Pan (2015)

Old lags on this blog know, from my review of Disney’s Peter Pan written way back in the Hadean Epoch, that JM Barrie’s Peter and Wendy is one of my favourite books of all time. By a strange coincidence, I recently finished reading it to Mini-Mouse (my first full read-through in around fifteen years) and I was once more struck by how achingly beautiful it is purely as a piece of writing.

Look at this passage describing Hook’s ship:

One green light squinting over Kidd’s Creek, which is near the mouth of the pirate river, marked where the brig, the Jolly Roger, lay, low in the water; a rakish-looking craft foul to the hull, every beam in her detestable, like ground strewn with mangled feathers. She was the cannibal of the seas, and scarce needed that watchful eye, for she floated immune in the horror of her name.

Now, I’m not normally one to gush about editions of books and what not. If it’s a good story, I don’t tend to care about the packaging. But I do make a special exception for my copy of Peter Pan.

The Everyman Children’s Classics edition with illustrations by F.D. Bedford. I got this one Christmas many years ago and it’s always been indescribably special to me.

When I see a bad adaptation of Peter Pan, it feels I leant this book to someone and got it back torn, stained and with obscene notes scribbled on every page.

I feel angry and appalled and betrayed.

Watching Pan, however, felt like I leant this book to someone and they put it in a shredder and painstakingly re-arranged the shreds into a diorama depicting the Conference of Versailles.

Now we’re waaaaaay past angry. Now I’m just baffled and confused.

Why? Why did you do that?

What the fuck even is this movie? Multiple reviews and the movie’s own wikipedia page refer to it as a “prequel” to Barrie’s original story but that’s a blatant lie. I don’t know where this story was heading (and, given its box office reception, I never will) but there is simply no way this film was ever going to dovetail neatly into Peter flying into Wendy’s bedroom and taking her off to Never Never Land, because that happened in 1904 and this movie opens during the Blitz and that’s not how time works. It’s tempting to think that this is a prequel that failed at the one thing that makes a prequel a prequel, happening before or “pre” the “quel” but I don’t think that’s it.

I’ve also seen it described as an “origin” story for Peter, but the character is so radically different from his book counterpart (and don’t even get me started on other characters like Hook and Tiger Lily) that there is really no way to reconcile the two depictions. Maybe it’s better to think of it as a “reimagining” a lá Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes but even that hewed closer to the movie it was aping (heh). In fact, Pan veers so hard away from its source material that the creators could have just changed the names of a few characters and I doubt anyone would have realised it was supposed to be Peter Pan.

Anyway, in the 1930s a baby is left on the steps of a London orphanage with a mysterious pan flute pendant. So you know what that means.

Ten years later this baby is now a boy called Peter and living in an orphanage run by comically evil Irish nuns. Sorry, I think they’re supposed to be comically evil Irish nuns but they forgot to make them comical and just made them very evil and very Irish.

“Shall sir be playing the race card?”

Nooo, I don’t think so. As long as they don’t do anything ridiculously anti-Irish like having the nuns attacking the children with hurleys…

Oh. Well. Fuck you too, movie.

ANYWAY. Like a lot of bad movies, Pan struggles with tone. Sister Barnabas is the kind of ridiculously over the top child-hating villain that you’d get in a Roald Dahl novel but it’s totally lacking the camp that’s needed to make that kind of character entertaining. Pan, particularly in its earliest scenes, has the sombre grey palette of a Holocaust drama and it’s not a fun time. Peter and his best friend Nibs break into Barnabas’ office looking for proof that she’s hoarding food and instead find a letter from Peter’s mother which the nuns kept from him because…cartoonish supervillainy. They also find a load of money which leads the boys to deduce that Sister Barnabas is selling orphans who are vanishing in the night.

Yeah, that’s what every adaptation of Peter Pan needs, the implication of child molestation. I don’t want to associate Neverland with that kind of thing!

You KNOW what I meant, you jerks.

The boys are caught and caned, and Sister Barnabas tears up the letter from Peter’s mother before his eyes because she is 100% that bitch. They are sent to bed and suddenly there are flying pirates coming through the roof and snatching children up. Now, you might be thinking “Oh! Phew! That’s where the missing orphans went!” but…no, I don’t think that can be true. The nuns have no idea what’s going on, and the pirates are clearly stealing these children, not buying them so I have to assume that Sister Barnabas is really selling orphans for nefarious purposes and her orphanage just happened to also get raided by flying pirates. During the blitz. Some orphans just cannot catch a break.

