Kidzworld reviews the Peter Pan adventure movie Pan. Will the new take on some classic characters be confusing or will the fun actors and creative visual effects win you over?
By: Lynn Barker
In this backstory version of the classic Peter Pan tale, Peter has grown up in an orphanage for boys before he is whisked off to Neverland. A younger Hook, later the famed Captain Hook, is his mentor and buddy and the baddest pirate of all is Blackbeard. Okay, different but interesting.
Peter in the native campCourtesy of Warner Bros.
Humble Beginnings
We see that Peter (cute newcomer Levi Miller) was left as a baby on the steps of a London boys’ orphanage by his beautiful mother (Amanda Seyfried). 12 years later, during the World War II bombings, Peter and his best bud deal with staying alive, looking for Peter’s identity file and being rebels vs. an evil nun who runs the place and is secretly selling orphans to raiding pirates who swoop down from their flying pirate ship and grab them in the night!
Peter's mom leaves him at the orphanageCourtesy of Warner Bros.
On to Neverland
The cool airborne pirate ship grabs Peter and has to dodge World War II fighter planes on the way to the far away floating island in the sky that is Neverland. There Peter and the boys are deposited to work in a horrible huge mining pit where the evil Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman) is extracting rare Pixum.. fairy dust which he snorts to stay alive or live forever (not sure which). Slaving away, Peter meets a younger James Hook (Garrett Hedlund) who has been working the pits for years and is far from friendly.
The flying pirate shipCourtesy of Warner Bros.
Escape to Meet the Tribe
When Peter is set up by Blackbeard to walk the plank to be a sacrifice as a lesson to any other rebellious boys, he is about to crash to the ground far below when he levitates, not quite flies but close to it. Blackbeard realizes this boy may be his predicted downfall. Hook and Peter escape and end up at first as prisoners but then teaming up with a tribe of “natives” whose princess Tiger Lily (Rooney Mara) is quite the feisty fighter. She and Hook have an immediate attraction to each other.
Tiger Lily at the native campCourtesy of Warner Bros.
Pan Movie Trailer
Peter’s Origin Story
Tiger Lily tells Peter that he is the hero/savior they’ve been waiting for. He wears a necklace left with him as a baby that looks like a tiny pan pipe so he’s The Pan, the tribe’s leader and almost God. If he can perfect his flying capability, it’s hoped he can lead them to a hidden fairyland so they can team up with the fairies to defeat the evil Blackbeard who is wrecking the island. Seems Peter is the son of a human mom and a fairy prince dad.
Blackbeard and his men search for PeterCourtesy of Warner Bros.
Mermaids and Fairy Dust
With the help of a family of beautiful mermaids (who all have Cara Delevigne’s face) and after tangling with Blackbeard and his men who are hot on their trail, Tiger Lily, Hook and Peter make it to the secret fairy world which Blackbeard wants to destroy. By this time Peter has briefly met fairy Tinker Bell and the race is on to save fairyland and team up with the tiny glowing beings to get rid of Blackbeard once and for all!
Cara Delevigne as two mermaidsCourtesy of Warner Bros.
Wrapping Up
Although Pan is full of creative action sequences, the color is kind of dim and murky (maybe due to being darker for 3-D?). There are creative sets and the special visual effects are eye-popping fun. At one point a floating chicken pops out an egg and flying pirate ships sail vs. World War II fighter planes.
Peter and Hook make an escapeCourtesy of Warner Bros.
Young tween, newbie actor Levi Miller makes a sweet and later forceful Peter Pan, Hugh Jackman is over-the-top and kinda scary as evil, fancy-dressed pirate Blackbeard, Garrett Hedlund is a cute but kind of milder version of an Indiana Jones type. Rooney Mara isn’t the expected native version of Tiger Lily and it’s obvious that she isn’t the stunt fighter that Hugh Jackman is in their duel. You might recognize hot model/actress Cara Delevigne briefly as a group of pretty mermaids. You just don’t get invested in or warm up to the characters as you should.
A dashing young HookCourtesy of Warner Bros.
Pan’s origin story has everything and the kitchen sink thrown in. It is really very dark with an evil orphanage, a slave mine, a baddie who is some kind of substance addict, a white Tiger Lily, no Wendy at all and a Hook who is young and is very much the Han Solo to Peter’s Luke Skywalker. Blackbeard and his pirates sing a song made famous by late ‘80’s grunge rocker band Nirvana. Huh?
Peter in the Pixum minesCourtesy of Warner Bros.
If you are a Peter Pan purist, you might just be confused. If you just like movies with creative action scenes, colorful costumes and larger than life characters, you might enjoy the film. We go 3 stars.
Pan Movie Rating:
Pan Movie PosterCourtesy of Warner Bros.
Pan is in theaters now!
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