Pan Review

Few studio films fail this comprehensively while looking this expensive. Joe Wright and production designer Aline Bonetto build a Neverland of floating rock and rope bridges that Seamus McGarvey lights beautifully, and none of it is attached to a story. The prophecy plot, in which an orphan learns he is the chosen one, is assembled from parts so familiar that the film seems bored by its own reveals.

Then there are the choices. A mine full of enslaved children greets Blackbeard by chanting Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit, a gag that lands with a thud and gets repeated later with the Ramones. Garrett Hedlund plays a young Hook in a strangled mid century adventure hero voice that appears to belong to a different production. Rooney Mara's casting as Tiger Lily was indefensible before a frame was shot, and the film does nothing with her afterwards.

Jackman commits hard, powdered and gold toothed, and he is the only person on screen who seems to know what register is wanted, which makes his scenes lonely rather than fun. Levi Miller is a pleasant blank. The action is weightless because the physics of flight are never established, so nothing can be lost.