The next sequence I think is probably the only explanation we need as to why this movie was set thirty years later than the original story: someone thought that the sight of a flying pirate ship dodging Spitfires over London would look cool as Hell and I have to admit that they OBVIOUSLY were correct. The ship escapes and travels to Neverland. This results in the movie becoming brighter (if not necessarily all that much more colourful) which means I might actually get some useable screenshots.

Peter and the rest of the terrified orphans are brought to a mine, where they are greeted by hundreds of captured miners singing…fuck it, you need to see this for yourselves.

You know what? This just became my go-to answer for “scene I love in a movie I otherwise hate”. Yes, it’s pure random nonsense but there’s a swagger to it, you know?

This is Hugh Jackman who is ostensibly playing Blackbeard but who I choose to call “Fake Hook” or “Fook” for short. His whole deal is that he’s running a slave mine to dig up Pixum, which is crystallised fairy dust which is all that remains of the fairies because Blackbeard FUCKING GENOCIDED THEM.

Peter learns all this from Sam “Smee” Smiegel, played in this version by Adheel Aktar. In the original play and book, of course, Smee is a stage Oirish idiot. I presume they didn’t go in that direction because they thought that would be insensitive to Irish viewers.

Ship. Has. Sailed.

While working in the mine Pan meets this guy…

As you can no doubt tell, he’s the tough badass mercenary who’s only out for himself but will eventually become a hero thanks to the innocence and nobility of the child protagonist and his name is James Hook.

Excuse me.

What the FUCK?

Why do this? Just to be contrary? Just to be special? Just so you can be the guy who said you wiped your ass with one of the greatest villains in world literature? I AM GENUINELY CURIOUS WHAT THE THOUGHT PROCESS WAS HERE.

For starters, Captain James Hook was not born with the name “Hook”. He got the name after Peter Pan cut his hand off and he replaced it. WITH A HOOK. It’s pretty obvious. J.M. Barrie, in his children’s book written in the nineteen tens even pointed out that him being named “Hook” from birth would be really stupid. “Captain Hook” is supposed to be a name that strikes terror because of its implications. There are no implications here, this guy is just Jim Hook.

Secondly, they made him American and Garrett Hedlund is struggling mightily with the accent. I don’t know why, because Garret Hedlund is American but he somehow manages to sound like that’s not his real accent. It’s a fucking trainwreck. I’m not calling this one “Hook” either. I will call him Jimbo.

Jimbo very helpfully tells Peter how to mine without hurting his wrist and then sharpens his pick. Peter thanks him and Jimbo replies “Don’t thank me. I’m not your friend. And I haven’t got your back.”

I will pause here to give credit where credit’s due. Levi Miller is perfect casting as Peter. I’d have loved to have seen him in a more faithful adaptation. The kid is top tier.

Anyway, Peter finds a lump of Pixum but it’s snatched from him by an older pirate. When he fights back, he’s sentenced to walk the plank. After two small children plummet to their deaths to a fun little string melody it’s Peter’s turn and, to the amazement of all, he flies. A little. Kinda like a chicken. You know?

After a fall that really should have broken every little bone in his fragile frame he wakes up in Fook’s chambers. Fook tells Peter that the savage peoples of Neverland have a prophecy of a boy who was born of the love of a fairy prince and a human woman. Uhhhhhh….

Blackbeard tells Peter that legend says that the boy was hidden away in the real world until he could come of age and return to overthrow Fook and that the prophecy said this boy could fly. So, obviously, with the one person who could threaten his rule at his complete mercy he kills him?

No, he locks him away in the dungeon where he’s promptly rescued by Jimbo who agrees to help him search the island for his mother if he helps Jimbo escape the mine with his ability to fly.

PETER: If I’m going to trust you I need to know your name.

HOOK: It’s Hook, James Hook! Ya happy?!

(Pushes Peter down a mine shaft)

PETER: Noooooooooooo!

“My sentiments exactly.”

