Review Roundup: Hugh Jackman & Amanda Seyfried Star in Action Adventure PAN

From director Joe Wright (ATONEMENT, PRIDE & PREJUDICE) comes PAN, a live-action feature presenting a wholly original adventure about the beginnings of the beloved characters created by J.M. Barrie.

Peter (Levi Miller) is a mischievous 12-year-old boy with an irrepressible rebellious streak, but in the bleak London orphanage where he has lived his whole life those qualities do not exactly fly. Then on incredible night, Peter is whisked away from the orphanage and spirited off to a fantastical world of pirates, warriors and fairies called Neverland. There, he finds amazing adventures and fights life-or-death battles while trying to uncover the secret of his mother, who left him at the orphanage so long ago, and his rightful place in this magical land. Teamed with the warrior Tiger Lily (Rooney Mara) and a new friend James Hook (Garrett Hedlund), Peter must defeat the ruthless pirate Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman) to save Neverland and discover his true destiny - to become the hero who will forever be known as Peter Pan.

The film stars Oscar nominee Hugh Jackman (LES MISERABLES) as Blackbeard; Garrett Hedlund (INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS) as James Hook; Oscar nominee Rooney Mara (THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO) as Tiger Lily; newcomer Levi Miller as Peter; and Amanda Seyfried (LES MISERABLES) as Mary.

Let's see what the critics had to say!

A.O. Scott, New York Times: The character's pluck and mischief are nearly drowned in a bog of maudlin mommy love, and his vows of vengeance dampen the spirit of fun. The dominant emotion in "Pan" is the desperation of the filmmakers, who frantically try to pander to a young audience they don't seem to respect, understand or trust.

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: I'm usually game to follow Wright anywhere, from his literary adaptations (Atonement, Pride & Prejudice, Anna Karenina) to his foray into fantasy in Hanna. But this is too much, or too little, or not enough. Wright is defeated by a DOA script by Jason Fuchs, cruddy CGI and 3-D special effects that crash and burn at liftoff. This joyless, juiceless Pan is a theme-park ride from hell.

Andrew Barker, Variety: Of all the recent big-budget studio films to re-imagine beloved children's tales as garish, CGI-choked sensory overloads stripped of all whimsy or childlike wonder, Joe Wright's "Pan" is certainly the most technically sophisticated. The director displays his typical formal virtuosity and keen eye for young talent here (Aussie newcomer Levi Miller is assured in the title role), but it's not enough to enliven the depressing dourness of the film's worldview. Positioned as a prequel to J.M. Barrie's classic Peter Pan stories, "Pan" swaps puckish mischief and innocence for doses of Steampunk design, anachronistic music, a stock "chosen one" narrative and themes of child labor, warfare and unsustainable mineral mining. Worldwide box office will likely be strong, especially overseas, but the bubble for these joyless fairy-tale revisions cannot pop quickly enough.

Jane Horwitz, The Washington Post: The movie is longish and occasionally tangles its tale or groans under its digital effects. Yet flaws and all, "Pan" is clever, funny and emotionally and visually rewarding.

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: This joyless, 10-megaton bomb fails in just about every imaginable way, as well as some you couldn't possibly imagine. It's got a script that jams in random elements from other blockbuster franchises; massive sets and ugly costumes that look like they were recycled from 25 different movies; a uniformly charmless cast headed by Hugh Jackman, each of whom seems to be performing in a different film - all directed by Joe Wright, an expert at literary adaptations who turns out to be utterly tone-deaf when it comes to fantasy. This utterly unnecessary origin story moves J.M. Barrie's young Victorian hero to World War II London, for no apparent reason except that somebody thought it was a good idea to have RAF fighter planes shooting at an airborne pirate ship while we watch in very dimly lit 3-D.

Joe McGovern, Entertainment Weekly: Modern music in fantasy films can be like a shot of pheromones, but when 10,000 child slaves ecstatically sing Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in Pan, the song's satirical lyrics ("Here we are now, entertain us!") make an already gauche movie even dorkier. Who in the world was crying out for a prequel to Peter Pan? And especially in this lumpy, vanilla form, in which Peter (Levi Miller) is swept to Neverland, where he cavorts with nemesis-to-be James Hook (Garrett Hedlund, sounding like his lines were dubbed by Sam Elliott on Ambien). The dialogue is groan-inducing-"So the boy is lost?" "Yes, he is a lost boy"-but Hugh Jackman gives the movie a bit of twinkle as a pirate who breathes pixie dust to stay fresh and relevant. Maybe the people behind Pan should have snorted some.

Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter: Overweight and uninspired Peter Pan films have succeeded before, most notably the 1991 Hook, one of Steven Spielberg's worst efforts. But that had half of Hollywood's biggest stars at the time onboard, whereas here the roster of main characters is too winnowed down and the chemistry doesn't take; the actors all try hard to keep the energy up but never get convincingly in synch and, with the exception of Peter, the characters don't reasonably comport with one's pre-existing images of them.

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Wright has made good films ("Atonement") and mixed-up, crazily theatrical ones ("Anna Karenina"). With "Pan" he has what I hope will always mark his career low point - the most joyless revisionism since Disney's "The Lone Ranger."

Josh Lasser, IGN: For a movie that clearly required a lot of time, consideration, and effort, Pan ends up feeling rather slapdash. Many of the individual scenes/sequences work on their own and can be fun to look at, but few fit into any larger sort of picture. The entire prophecy the story is built around is ill-explained and silly. Even if we accept that these characters and this place eventually becomes the Neverland we know and love, Pan is still not a tale worth chronicling.

Josh Dickey, Mashable: Pan has created a new genre in film: A movie so bad, so resoundingly rotten in every way, that you should absolutely leave the house this weekend and pay good money to see it. We're not talking about "so bad it's good" here - this isn't Showgirls or The Room. There is no joy in the earnest schlock of it all, no giddy tickle of mockery and camp. No, no, nothing like that. Pan is instead its own thing: a visually disgusting, audibly loud and obnoxious, narratively incoherent attempt at a Hollywood adventure blockbuster.

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