PAN

2.5 stars (out of 5)

JM Barrie’s novel Peter Pan just never seems to go away, and while some try to film it straight (like Disney’s classic animated version or Aussie PJ Hogan’s swollen 2003 take), others feel the need to play with the material, like Steven Spielberg and his dreaded Peter-Pan-As-A-Mean-Middle-Aged-Exec-Who’s-Forgotten-He’s-Peter-Pan shocker Hook. After that one you’d think no one would dare deconstruct the basic story, but somewhat prestige English director Joe Wright has, and here he’s given us a huge, bloated, head-scratching epic ‘Origins’ tale showing how Peter Pan became Peter Pan, because we’re all apparently just dying to know.

In an FX London during World War Two Peter (Aussie Levi Miller) is living in an orphanage and hoping desperately that the Mum he never met will come back to claim him as he so hates Mother Barnabas (Kathy Burke going way over the top). Kids keep on disappearing and soon Peter is seized by pirates on what look like elastic ropes (maybe they saw Mad Max: Fury Road?) and spirited away to Neverland, which turns out to be a magical island where he’s told to mine for ‘fairy dust’ to please supposedly benevolent tyrant Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman, whose presence seems to be the reason this suddenly turns Moulin Rouge­-ish for no good reason).

Peter discovers he can fly and this intrigues the grown-up James Hook, who’s played by pretty much unknown Garrett Hedlund, dresses like Indiana Jones, helps along the plot in a most Han-Solo-like fashion, and proves awfully dull. Nevertheless, soon Peter, James and Smee (Adeel Akhtar) have escaped to the land of the fairies and impressed queen Tiger Lily (the controversially cast Rooney Mara), which leads to a party that offers a riot of colour, music and dancing that suggests that these beings are a weird hybrid of Inca, loud-and-proud Mardi Gras refugees and Ewok. No wonder Blackbeard and his goons attack.

Frantically busy, loud, awkward and overlong, Wright’s pic falls prey to a common problem with modern children’s movies: it’s all just too damn complicated, what with all the whys and wherefores about the flying pirate ships, all the background about Peter and his lineage, all the reams of confused stuff that underpins life as a goofy fairy, and so on and so on and so on. Add to that the expected CG overdose, the gooey sentiment and uneasy performances by Jackman, Hedlund and Mara (what the heck is that hideous ceremonial head-dress thingie???) and you’ve got a movie that most children will want to fly out of well before the end.