn’t even have a hook, which goes to show the level of thought that went into this stinker.
This is a bad movie. It’s very possible that everyone who worked on it was living off hallucinogenic mushrooms. Jackman is mildly entertaining in a manner that is so far out of left field that it might be from a different film and Adeel Akhtar’s Sam Smiegel (He’s Mr Smee) is just stupid enough to be entertaining. It should have died in development and no one should watch it.
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