“Pan” opens up during World War 2, but that doesn’t really do anything to drive the plot of the story. This point is just there and is used only to have action shots in which airplanes shoot at a flying pirate ship. They really dive straight into Pan’s origin, which most people know, abandoned as a baby, so on and so forth. But it has a twist though and paints a different picture as to how and why he was abandoned, which is pretty neat. Then they show how Pan came to be in Neverland and how he came to be the leader of the lost boys. Levi Miller is relatively unknown but does very well in this role. He is great with showing emotions! It will be interesting to see how he develops as an actor!
Your first impression of Blackbeard is almost Stanley Tucci-esque in “The Hunger Games” as Caesar Flickerman. His mannerisms and “we want you to have fun while you are killing yourselves” attitude are almost identical to Flickerman. But things change quickly within Blackbeard as sometimes he is shown as the brutal villain or a desperate emotional man, not like Flickerman. It is like a switch that got stuck between on and off and you have no idea where this guy is going. So he goes from almost pathetic to “I MUST HAVE ALL THE THINGS BECAUSE I’M A NASTY PIRATE!!” Hugh Jackman disappears into this character and as always leaves you with an amazing performance.
Then we get Garrett Hedlund, who was great in “Tron”. But he was just hokey as Hook. The way he spoke was just weird! I mean I understand giving something extra for the character, but I felt like he made the character too strange to relate to. It was irritating. However, it was interesting to see how Pan and Hook met and to see a story develop there.
Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily was different. But she really gives her all to the characters she portrays and I thought she was a beautiful warrior in “Pan”.
The story could be really cool and it’s definitely set up for a sequel. But they used a lot of CGI where they really should not have. Almost every single scene involving flying is animated, and poorly so. It’s distracting. If you’re going to do CGI, do it well. And we’re not talking about the ships, those look halfway decent. It’s the humans. If you can’t use a green screen with a boy strapped to a harness (which is most likely cheaper than all of the crappy CGI COMBINED) then you shouldn’t have done a Peter Pan movie.
Wait for this one to come on the tube. Cinema Wise gives “Pan” a 2.7 out of 5. Tell us what you think of this review on Facebook or Twitter!
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