Released: October 2015
Director: Joe Wright
Rated PG
Run Time: 111 Minutes
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Cast:
Hugh Jackman: Blackbeard
Garrett Hedlund: Hook
Rooney Mara: Tiger Lily
Levi Miller: Peter
Peter Pan is one of those stories that everybody grew up with: The story of a boy who wouldn’t grow up, became friends with the local Indians, and fought the pirates lead by the infamous Captain Hook. There have been multiple adaptations of J.M. Barrie’s legendary story. You have the famous Disney animated picture, Peter Pan for starters. Next was Hook, with Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman. There was another film in 2003 starring Jason Isaacs. Now, Warner Bros gives us…..wait for it….an origin story of Pan, how delightful, because we NEVER grow tired of origin stories. I kid you not, Pan: Smells Like Teen Spirit is an origin story. And a lousy one at that. And no, that’s not the official title, it’s just the one I decided to use, because this thing stinks.
Imagine, if you will, a movie that begins in London during World War II. The setting: An orphanage straight out of Oliver Twist. Every night, kids disappear when young Peter wakes up when this happens, and he himself is abducted by….pirates. In a flying pirate ship. Yes, a flying pirate ship. After going up against a couple of British war planes, the Jolly Roger takes flight to a mysterious world called Neverland. Fuck it. I don’t give a damn about the story now, and neither should you. 2015 was one of those years where origin stories were all the rage. Audiences are fucking sick of it. I know I am. The main villain of Pan is not Captain Hook, but rather Captain Blackbeard. Yes, THAT Blackbeard. A man who seems to have found the path to immortality using….fairy dust. I would be okay with that if the first third of the movie didn’t take place in a boring mine. Yeah, the action starts off in a mine where miners are singing, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” from Nirvana. I’m not kidding. Don’t believe me? Just watch:
Ridiculous, ain’t it? Kurt Cobain must spinning in his grave. This whole movie is like a bad acid trip. Don’t get me wrong, some of the visuals are exquisite, with eye-popping colors and landscapes, once you get out of that goddamned mine. The CGI in this movie is absolutely horrendous. The creature effects are incredibly dull, except for the crocodile which was kind of cool. But it is PAINFULLY obvious that most of this was staged on a green screen. Aside from the…songs, the musical score is quite epic. I would have been okay with Peter and Hook being friends at the beginning before turning into enemies later on. But that doesn’t happen. Instead, we get Garrett Hedlund’s horrific performance as Hook, with a terrible American accent. Rooney Mara is too fucking pale to be playing Tiger Lily, and Hugh Jackman just hams it up as Blackbeard. I can’t help myself, just look:
What is up with that outfit? Pompous doesn’t even begin to describe that horrible costume. Jackman’s performance, while fun to watch, is nothing short of anti-Oscar. I’m sure he had a great time making the movie. It’s just too bad that nobody had a great time watching it. In fact, NOBODY watched it. The film cost 150 million to make and didn’t even bring in that much. It flopped. Big time. The movie got hammered by critics left and right. There was no mercy, and there shouldn’t be. It’s a bad movie. Oh, and did I mention they used “Smells Like Teen Spirit?” I knew going in to the film that it was going to be, well, not good. I wasn’t expecting it to be atrocious. The costumes are HILARIOUSLY awful:
Need I go on? Probably not, but I’m going to anyway. This movie pissed me off, I need the therapy. When Peter finally learns to fly, they don’t use a person on wires. No, they completely digitize the character. That means what you see is a fully CGI character that’s flying around. It’s obvious. If there’s one decent thing about this film, aside from a lot of the visuals, is that they found young actor, Levi Miller to play Peter Pan. I actually didn’t mind him at all. I thought he did pretty good. That doesn’t make up for the fact that the rest of the film is complete and utter bollocks, as my British friends would say.
I think all the actors will survive this atrocity. It certainly won’t dent Hugh Jackman’s career. I like Garrett Hedlund, but Rooney Mara needs to go the fuck away. I’ve seen my fair share of train-wrecks. The other good thing is, is that this movie is better than Fant4stic and Pixels. Between this movie and those two, I highly recommend you go get drunk and forget about tomorrow. Seriously. Getting hammered would be a lot more fun than sitting through this shit again. They should have called the film, Pan: Smells Like Teen Spirit. Final Score: 3/10.