Pan – Visually pleasing, horrible storytelling

If Pan has anything that can be praised it is that the visual design of this film is very appealing, albeit a few visual effects that look about as poorly animated as The Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns. The rest of Pan is a jumble of really poor acting, a lack of rules, a boring universe, and poorly written dialogue. Oh, and for some reason there are people chanting Nirvana lyrics.

One night a woman named Mary (Amanda Seyfried) leaves a baby on the doorstep of an orphanage leaving a small necklace that resembles a pan flute. This boy’s name is Peter (Levi Miller) and his life in the orphanage is anything but comfortable, he is constantly mistreated by the nuns, and at one point is punished by getting his knuckles rapped with a yardstick. Late one night a group of pirates come through London on a flying ship and capture Peter and several other orphans. The ship takes him to Neverland where he meets the leader of the pirates, the cruel Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman). Peter is forced to mine for fairy dust, and it is during his servitude that he meets James Hook (Garrett Hedland). With the help of Hook and his friend Smee (Adeel Akhtar) Peter escapes the mine and is taken to the natives of the island, Tiger Lily (Rooney Mara) notices his necklace and tells him of the prophecy related to it, a prophecy about a boy who can fly.

Let’s get one thing straight, if your movie doesn’t have comprehensible rules than your movie is doomed to fail. Sometimes in a film you have to suspend your disbelief to accept the rules of this world, but there’s no reason any of this should work. In Star Wars several masters have control over a mysterious presence known as The Force, that’s what I mean by rules. The Force is an element of the Star Wars universe that is set up perfectly, we see it happen and it works, no exposition, no questioning, it just exists. Don’t ask me to sit down in the theatre after 40 minutes of drivel and terrible acting to hear Tiger Lily say “The mermaids can store memories in the water” and expect me to accept that whole-heartedly. The mermaids can store memories in the water because it is convenient at the moment in the story, and it doesn’t feel natural at all.

On top of a lack of plausible rules, the performances are very bad. Levi Miller’s portrayal of Peter is whiney and unappealing, Garrett Hedland’s Hook is confusing, it is very hard to understand how he was attempting to portray the character, Rooney Mara does a fine job with what she is given, but her character’s choices do not feel weighted and are mostly nonsensical. Hugh Jackman is surprisingly frightening as Blackbeard, but his character isn’t given much to do. Speaking of people in this movie with nothing to do, Amanda Seyfried and Cara Delevingne. Why are two well-known, high-profile actresses portraying characters that have no purpose in this film? Seyfried says a few lines, but it ultimately amounts to nothing, and Delevingne has no lines, she plays the mermaids whose presence I mentioned in this film is ultimately useless.

Thank goodness there isn’t more dialogue than there already is, because this film’s dialogue is so basic and ordinary that it is painful to listen to. The actors don’t even have witty dialogue to save them from there flat and boring characters.

If I could find something positive to say it would be that most of the visuals are quite impressive. The flying ships making sharp turns and diving amongst the environment around them is actually a very intriguing sight. Although, whenever Peter flies they simply paste his head on an animated body that reminds me of how hideous the CGI in I Am Legend is.

Pan is not a good movie, in fact it’s probably the worst movie I’ve seen this year (I avoided Fantastic Four and Pixels like the plague), so don’t see it. The acting is weak, the dialogue is weaker, and the movie makes absolutely no sense. Save your money and go see Sicario, The Martian, or The Walk instead.

Pan is rated PG for mild violence and language. It is currently playing in theatres nationwide (but seriously, don’t bother).