Film Review - Pan

This morning, my son and I went to watch Pan at Vue, Bolton. It was screened as one of their Kids am (£1.99) films shown on weekends.

I only remember hearing about it briefly when it was first released at the cinema, and although my son did ask if we could go and watch it then, it didn't seem to have a very long run at the theatres and we never got around to going.

But at least now we had another opportunity to see it on the big screen.

As per the title, the film is about Peter Pan. Unlike previous films based on J.M. Barrie's classic book, Pan focuses on how, the young boy Peter, seemingly abandoned by his mother and left at a London orphanage for boys, fulfills his destiny to become Peter Pan.

Unknowing of his heritage, Peter longs to be reunited with his mother and only after being kidnapped from the boys' home by pirates and being taken to the far away mystical island of Neverland to work in the mines, does he start to uncover who he really is...

I'm not going to give any more away about the plot as not to spoil it for anyone!

Was it worth watching? Well, I suppose so...for £1.99! My five year old son was captivated by the action scenes and laughed at some of the humour so he enjoyed it. I thought it was an enjoyable enough film and visually very beautiful in places, but I can understand why it got, pardon the pun, 'panned' by some reviewers.

I enjoyed the film but probably wouldn't be in a rush to see it again. The film seemed a little confused in places, for example on arrival to Neverland being met with a crowd of pirates and miners singing Nirvana's “Smells Like Teen Spirit”! Wasn't sure what to make of that at all!

Also, the young James Hook, played by Garrett Hedlund, could have easily been mistaken for a knock off Indiana Jones. He did provide a bit of eye candy for the mums though :). And for the dads...well, there was a brief appearance from Cara Deleveigne. Don't want to be one sided!

There was also a scene which was very reminiscent of the Ewok Village in the trees from Return of the Jedi. Does anyone who's seen it agree?...probably just me!

It was nice to see Kathy Burke back on the screen as she played the role of the nun in charge of the home for boys. But for me, the highlight of the film was Smee, played by Adeel Akhtar (Gupta on The Angelos Epithemiou Show) although I think he should have had a bigger role.

Hugh Jackman played a pretty good baddie as Blackbeard. I wouldn't have guessed it was him as he looked so different. When I first saw the character though, I did think he might have taken fashion advice from Blackadder ;)

I did think that the boy who played Peter (Levi Miller) was very engaging and had the most lovely blue eyes and I look forward to seeing him in other things.

Have you seen it? What did you think?