Peter Pan gets a new origin story, but it wasn’t one worth telling.
By Josh Lasser
Stories that expand the world of Peter Pan are not exactly new and, unsurprisingly, some succeed while others do not. Joe Wright’s origin story for the character, Pan, definitely falls into the latter category.
It is very early on in the proceedings when we know that there is something off about the film. It all goes badly at the orphanage where we meet Levi Miller’s Peter. The nun in charge of the Lambeth Home for Boys is Mother Barnabas (Kathy Burke), and she doesn’t merely hide food from the kids who haven’t got enough to eat, she actually hides the records for each child as well.
Before we can spend too much time pondering why that might be, we learn that Mother Barnabas and the nuns are selling orphans to the Neverland pirates. The pirates in turn need the kids as slaves to dig up crystals of fairy dust for their nefarious leader, Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman) who appears on the scene as the slaves shout the lyrics to Smells Like Teen Spirit.
We want to hear it.
This is the problem with Pan. Any of the above could become part of an enjoyable film telling us how Peter becomes legend, the incidents just need some explanation; to be woven into the larger tapestry. That does not happen. The movie offers an idea and then moves on to the next one and then the next one after that, all the while making wink-wink references to Peter Pan elements we know and love.
As Pan offers Peter’s origin, we learn that he may be the child spoken of in a prophecy, one who has the power to end Blackbeard’s evil reign. But, to prove this to everyone, Peter has to master the ability to fly, something he does once by accident to escape death. If he can fly at will, he can unite Tiger Lily’s (Rooney Mara) people and the fairies and save Neverland.
That, too, is fine, but Pan fails to offer the history of this prophecy in compelling fashion. Peter is told the story of how things in Neverland got to this point; where he came from; and where the fairies, who have all disappeared, currently reside. Luckily for Tiger Lily, there’s a magic tree that can show him the history and then later there’s magic water that can do the same.
These are the few moments where the movie does stop enough to explain an idea, lurching to a halt to do so, twice, in relatively awkward fashion with voiceover having to deliver the story as the animation proceeds. Worse, when the finale does come, it doesn’t really seem to fit all that well with the story we have been told. It is a conclusion that is there to thrill rather than to fit the tale.
We want to hear it.
Where Pan succeeds more is in its world creation. The effects don’t make it look particularly realistic, but it does look magical and is clearly not our world.
In a Neverland where everything is larger than life, it will come as no surprise that performances have a tendency to be rather broad. Jackman’s Blackbeard is sort of a divine evil; he relishes his ability to command thousands and to send slaves to their deaths every day. He practically salivates over being an villainous pirate. Garrett Hedlund’s James Hook is more of a cowboy, a rogue but with a good heart, a Neverland Han Solo if you will. Then there’s Adeel Akhtar’s Sam “Smee” Smiegel, who is pure comic relief in a movie already filled with comedic moments, but Akhtar’s still quite good in the role.
Miller is rather more toned down. Peter is actually the least engaging of the characters and one who changes from moment to moment. At one point in the proceedings, he begs Blackbeard to stop one of his more cruel actions, with Peter saying that he’ll do anything to make Blackbeard stop, and as soon as Blackbeard asks Peter to bow to the pirate, Peter refuses. There is no turn, there is nothing to explain the change of heart. It just goes from Peter being willing to do anything to abate Blackbeard to not being willing.
We want to hear it.
Much has already been made of Mara’s casting as Tiger Lily, and while her performance is very good, it still seems like an odd choice. Pan offers her group more as natives of the island (who appear to be from all over the world) as opposed to Native Americans, but having Mara’s Tiger Lily as their Princess is more than a little uncomfortable.
One of the few true successes of the film is John Powell’s score, which has just the right sort of swashbuckling adventure feel to it. Wright, however, seems to have chosen to increase the volume in that score as a substitute for building tension and excitement during large sequences.
For a movie that clearly required a lot of time, consideration, and effort, Pan ends up feeling rather slapdash. Many of the individual scenes/sequences work on their own and can be fun to look at, but few fit into any larger sort of picture. The entire prophecy the story is built around is ill-explained and silly. Even if we accept that these characters and this place eventually becomes the Neverland we know and love, Pan is still not a tale worth chronicling.
