I totally gave Pan the benefit of the doubt. First of all because the Peter Pan is one of my all time favorite stories and second of all because origin stories, if done right, can be great for super-fans.
The movie Pan offers one of the most disappointed possible origin stories I've seen in recent history. It essentially ignores all aspects of the Peter Pan story that are worth going into during a prequel in order to offer endless cliches that have not only been done before, they've been done better.
No story can ever start at the very beginning. As a story teller or audience member, you have to take some facts for granted. Captain Hook is Peter's nemesis, Captain Hook has a hook for a hand from a run-in with a crocodile that Peter had something to do with, Peter is kind of a mettlesome prick, Tinkerbell is Peter Pan's best friend, and neither Hook nor Peter Pan should mess with (the mostly racially problematic) Tiger Lilly. These are the key elements of the story not usually addressed because the original story of Peter Pan is about Wendy, John and what's-his-face (just looked it up, Michael). We get their backstories because they are our real protagonists (actually, if you ask me, only Wendy is). Knowing the specific details on how Hook lost his hand and how Peter Pan may or may not have been involved is not important in a story about the Darling family.
That's why origin stories are made. They offer answers to questions never asked in the main story line because what is important in that moment is often what is happening, not why it is happening. Presumably J. M. Barrie, creator of Peter Pan, knew the back stories of all his characters. He may very well have gone in great detail into the particulars of Peter Pan and Hook's origins in the book, I must admit I've never read it.
But I know a bit about about the Peter Pan canon because I've seen the play and musical based on the book, the Disney animated movie, Robin William's Hook, and the 2003 movie (with pretty-boy-Peter Jeremy Sumpter and my personal favorite Jason Isaacs as Hook). I even saw the nearly unwatchable live broadcast of the musical that aired last winter as well as the Johnny Depp film based loosely around the life of J. M. Barrie. Although now that I think about it, that could very well have been a fever dream on my part, as so many of Johnny Depp's films in the last ten years seem to run together into an amalgamation of whimsical overacting and bizarre costume choices. In any case, with all this knowledge of Peter Pan, I still don't have a firm idea of quite how they became such ferocious foes.
To put it simply, Pan betrays the audience by not living up to its promise as an origin story. Pan tells the story of an orphan boy whose life is terrible because his orphanage is run by Miss Hannigan/ Miss Minchin/ Agatha Trunchbull/ Petunia Dursley. Then he is kidnapped by pirates who work for Blackbeard. Blackbeard is enslaving orphans to mine fairy dust because it keeps him immortal and looking fresh just like Mother Gothel/ the Sanderson Sisters/ Nicolas Flammel/ miscellaneous succubi. Pan decides to team up with rebel without a cause/ Han Solo/ lone wolf/ anarchist/ reluctant ally, Captain Hook, and bumbling idiot/ spineless nobody/ comic relief/ token British person, Sam Smiegel. They meet up with (still mostly racially problematic) Tiger Lilly/ Faith Lehane/ Michonne/ Black Widow/ brooding trained killer. This is what follows: action sequence, action sequence, self-doubt (on Peter's part), action sequence, action sequence, self-serving action (Hook), action sequence, action sequence, self-sacrificing action (Hook behaving almost precisely like Han Solo), final action sequence, victory.
It could have been anything. It could have been Matilda, or Harry Potter, or Star Wars, because there wasn't a single original plot point in the whole movie. But that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part is that it answered none of the questions a prequel to Peter Pan should answer. Sure, it alluded to some things-- like there is a crocodile for about three minutes during an action sequence. But it did not tell us anything we came here to be told.
The movie sets us up for failure. One of the first lines in the prologue says, "Sometimes friends begin as enemies and enemies begin as friends. Sometimes to truly understand how things end, we must first know how they begin." Great, I was thinking. We are about to see how friends, Peter and Hook, become enemies. That's just what I want to see. But I was mistaken. The movie ends with an exchange that goes something like this:
Peter: Nothing will ever come between us, will it, Hook?
Hook: No way, we'll be friends forever!
Okay, I might be paraphrasing, but as I can't find the quote online, you'll have to take my word for it. What a dismally disappointing ending to an already mediocre movie. I wanted betrayal, heartbreak, loss. Not BFFs on a quest to defeat Hugh Jackman in drag.
