Young star soars in bloated 'Pan' prequel
Joe Wright's ridiculously revisionist, fun-challenged and visual-effects-choked J.M. Barrie fantasy "Pan" gets one element right.
His name is Levi Miller. He hails from Australia. He plays Peter Pan. He invests so much heart and soul into the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up that his fellow cast members appear to be phoning in cartoon sketches of their own characters.
"This isn't the story you've heard before," the voice-over narrator tells us at the outset of "Pan." Sheesh! Talk about understatement.
Barrie's classic story of "Peter Pan," seared into the baby boomer consciousness by Walt Disney's 1953 animated milestone of the same title, becomes a busy, boisterous, bloated and befuddling prequel to when Wendy meets Peter and Tinkerbell.
"Pan" opens with a woman performing a ninja leap over a 10-foot gate to drop a newborn baby off at the doorstep of a Catholic orphanage. Who is she? And why does she wear model-grade eye makeup with eye-poppingly red lipstick?
"I love you, Peter!" she says, coming back to tell him this after forgetting to mention it the first time she leaves him.
Later, during World War II, we pick up with young Peter (Miller) and his fellow orphans, now under the control of the lying nun (Kathy Burke), who hoards rations of food, treats and gold while conspiring with pirates to let them kidnap her wards.
One night, the pirates come through the ceiling on giant yo-yo strings, snapping up screaming kids, including poor Peter, to their giant pirate ship floating in the sky.
British fighter planes instantly attack the ship, blasting it with machine-gun bullets while the pirates respond by firing cannonballs.
The aerial dogfight continues until the pirates finally propel their ship directly upward into space and on to Neverland. (Uh, so why didn't they do this before and avoid getting shot by planes?)
Once in Neverland, Peter and his peers are pressed into Seven Dwarves duty deep in the mines, searching for magical Pixum for the foppishly evil Captain Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman in a suit no doubt inspired by Johnny Depp's blackbird headdress from "The Lone Ranger").
To set an example, Blackbeard forces Peter to walk the plank from his ship floating high above the ground.
Surprise! Just before he becomes human splatter, Peter pulls up like a Blue Angels jet and soars!
A frightened Blackbeard invites Peter into his office to fill him in on some exposition about "The Chosen One," the offspring of a fairy prince and human mother (make that a ninja human mother) who will vanquish Blackbeard.
"Have you come to kill me, Peter?" Blackbeard asks. He tosses the kid into prison, where he meets disgruntled miner James Hook (a fedora-fitted Garrett Hedlund with a grating imitation of Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones).
Yes. In this prequel, Peter and Hook become best buds. They soon join the now-Caucasian rebel Tiger Lily (played by a distracted, bummed-out Rooney Mara), who has obviously raided Madonna's 1980s wardrobe for her costume.
Young viewers will no doubt be engaged by the sheer, unrelenting spectacle of "Pan" with its ghostly mermaids, flying crocodiles and violent mayhem. But Jason Fuch's screenplay holds little regard for the fantasy's internal logic.
In three days, Blackbeard will push poor Peter off a high ledge. If he flies, he's the Chosen One. If not, he's vulture snacks. Lacking confidence, Peter worries he won't be able to fly to save his own life.
Wright tries to wring suspense out of Peter's angst. Yet, Peter has already proven he can fly, even when he didn't know he could. Now he knows he can, but isn't sure? Really?
Fortunately, the movie's greatest asset, young Miller, triumphs over all with his immersive performance and keen sense of emotional urgency. His character keeps this shaky, absurd fantasy vehicle airborne.
Even when it's being shot to pieces by fighter planes.
“Pan”
★ ★
Starring: Levi Miller, Hugh Jackman, Rooney Mara, Amanda Seyfried, Garrett Hedlund
Directed by: Joe Wright
Other: A Warner Bros. release. Rated PG. 111 minutes