Pan tells us the story of a young Peter

Pan: “PG“ (111 min.)

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Levi Miller, Garrett Hedlund, Rooney Mara, Adeel Akhtar

Directed by: Joe Wright

Okay, we all know the story of Peter Pan; the little boy who never grows up. In the original of J. M. Barrie play the story is filled with unforgettable characters: Peter Pan, Tinker Bell; Captain Hook; the lost boys, Tiger Lilly and the Indians, the crocodile, and of course, the three children; Wendy, John, and Michael-who fly off with Peter Pan to Neverland — Second star to the right, and straight on ‘til morning.

Well, over the years since its original publication, the story has been re-interpreted, republished, restaged, and re-presented more times than we care to count, ad still it holds all of its original wonder. So, with this film, Pan goes one step beyond the simple re-telling of the original story, and presents us with a prequel to the saga (in much the same way that the Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman film version Hook, gave us a (grown up) sequel to the story).

So, here we have the story of how a 12-year-old orphan Peter was originally spirited away from his British orphanage and carted off to the magical world of Neverland, where he discovers both fun and danger, and ultimately realizes his true destiny — to become the hero who will be forever known as Peter Pan.

Here with this incarnations of the tale, we see how Peter (Miller) meets up with and forms alliances with Tiger Lilly (Mara), and (oddly enough) befriends a young (pre-Captain) Hook (Garrett Hedlund), also here is Mr. Smee (Adeel Akhtar) and others from the story we all know, only in, albeit, slightly different incarnations. In this version, Peter and Hook team up to fight off a malevolent Blackbeard (Jackman). When Peter is spirited away to Neverland at the hands of the villainous woman who runs the oppressive orphanage, he winds up working in a mine with other slaves, which is where he meets Hook and Smee.

The three manage to effect an escape which sets them off on a magical adventure bring them into contact with Tiger Lilly and the rest of the inhabitants of Neverland beyond the confines of the mines. The fun part of the film is that is sets up all the parts of the actual Peter pan story by orchestrating event that pre-stage those events (because we clearly already know what is going to happen). In this fashion it is much akin to the film Oz The Great and Powerful, or the stage play Wicked, both of which also give us looks at what occurred prior to the stories that we already know.

While we do understand that there are those who do not like these kinds of films (either prequels or sequels that go beyond the stories we all remember from your childhoods), claiming that they somehow take away from the original story, we believe that so long as they are done well, and with proper respect to the source material, they are all fair game, and we — for one — welcome them.