This Peter Pan never quite takes flight . . .

THIS latest fantasy adventure take on JM Barrie’s boy who never grew up is a colourful, anachronistic smorgasbord of ideas run rampant. Director Wright mines every tribal look films from Hook to Indiana Jones to Oliver Twist and Stardust, as well as ideas like parallel universes and maybe even multipleworld theory and just smashes it all up to see what sticks to the screen.

The mix of serious and fantastical never really gels because there is no one cohesive feel to the film – one second it presents a plausibly thoughtful scenario, then goes terribly camp, then shows you something reflects modern tastes, references and attention spans – so it is fast, bright, vacuous, shrill and not exactly rooted in one reality, but stealing whatever it wants from several.

Pan is a made-up version of where Peter Pan (Miller, pictured) – Barrie’s 1911 creation – and his Neverland friends originate.

Orphaned 12-year-old Peter and his friends are kidnapped by flying pirates to Neverland where they are put to work mining fairy dust. When Captain Blackbeard (Jackman) sees Peter flying he is reminded of a prophecy that a flying boy would be his undoing and the chase is on.

Peter escapes with the help of surly prisoner Hook (Hedlund) and goes looking for the tribes who oppose Blackbeard.

Plot-wise, the film rushes from one disaster to the next, with Peter skipping through character development in fits and starts, bringing out traits we know he will eventually display and then running off scared the next second, while Jackman relishes the chance to play a pirate, but thankfully manages to get by without ever saying “aaarrrggghhh me maties”.

The controversy around casting Caucasian Mara as the originally Native American character Tiger Lily is compounded by the random way the “tribes” are depicted – Polynesian clothing is placed next to felt bobbles, sitting right next to tattoos from every culture except the clothing the person is wearing. It is discomforting if you recognise specifics, but if you are young enough to simply think “tribal”, then this film is so perfect for you.

Hedlund looks the part as a young Captain Hook before he loses the hand and is still friends with Peter, but every time he opens his mouth he comes across as out of place. In trying for stentorious and commanding, he comes across as trying too hard so he is acting and stylised when the others are simply have fun playing pirates.

Flying ships crash, tiny fairy lights fly around, people disappear in neon puffs of smoke and lots of noise fills the moments between more things crashing, but this is not so much whimsical as simply familiar by association.