Pan (2015)

Peter Pan is one of my favourite books. When I was a kid, I would reread it at least once a year. I read about five different spin-offs, sequels, prequels, whatever when I was 12 or 13. I grew up with the Disney animated film, the live action 2003 film, and Hook. I have even sat through Return to Neverland more than once. Yep, I am a Pan Fan. So naturally, when I heard that a new retelling was coming out, I was pretty excited. For a while at least. Pretty soon after watching the trailers, I began to get really worried. Hollywood has not had the best run with re-adapting classic children’s books. Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010), Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), and Maleficent (2014) have all been pretty divisive in their own ways. But Pan is by far the most divisive for me personally, and hopefully this review will tell you why. And just to make my job just a little harder, this review is going to try and answer two other big questions: was this a good film, and did I enjoy watching it? Oh, and despite my best efforts, there will be a few spoilers! Sorry!

Peter (Levi Miller) is an orphan living in London during World War 2, when one night he suddenly gets kidnapped by pirates and taken to work for Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman) in Neverland. Blackbeard, obsessed with living forever, has hundreds of slaves working in mines trying to find pixie dust to help him stay young, leading to the destruction of most of the fairy population on Neverland. Once he is there, Peter discovers he can fly and escapes with the help of fellow slaves James Hook (Garrett Hedlund) and Mr Smee (Adeel Akhtar), who promise to help him look for his mother who Peter believes is somewhere on the island. The three of them set off to find the Tribal People, a group of warriors resisting Blackbeard’s destruction of the island. The find and befriend Tigerlily (Rooney Mara), princess of the tribe, and together they must stop Blackbeard before he destroys what is left of the fairies.

From the synopsis above, I’m sure some of you would’ve spotted the first major problem with the film. The plot is basically Star Wars. Peter is Luke, Hook is Han Solo, Tigerlily is Leia, Blackbeard is Darth Vader. Even Smee could be seen as C3PO. There is even a ghost that appears at the end to give encouragement to the hero and tell them that they did a good job. Copying the plot of Star Wars in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does feel like the screenwriters were a little lazy. I think the plot would’ve been a lot better if they hadn’t decided to copy Oz the Great and Powerful and make the main character ‘the chosen one’ when there was no real need for it. It’s a trope that is used too often, and rarely in a good way, and again, it feels really lazy.

Some of my problems with the film can be put down to me being really nit-picky, but some of things I’m going to talk about now were just weird or stupid. Biggest one, why was Hook American? Why was he a cowboy? It just really bugs me a lot that such an iconic character was changed so drastically for no real reason other than the makers wanting to appeal to an American audience. I probably wouldn’t mind if I thought the actor did an okay job, but Garrett Hedlund just didn’t. Most of his screen time was spent mugging to the camera.

Hook was the biggest disappointment in terms of character, mainly because while I do have problems with other characters, they also had qualities that redeemed them in some way. There was quite a lot of CGI used in the film, which I get, but it did bring the film down for me a little because I prefer practical effects to CGI stuff. Also, it seemed that there was quite a bit of borderline child-abuse going on. I’m fairly sure that by the end of the film Peter would have broken most of his rib cage from the amount of harm he came to. The dialogue was kinda painful in a lot of parts, and there were a lot of heavy-handed references to the book that were just embarrassing really, and not necessary. I'm also fairly sure that the costume designer was on LSD.

 

There are two really odd moments that I just want to mention quickly, one I understand, the other I cannot comprehend. The one I understand was during the pirates attack of the Tribal People, instead of dying, the Tribesmen exploded into paint. Okay. I get that it’s a kid’s film and the director didn’t want to show any blood, but it’s just a bit jarring when you show Tigerlily taking out a pirate with her blades moments before the first paint explosion. The other moment is when Peter first arrives in Neverland, the miners and pirates are standing all over the mines singing “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, and then Blackbeard comes out and joins them. What? While I admit it is fun to see Hugh Jackman going a little bit crazy, why the hell was that song used? It’s never explained how they all know that song, why they have to sing it, and why that song in particular is important to Blackbeard. It just raises questions, and it surprised me so much that I felt alienated from the sequence. It’s just a really weird scene, and again not really necessary.

But the biggest problem I have with the film is what it actually should be classified as. I can’t see it as a prequel because it just brings up too many questions, like why is it set during 1940? Why are Peter and Hook still friends by the end of the film? Why does the ending have no foreshadowing to the end of the original? Also being a prequel to Peter Pan is kinda redundant for two reasons. Number one, and all prequels suffer from this, is that there is no tension during the climax. Everyone who knows the story can guess that everyone will end up okay, with no major deaths or anything like that, so the climax ended up being a mediocre CGI fest. The second reason is that Peter Pan already has a backstory, a really good one, one that explains the motivations of the character and how he came to be Peter Pan. Inventing a new one, again, is not necessary!

So then I guess we call this film either a reimaging or retelling. But then why advertise it like a prequel? A lot of people were disappointed with this film, and I think advertising this film as a straight up prequel is why. Does it work as a reimaging? Sort of, but it suffered from a plot that was too Hollywood-anised for it to feel like a new story. Like I said earlier, Oz the Great and Powerful already did a prequel featuring a 'chosen one' plot, and that film probably borrowed that idea from Alice in Wonderland. I don't get why they didn't just film Peter's backstory as it was in the book, but apparently that would be too easy.