So Jimbo, Smee and Peter take a cable car up to the dock and Jimbo tells Peter to fly them over to one of the flying ships. But Peter reveals that he’s only ever flown once and you’ll never guess…

You know what, I really don’t like Hook but goddamn Hoffman was awesome.

Anyway, they manage to steal a ship anyway and escape and crash in the jungle where they get menaced by some terrible CGI birds before getting captured by Tiger Lily, played by native actress Rooney Mara.

Specifically, she is a native of Bedford, New York.

So. So so so.

The portrayal of Tiger Lily and the Piccaninny tribe (yes, that is their name) are definitely the aspect of the original novel that has aged the worst.

I am also far too pretty to cringe in this way.

So yeah, there is definitely a minefield there to be avoided but it has been done.

The 2003 Peter Pan had a Tiger Lily played by a native actress and she was widely agreed to be one of the best things in that movie. You can have the Indians in a Peter Pan story, you just have to do the work. Anyway, White Tiger Lily thinks Jimbo is a pirate (as if, who could ever mistake this guy for a pirate?) and throws him into the arena to fight their tribe’s finest warrior. But they release him when they see Peter’s pendant and realise…

White Tiger Lily tells Peter that after leaving him in the real world his mother went and hid in a hidden fairy kingdom. This is actually done through “the Memory Tree” where the lines of wood on a tree render the story in animation. It’s actually a very nifty bit of visual storytelling. She tells him that he is the chosen one, destined to save them all. Oh, and his mother’s name was “Mary”.

But to prove himself, Peter will have to fly.

Oh, and Jimbo starts flirting with White Tiger Lily.

Well I mean, who DOESN’T ship them?!

This movie is bad and I do not much care for it.

Anyway, Smee gets captured by Fook and his pirates and betrays the native’s village and also tells Fook about the existence of the hidden fairy kingdom. Fook attacks, slaughters most of the natives and then reveals to Peter that he is his mother. Sorry, I mean, that he killed Peter’s mother.

Peter, White Tiger Lily and Jimbo manage to escape but Peter is furious at White Tiger Lily for lying to him and she’s all “I’m sorry, orphaned child, that I dangled the hope of your mother still being alive only for you to lose her again but I really needed you to do what I want.”

There’s a long sequence of the three journeying across the Neverland and encountering mermaids and a giant crocodile and other assorted things to remind you of better versions of this story. Jimbo finds a flying ship in pretty good nick and abandons the other two. White Tiger Lily tells Peter the truth about his mother, that she was a warrior who died defending Neverland from Blackbeard and he decides to follow in her footsteps (hopefully without the dying part). They arrive at the Fairy Kingdom.

Unfortunately, they’re ambushed by Fook who takes Peter’s pendant and uses it to unlock the way into the kingdom which he plans on taking over and strip mining for Pixum which he uses to stay young forever. He sails his ship into the kingdom (which looks like Krypton in the seventies Superman movie for some reason) and orders his men to make for the “fairy hive” which as a phrase just conjures up the perfect atmosphere of Victorian fairy tale whimsey.

But, wouldn’t you know it, Jimbo isn’t a complete bastard and returns in the nick of time.

Peter meets Tinkerbell who is actually a fairy and hasn’t been reimagined as a fucking Galapagos turtle or something and he finally flies, rallies all the fairies and together they defeat Blackbeard and the pirates.

Peter sees a vision of his mother who tells him that he is the special and that he’s finally home and he tells her that he loves her and has always missed her.

Jimbo takes command of Blackbeard’s ship, The Jolly Roger, and they sail back to London to rescue the rest of Peter’s friends from the orphanage.

The ship sails off into the night, and Peter and Jimbo reflect on how they’re such good friends now and nothing will ever happen to change that.

And it won’t.

***

I’m honestly not even mad. I’m just utterly baffled. There is a certain crazy gonzo inventiveness that’s sort of admirable but when you take such strong material and go out of your way to mess with it this hard, call it what it is: hubris. They couldn’t have had more hubris if they’d given this movie a name that means “critical mauling”.

Oh wait.

SCORE: 34%

NEXT UPDATE: 22 May 2025

NEXT TIME: You know, on the one hand this will probably be my last chance for a long time to review Conclave during an actual Conclave. On the other hand…I am going to be so busy this week and that movie really needs a proper write up so…