PAN: The Unfortunate Case of Joe Wright Vs. The American Movie

I love Joe Wright and while I was not overly interested in yet another version of the Peter Pan story, I was excited to see him take on Pan. But the very fact that it spent many more years in production than it probably should have, and the idea of Wright as a CGI movie director did make me uneasy. It turns out that I was right to feel that way, because while it must have been difficult to reinvigorate the Peter Pan story, the problematic production of Pan meant that this version of the story was always going to be something of a bust.

Bad Foundations Make For A Bad Film

Jason Fuchs’ screenplay for Pan featured in the 2013 Blacklist (a list of the best unproduced screenplays of the year). I have no idea how this could have happened. The script is poor. There are regular action beats every ten minutes or so, but outside of that the story is uneven and uninteresting.

The story of Pan takes place when Peter is first taken from the orphanage and travels to Neverland, before him and Captain Hook are enemies and when his arch nemesis is the pirate Blackbeard. It isn’t a bad plot, but the lack of detail or emotion in the writing makes the whole thing feel very flat and very boring. Added to this is the incredibly poor dialogue. The actors and Wright have done their best and the film almost gets away with it, but it’s the kind of dialogue that belongs in a kids film. And not a good kids film, a bad one.

Maybe Fuchs’ script could have gotten by if he had included all the elements one would expect from a film about the early years of Peter Pan. If there had been a greater subplot about Peter’s parents, or if we had found out exactly why Peter and Hook became enemies, that would have helped the script considerably. Above everything else, if Fuchs had better developed the character of Blackbeard, his cause may have been saved. He’s just not a very terrifying villain – he doesn’t mean much, and you do wonder how he could have frightened off the whole of the fairy kingdom, what with all their magic.

Ultimately, Fuchs’ script suffers from a lack of light and shade. Nothing is terribly bad and no one suffers for very long, but nothing is terribly good either. Added to that, you’re not sure what happened when, and whether the Earth is another world, planet, or what. In the end what you have is a bunch of characters meandering around, waiting to see if Peter will fly again. And that gets old very quickly.

Joe Wright Vs. The American Movie

When I describe Pan as being a struggle between Wright and the concept of the American movie I’m not overstating. I feel I know Wright’s work well enough, and I also know what Hollywood will do to draw in the 3D blockbuster-watching crowd. What I saw in Pan was an uneven mix of the two.

You only have to look at the changing production credits for Pan to see where the problems began. Wright, it would seem, started making Pan with some of his long time collaborators: Paul Webster (producer), Dario Marinelli (composer), Seamus McGarvey (cinematographer) and Paul Tothill (editor). Then, for whatever reason, he changed tack. Or, in my mind, he was forced to changed tack by either the folks at Berlanti Productions or Warner Bros. themselves.

While Webster has a wealth of film production experience, his fellow producers on Pan do not. If you recognise the name Berlanti this is because Greg Berlanti and his team produce a great deal of TV shows, not films. Why Warner Bros. thought they could bring this production in is highly questionable. Their inexperience is probably the reason for the high number of production changes. Or perhaps Wright got scared and felt that replacing his colleagues would help?

To begin with, the film’s release was put back a year after Wright replaced Dario Marinelli with John Powell. I cannot discover a good reason for this. Perhaps because Marinelli is known for his drama and Powell for his work on kids films, Wright was aiming to make the film more ‘child-friendly’. Strangely, the film also credits two cinematographers: Seamus McGarvey and John Mathieson. The only reason I can imagine for this is that Wright began with McGarvey and perhaps Mathieson was brought in to deal with the more dramatic CG shots. It’s highly unusual, and the differences between their work is evident on screen.

As if replacing three of his trusted colleagues wasn’t enough, Wright, or whoever he was answering to, brought in William Hoy as an additional editor. Luckily Webster and Wright’s casting collaborators Dixie Chassay and Jina Jay were above being replaced or added to, as their part in the film would have been substantial at this point. But everyone else was thrown out in the bid to make Pan less of a Wright film and more of a Warner Bros. family movie.

Nice Try Mr. Wright

Joe Wright did his best with this movie, but the badly drawn characters and the miscasting of the actors filling those roles didn’t help. Kathy Burke is nowhere nearly frightening enough as the head of Peter’s orphanage. Adeel Akhtar as Smee is really annoying, and Rooney Mara (as Tiger Lily) just doesn’t make sense as any sort of Native American character, which we envision Tiger Lily as being.

Hugh Jackman puts on a good show as Blackbeard, but Blackbeard is such an undefined character that we’re never really sure what to make of him. Levi Miller is a fine young actor but it still sort of feels like he’s acting by numbers (smile here, cry here, say this line with emotion, etc.), and that can get a bit frustrating. But those performances shine brightly in comparison to Garrett Hedlund (as Hook), who is hugely annoying. Whatever acting style he’s aiming for in Pan just isn’t working.

Conclusion

Even I have to admit that, while he tried his best, maybe one of my favourite directors just lost his way in this film. Apparently he wanted to make a film for his son. Maybe he started making the film to his style, but then had to pull on the reins to make sure Pan ended up as a kids film and not a drama. The way I see it, Joe Wright has a way of making films that is quite close to perfect. But either he struggled with such a large project or his inexperienced producers made him change his vision into something they imagined to be more box office friendly.

Whatever the reason for Pan’s failure, it was always going to be a bit of a lost cause. Who thinks it’s a good idea to have the producers of The Flash (which I’ll admit is an excellent show) take charge of a film made by the makers of Atonement? It was never going to work. But while it feels pointless and quite boring, this film is not awful, and if you pick over the carcass I’m sure you’ll find something to enjoy. There is, however, no way I can recommend it to you. I will instead recommend Atonement and Pride & Prejudice. Wright is an excellent director, and I urge you not to judge him on Pan alone.

Have you seen Pan? Let me know what you thought in the comments.

Pan is currently on release in the US & UK. For the release dates in your country check the Pan IMDb page here.

(top image source: Warner Bros. Pictures)