PAN Review

Pan is utterly forgettable. There is no reason for this re-imagined and retooled version to exist beyond Warner Bros. attempting to get in on the current trend of turning classic fairy tales and more specifically, classic animated Disney films, into some kind of live-action confection. What doesn't work here though is the fact the Peter Pan story has been told so many times before and given we've all likely seen at least two iterations of J.M. Barrie's story (even the kids this movie is targeting will have seen Disney's 1953 adventure countless times) there is nowhere for this film to go that doesn't feel like it's either retreading familiar ground or desperately stretching. Unfortunately, the latter is what director Joe Wright's (Atonement, Hanna) new film does as it options to go back to the beginning and tell us the now obligatory origin story that basically covers all the stuff that happens before all the good stuff happens. The real issue here though is in the script from writer Jason Fuchs who contributed to the last Ice Age film and is the sole screenwriter on the upcoming Wonder Woman feature (not instilling a lot of faith there). There is a lot going on here which only creates more and more issues for the film as it goes on, but the source of each of these issues seems to stem from the main issue of the base story never truly recognizing itself. Each scene is strewn together with no connecting strands, no substance and thus nothing for the next scene to build upon. It's as if Fuchs was figuring out the story for himself as he went along and once he was done, never bothered to go back and write a second draft. Once upon a time I would have killed to see Wright take on huge, fantastical material such as this, but in his first big-budget studio effort the director has delivered what couldn't be a more underwhelming and, like I said in the beginning, forgettable experience.

First Trailer for Joe Wright's PAN

Joe Wright is one of my favorite directors, but I'll admit a lot of that stock comes from Atonement and Hanna. I have enjoyed his other features (yes, even The Soloist) and though we have yet to receive anything truly remarkable in this current crop of fairy tales and Disney animated classics being turned into live-action adventures, if anyone can turn this fad into something fun and interesting it would be Wright. According to the first trailer, it seems the director has at least stuck with his sense of aesthetic and turned Neverland into a living, breathing organism of weirdness rather than relying on computer generated worlds to make up his fantasy land. The one downside to the whole thing is that the Peter Pan story has been told so many times before that I wonder if anyone will be interested in seeing another film set around this world and these characters even if this time it is the origin of how Peter became the legend rather than a retelling. I can imagine the names attached will do the film a world of good and if nothing else, this engaging first trailer that feels inherently full of wonderment should do the rest. The market for these types of films has become somewhat saturated given the biggest trailer to drop last week was the live action version of Cinderella, but we have a lot more coming our way and as long as they continue to hire interesting directors like Wright to back them I'm game to see where they go. Pan stars Hugh Jackman, Levi Miller, Garrett Hedlund, Rooney Mara, Amanda Seyfried, Adeel Akhtar, Jack Charles, Taejoo Na, Nonso Anozie, Kathy Burke, Kurt Egyiawan, Lewis Macdougall, Leni Zieglmeier and opens on July 17, 2015.