There were other problematic things about this movie, other than the misleading concept of finally finding out what happened between Peter and Hook. It is one of those movies, unfortunately, that not only fall below your expectations, they flounder on the floor in front of you as you frown disapprovingly. Here are a few things, besides the let down of not giving me the kind of prequel I wanted, that I was not happy about.
I don't deny that Rooney Mara delivered a good performance, but it will always be problematic for me when a character is white washed by Hollywood. In fact, for the most part the indigenous peoples of Neverland were treated sloppily in terms of casting. They apparently don't have a race or ethnicity so much as they have whatever people of color the casting department could scrounge up at the time of shooting. The village elder is Australian (Jack Charles), the village warrior is Korean (Na Tae-Joo)... so... I'm clearly missing their casting concept. In any case, I think the creators have run into the common problem of casting a handful racially diverse actors, patting themselves on the back, and then giving them all collectively about 30 seconds of screen time. When the cast of Pan was first released, many online forums lambasted the creators for casting Tiger Lilly as a white woman and I tend to agree.
I also had some issues with our characters's motivations. I have a personal distaste for the "I must do blank so I can lie forever" plot point which is basically our only motivation for our baddie, Blackbeard. It has been done so much and it offers no interpersonal conflict. No one is doing anything for love, or loss, or revenge, or betrayal. Blackbeard just wants to be young forever, Hook just wants to go home (to the... Midwest?.. apparently?), and Peter just wants to fulfill a prophecy he didn't even know existed until five seconds ago. The plot seems very forced and not at all emotionally charged. During various moments the writers try to rectify this by crow-barring some mommy issues into what Peter is dealing with, but again it feels too artificial. Peter literally says at one point something along the lines of, "How can I love someone so much when I haven't even met them?" and it should have been left unsaid. Orphans universally want their mothers and fathers to come back and adopt them (see the whole plot of Annie). You don't have to force feed the audience emotional depth like that--it brings us out of the story and makes us question the plot.
In general the writing left something to be desired. Some lines were cute, some were funny, some referenced the Peter Pan canon and felt like a little Easter egg, but a lot of the writing felt stale before it left the character's mouth. Twice Peter Pan refuses to kneel to Blackbeard-- and a swear I've seen that scene one thousand times. At one point, and this may tell more about me than the writing in the movie, Blackbeard has Peter down in his captain's chambers, telling him of a prophecy. When he finishes his story Peter says, "I don't believe in bedtime stories" and I swear I was back on the Black Pearl when Elizabeth says, "I hardly believe in ghost stories anymore, Captain Barbossa" and Barbossa says, "You best start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner-- You're in one!" (I didn't even need to look that quote up, I have that one locked in my brain for all eternity). Anyway, so much of the plot and so much of the dialogue felt old and recycled, poorly re-purposed for this story.
I won't harp on the problems I have with a Hook-Tiger Lilly romantic side plot-line but just know that I do. not. approve.
The last thing I will complain about is the CGI. I really don't know a lot about graphics so it should say a lot that I noticed how weird they were. They instantly felt outdated, like CGI used for television. The friend I went with said afterwards that she has seen better graphics in cut scenes in video games. It must be hard to do CGI because technology moves so fast, and so many movies are pouring an unreasonably large amount of money for top of the line graphics. Movies can't afford to budget their special effects, it ages the movie so fast. It's like seeing a movie made today featuring flip phones. It just feels cheap and cheesy even if I know it is not.
I will give props to a few who deserve it. Levi Miller (Peter) is properly adorable and offers a good bit of character development from beginning to end. Always a sucker for handsome, aloof, bad-boys I appreciated Garrett Hedlund (James Hook) and I think he will probably get picked up for other roles because of his work in this movie. Adeel Akhtar plays Smie and is endearing and hilarious in that spineless coward sort of way. Jacqueline Durran designed amazing costumes and if you like costumes and she's not on your radar, immediately look her up. She's great and wonderful and fantastic, especially for period pieces.
This movie, if it has done well enough, will be a franchise. That's what I saw at the end of the movie, anyway. They are setting us up for more, but I desperately don't want more of what I have just seen. Other reviews seem to agree which means we may be in one of those instances like the Jim Carry Series of Unfortunate Events which was so abysmally bad they gave up on the series. We may never find out what happens between Peter and Hook that tears their friendship apart and turns them into mortal enemies. Which is a real bummer, 'cause I'd paid to see it. I mean, I already tried.
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