Film critics are wrong about “Pan”

By Nicholas Barber

“Pan panned”. Well, which sub-editor could possibly resist that headline? Precious few, it seems, because you can find it countless times when you Google the reviews of Warner Bros’ new “Peter Pan” prequel, “Pan”. The film has taken a pasting from American critics (as I type, it has a paltry 24% on Rotten Tomatoes), and even before its release in Britain it was written off in newspapers as a calamitous flop which may cost the studio $150m. For British audiences, the boy who never grew up was dead on arrival. And, as someone who loathes sequels almost as much as I venerate J.M. Barrie’s novel, I can’t say I was too upset. When I sat down to watch it, I felt that if any film deserved that merciless two-word headline, it was “Pan”. A minute later, I was enchanted. A hundred minutes after that, I thought it was the greatest children’s fantasy film in years.

I wouldn’t claim that “Pan” is perfect. But I would claim that anyone who dismisses this awfully big adventure must have seen a lot of masterpieces that have passed me by. Are we really living in an age so rich in cinematic wonders that we can yawn at a flying pirate ship being chased by spitfires over London, skimming the surface of the Thames before soaring into the night sky? Are we really so jaded that we can tut at a jungle infested with Tyrannosaur-sized parrot skeletons, or a bay of mermaids who all have the face of Cara Delevingne? And are films really so over-populated with memorable villains these days that we can sneer at one with the strut of Tim Curry in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and the poesy of Dylan Thomas? (Death, he informs Peter, is “a slow dream drowning in the soft, dark sea”.) No. In an era of committee-approved corporate blockbusters, “Pan” stands out for its humanity, its sparky comedy, and its eccentric, unbounded imagination. It may be directed by Joe Wright (“Atonement”), but it’s as close as we’ll get to the “Harry Potter” film which Terry Gilliam was so keen to make.