But with all these things against the film, I do think there were some really good things in it as well. Hugh Jackman was practically electric as Blackbeard, bringing a lot of depth to the character that would otherwise have been lost with another actor. There were a lot of small character tropes that weren’t spelled out or expositioned over, instead just shown through the characters actions. Tigerlily was pretty bad-ass, and her fight between Blackbeard was one of the highlights of the film, though she does suffer a little from lack of personality. Levi Miller was extremely likeable, and for his first major role I applaud him for saying some atrocious dialogue with a straight face. Kathy Burke is hilarious in a supporting role, and was probably my favourite character in the film. The cinematography was really nice, the fight scenes excellent, the music was good. But most importantly, kids really enjoy this film.

 

I saw this in a cinema full of kids, and I think they were all entertained. The kid in front of me couldn’t stop saying how good a film it was, and some girls behind me said how awesome they thought Tigerlily was. And hopefully after seeing this film, it will inspire them to go and read the book, which is the most important thing a film like this can do. So after all this talk, how can I answer the questions I asked at the beginning of this review?

Is this film a bad film? Well, let’s put it into perspective. Comparing it to the other films I listed at the beginning, it is miles above the migraine inducing Oz the Great and Powerful, but it doesn’t make as much sense as Maleficent, which was very clear in its intent despite its faults. It comes closest to Alice in Wonderland I think. I don’t think it’s terrible, but it could be a lot better. As to whether or not I like this film, I don’t know if I can answer that question, at least not at this moment. I was entertained while watching it and I don’t regret seeing it, but the source material is so close to my heart I’m not sure I can ever fully like it. I guess all I can do is wait a while and see how I feel a few months from now. I might even need to see it again before I form a solid opinion. But one thing I can say is that, for all its faults, Pan did inspire me to start writing again.

If you are interested in seeing it, then do. There are worse films out there. I’m sorry this was such a long review after months of inactivity. I really didn’t mean to write so much, it just kept coming. Not sure what I’ll be doing next. Maybe a list, who knows? If you stuck this out to the end, well done. Until next time, readers.

On the Road

I'm amazed how often some actors get type-cast. Sometimes without them even knowing it. I am of course talking about the female Ben Affleck, Kristen Stewart (though that isn't really fair to Ben Affleck. Maybe he's just the male version of Kristen Stewart). For some reason, she always plays 'relatable' young women over whom two men are wanting to be with/ lusting over. And you'd think that this would be the movie to stop that, but no. This is an adaptation of the generation defining book by Jack Kerouac, which came out in 1957, and is based on a series of journeys that Kerouac undertook with his friend, Neal Cassidy, during the 1940s. It is also the most famous novel from the beatnik era, and has long since been thought to be unfilmable. I did read the book before seeing the film, and I can tell you right away the film does not compare.

The main plot follows a series of 5 trips that Sal Paradise takes across America, all involving his hero Dean Moriarty. Along the way, they interact with various recurring characters, including Carlo Marx, a young beat poet, Old Bull Lee and his wife, Jane, Mary Lou and Camille, two of Dean's wives.We get veiws into Dean's unorthodox home life, that paint him as a charming drifter with no concept of responsibility. All of the characters are based on people that Kerouac knew in real life; Sal is the fictional embodiment of Kerouac himself, Dean is Neal Cassidy, Carlo Marx is Allen Ginsberg and Old Bull Lee is William S. Burroughs. The film manages to stick as close to the books narrative, but sometimes that isn't necessarily a good thing, as we will see.

So, firstly, was there anything good in the movie? Well, yeah, is the short answer. The women were characterised well. In the books, the women are basically just attachments to the men and aren't given anything to do except have sex and get the marajuana ready. In the film, they are given characters! Actual real characters. And both Amy Adams and Kirsten Dunst are very good. Kristen Stewart is okay. And that really sums up the whole movie. This film exists. That is the nicest compliment that I can give it. It's just okay. Not terrible, but definitely not good. So, while it gains points for having good female characters, it loses them immediately for being dull.

Of course, the thing with the women will only come to light if you have read the book. Speaking of the book, I'm not the biggest fan of Kerouac. There were good parts, and the way it is written is beautiful. But there are parts that I didn't get, and if I read it again, I still probably wouldn't get it. The characters are quite selfish, especially Dean. And even though he has this charm that shines through the pages, there were some times when I just couldn't understand what Sal saw in him. And that was sort of the point. It was like Frankenstein to me. The author builds up this character so you expect him to be pretty amazing, but after you finish the book you just find him to be a dick. Amazingly, this didn't come out in the film.

I don't know what the filmmakers were trying to do, but they seemed to be trying to make Dean a 'nice guy'. Or at least sympathetic. In the book, we are shown Dean warts and all, and the strength comes from the fact that even though he is a completely selfish person, Sal still thinks of him as a great mind, and a great man despite what he did. Here, there is no charm, no charisma, just an actor trying to do what he thinks is Dean. And it doesn't work. By trying to make Dean a nice guy, you are trying to find excuses for the things that he does. It just can't be done. He's almost an anti-hero in the book (or at least he was to me. Don't take everything I say about the book as law, I'm not an expert) and in the film they try to make him a romantic lead.

So, the book remains unfilmable. Really, the best way and the only way to do the book justice is to not do a direct adaptation. Make it insane, make it crazy! Make it imaginative. You need to capture the essence of the book, not the story. In the end, the story isn't what matters, it's the way it's written and what it has to say. Give this one a miss. But do read the book, I may not understand it all that well, but it does need to be read. Sorry this took so long, and that it's so short. But guess who's been sick again! Anyway, next time should be the Japanese film I Wish. So, until next time readers.