Wednesday, 14 October 2015

Movie Review: Pan




There are many stories out there that we have heard since we were babies. The story of Peter Pan is one of them and really a beloved favorite. But where did Peter originally come from? I asked my Mom once and I don't remember what she said because I knew it wasn't the actual story, but she is good at making things up. That is why I was interested in checking out this week’s movie, Pan, for the review.
The movie starts somewhere around 1930 where a woman seems to be sneaking around an orphanage where she walks up to her baby and gives him a necklace with a metal pan flute on it and a letter addressed to Peter.

About twelve years later, during WWII, Peter (played by Levi Miller) wakes up in the orphanage with his friend Nibs (played by Lewis MacDougall) in the bed beside his, also awake. After jumping on the beds, they go downstairs to eat their breakfast, a gruel of some sort. Peter complains that they usually get bacon with it, and goes to sit down with Nibs. He mentions that he suspects Mother Barnabas (played by Kathy Burke), is hoarding food for herself. Peter and Nibs sneak into Barnabas' office and find a secret hatch with a bunch of junk foods and a door leading to the orphanage records. Nibs finds Peters record with the note from his mother that says that she loves him and will meet him again in this world or another. Barnabas finds them in her office and punishes them by whipping their hands and having them do chores around the orphanage.

Later that night, while all the kids go to bed, Barnabas puts up a pirate flag on the roof. Then, when the kids are asleep, pirates come down from the roof, grabbing the orphans and leaving, which Peter and Nibs see happening. The two run for the door, but Nibs gets caught just before leaving, then peter gets kicked by Barnabas into a pirate, which grabs him and pulls him up onto their flying pirate ship. Nibs tells Peter that he needs to jump off with him as he jumps, but Peter hesitates and gets flown off with the pirates.

The story plot from here is Peter meeting Hook (played by Garrett Hedlund), Smee (played by Adeel Akhtar), Tiger Lily (played by Rooney Mara) and Blackbeard (played by Hugh Jackman) and becoming the flying child we know and love. It also leads to Peter going on a great adventure to meet and know these characters. It was very imaginative and makes everything that Peter Pan is make complete sense. There are also some very interesting plot twists about the different relationships between the characters from what we already know about them, and to what is going on at that particular moment. And the costume and set design used to show us all of this was amazing. In short, I really liked all the work done on this movie.

As for the acting, I enjoyed that they used actors with theatrical backgrounds to bring the characters to life. I really enjoyed Hugh Jackman's performance the most. His portrayal of Blackbeard brought a lot of dimension and realism yet drama to the character. I did think that Garrett Hedlund was a little overboard at times but still enjoyable. I think the real cheers go for Levi Miller and his portrayal of Peter. He really gave us his true character from troublemaker to boyhood hero.

I would rate this movie 8.7/10 for overall greatness in most aspects, but sometimes there are moments where it goes a little wrong in some way.

I'm thinking about changing the color of the font to orange for Halloween. Do you think I should do it or not? Leave a comment down below if you have a specific shade of orange I should know. Thanks!






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