Smelly Potatoes: “Pan” Review

“Pan” is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. In all honesty, I rank it among the worst of the worst. Every Razzie Award can go to it for its sheer awfulness. Never in my life have I wanted to burn filmstrips so badly. Nobody cares about Peter Pan, and besides, the ABC show “Once Upon A Time” already did their own terrible rift on the Pan tale. This film is essentially someone’s horrid fanfiction story come to life, and it is a story that makes no sense, despite being the oldest, most warn-out narrative in human history.

Let us dive into this hot mess of a film, which contains whitewashing, overuse of CGI, and one of the worst plot twists imaginable. This film is just drenched in CGI. The ships. The landscapes. Almost everything is CGI, and it is obnoxiously noticeable. It’s almost as if the director thought, “Hey, let’s blow all of our budget on CGI, and waste everything else!” The film stars some child actor as Peter Pan. I feel bad for this child (who I cannot even name) because this is going to be a black mark on his career. It starts with infant Peter being left on the doorstep of an orphanage by Mary Darling, who is portrayed by Allentown, PA native Amanda Seyfried. Karen Smith of “Mean Girls” has come a long way from wanting to go to Taco Bell and curiously knowing the weather. So, where exactly is Wendy Darling, and why is Mary Darling the mother of Peter Pan? One night during a bombing raid, a gang of pirates swiftly transport Pan to Neverland with a flying ship that goes head to head with a Royal Air Force plane, because he is the “chosen one.” Also, it turns out Neverland is basically a giant mining pit in an alternate dimension. Yay, forced labor in Neverland! (Why is this happening?) It is there we get ruthless pirate Captain Hook…I mean Blackbeard. Yes, they could not even be bothered to have Hook in this film; it is that bad. Blackbeard is played by Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman, who I can only assume did this for the money.

There is a truly awful musical number between Blackbeard and the Lost Boys when Peter first enters Neverland, in which they sing Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” It is as bizarre as it sounds. This is not a Baz Luhrmann (of “Romeo + Juliet” and “The Great Gatsby”) film, so why do you bother? You will never be “Moulin Rouge.” But one of the worst atrocities in casting and film history, equivalent to Mickey Rooney’s racist Chinese caricature of Mr. Yunioshi in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” is that of Rooney freaking Mara as Tiger Lily. Yes, you heard me, a privileged white woman of European decent playing a full-blooded Native American woman. It is 2015: why are we still doing this, Hollywood? I half-expected a scene where Amanda Seyfried comes out of whatever barrel she’s hiding in with a riff on her “So why are you white?” line from Mean Girls.

Furthermore, I cannot understand Mara’s decision to do this. If you needed the money so badly (which is a lie considering daddy owns the New York Giants), couldn’t you just…not accept the offer to star in this film? I should also mention Kirsten Dunst’s flame Garrett Hedlund is also in this movie, but I am offended enough as it is. This film now has a spot at #7 on the list of the biggest box office bombs of all time, and it tanked in China, placing lower than Disney’s “John Carter.” I hated this movie — hated every simpering, stupid, vacant, audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. I spit on this film. Shame on you, Joe Wright. How could you go from “Atonement to Hanna” to this steaming pile of fecal matter? Word of advice: Nobody cares about alternate retellings of classic stories anymore! The trope is overused as it is. Get some new whitewashing-free ideas please.