This could have been such a great film. I loved the introduction of Hook as a sympathetic character. The special effects, such as the birds and fights between aircraft and pirate ships are genius but Hugh Jackman and Rooney Mara are totally wasted on the belittling scripts designed completely for 3 - 4 year old children without any larger intelligence. The film and the script patronizes all involved. Come On! We've had Pirates of the Caribbean. Children are cleverer than we think and they like to be treated like adults. Really disappointed because wider thinking could have made this film bad-ass! It's a good premise but ends up being a good film only for people who don't like to think too much......... For instance, J.M. Barrie only published following the first world war and died in 1937 rather than living through the second world war (when this film is set). Hugh Jackman works with a dreadful script and a character who can't decide if he's the most evil man in the world or just a big softie at heart. This leaves an uncomfortable ill-defined pastiche of a personality. Hugh Jackman obviously just didn't have the confidence to push back against the director or script editors to decide what they wanted! It's a shame. I wanted this film to be good but ended up being really disappointed

"Pan" adds an unnecessary backstory involving orphans and the Blitz to J.M. Barrie's famous boy who wouldn't grow up. No longer a wayward child who just wants his own way (and gets it), he's now the "chosen one" and his mother some kind of fairy warrior/spirit/martyr. Setting up the sequel, his buddy is James Hook (Garrett Hedlund, channelling Han Solo) and his nemesis is Blackbeard (a hamming Hugh Jackson) who, after ostensibly extirpating the local fairy population, is mining pixie dust to keep himself young. The movie is continuous spectacular, but not especially imaginative, CGI (often involving flying pirate ships) yet lacks any sense of 'magic' – coming across as some tedious mash-up of 'Star Wars' and 'Oliver'. The oddest thing in the film is the use of Nirvana and Ramones songs, perhaps intended to convey the 'out-or-time' nature of Neverland but just out of place and off-putting (and pointless as the songs seem to have nothing to do with the story). Overall, I found the characters and the story uninteresting and ended up watching most of the movie with one eye (the other surfing around on my phone, reading about the original Peter Pan). I'm not surprised that the movie took a pounding in the box office – hopefully that will keep the painfully predestined sequel from being made. "Pan" is not quite as bad as the loud and pointless reboot of 'Alice Through the Looking Glass' but that's faint praise.

As the other review says, this movie is truly awkward and misguiding. There is no originality in the story that was expected before its release when everyone was amazed by the trailer. The story isn't very different from the original Peter Pan story, and it is even less original and entertaining. The story is simply one- dimensional, with its only message being "don't be a bad person". There is also no development of character for any of the characters, most importantly for Peter pan. The original movie, although it had imperfect visual effects, faithfully delivered its original message, showing the child Peter growing into a leader. I feel like they have tried to upscale the entire setting of the movie, but they didn't do it very carefully. There are flaws not only in the story but also in the visual effects that are just way too artificial and childish in some parts. The great cast which also raised the expectation of the audience was really useless and all the great actors were covered in awkward imitation of clichéd characters.

I never give negative reviews... Only those who literally lie to me at the beginning of the movie to give them freedom to f*** up a beloved fairytale/adventure.The problem with this story, is that it puts itself in as a prequel to the original Peter Pan story. The narrator in the beginning refer to the original, and claims to expand on the Peter Pan lore I got excited by that. I love Peter Pan and to be honest even though there were some mistakes, I couldn't wait to see how the Pan story would grow with a prequel... However... This movie never ever touched on the setup the narrator set up for us.Narrator~"because sometimes friends begin as enemies, and enemies begin as friends. Sometimes to truly understand how things end, we must first know how they begin."Really? REALLY?! The only reason they did that, was so they could rewrite the entire Peter Pan story. So they had the name to exploid with nothing to limit their writers. Next time write something original... Well Hook is a good guy, and they (SPOILERALERT) end up better friends than ever at the end of the movie... But wait, didn't they say that this would explain the world of Peter Pan? That was what the narrator said "because sometimes friends begin as enemies, and enemies begin as friends" but they never become enemies, the story in this movie just made a HUGE question-mark where there were non before. I loved the actors and I actually did enjoy the story a little bit, but with small changes it would be fantastic as a original script. Final words: A name doesn't make a good movie, pretty colors doesn't make a good movie, big actors like Hugh Jackman Wolverine doesn't make a good movie and people looking for a cheap cash-in NEVER MAKES A GOOD MOVIE!!!!! WB just don't.