Pan
Warner Bros. | Release Date: October 9, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
36
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
13
Negative:
15
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneOct 12, 2015
Wright’s best film so far, livelier and more disloyal to its source than “Atonement” or “Pride and Prejudice” — crams without a care. The outcome is that increasing rarity, a proper children’s film; even the tears are well earned. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonDave CalhounOct 6, 2015
This Pan is loud, colourful, busy and full of ideas. Not all those ideas work in sync – but most are bold and some are winningly eccentric. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 21, 2015
Occasionally things get a little overcrowded, particularly during a sticky final act, but Pan has a certain timeless buoyancy that keeps it bouncing back. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesBill ZweckerOct 8, 2015
Full of non-stop action, an intriguing new take on J.M. Barrie’s classic “Peter Pan” tale and some old-fashioned, swashbuckling mischief led by Hugh Jackman, director Joe Wright’s Pan is one heck of a charming romp. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 11, 2015
The film fulfills its limited mandate of providing fast-paced adventure and some nice eye candy without adding anything memorable to the tale of The Boy Who Can Fly. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonOct 8, 2015
Working from a screenplay by Jason Fuchs, director Joe Wright seems overwhelmed by the material, and he fails to make us care about any of the characters. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTom RussoOct 8, 2015
Passable adventure that offers the occasional flash of real cleverness. Read full review
60
Screen DailySarah WardSep 19, 2015
Deftly made and diverting for young audiences but unlikely to linger, with any vibrancy tempered by the familiarity of the tune. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianMarc MohanOct 9, 2015
It's not that Pan isn't entertaining. There's plenty of color and action and some inventive 3-D effects. Jackman's unhinged performance is either gloriously great or gloriously terrible, but captivating either way. There's no magic, though. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyOct 7, 2015
At once thinly conceived and maddeningly over-designed, irreverent and over-serious, and chock-full of strained references (to World War II, environmentalism, and drugs, among other things) and creepy violence, Pan is an elaborate flight of fancy with no vision — which makes it strangely compelling in spots. Read full review
50
TimeJohn AndersonOct 9, 2015
There's no denying that Pan is one ambitious fairy tale. But what's being labeled a "wholly original adventure" feels far from new, never mind necessary. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorOct 8, 2015
In fashioning a creation myth for Peter Pan, director Joe Wright and writer Jason Fuchs have produced such a thin story that they reduce, rather than amplify, J.M. Barrie’s famous characters. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedOct 7, 2015
It’s not about Peter Pan, but about what happened before Peter Pan. The noise you hear is J. M. Barrie turning over in his grave. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 7, 2015
This might have made a decent eye-candy musical for kids. But aside from Nirvana and a choral “Blitzkrieg Bop” by the miner kids, there is no music. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyJoe McGovernOct 8, 2015
Hugh Jackman gives the movie a bit of twinkle as a pirate who breathes pixie dust to stay fresh and relevant. Maybe the people behind Pan should have snorted some. Read full review
42
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallOct 8, 2015
Director Joe Wright's movie barely gets off the ground, and gets old quickly. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzOct 8, 2015
If you’re going to make an origin story, make an origin story. On second thought, if you’re Joe Wright looking to tell us where Peter Pan and Captain Hook came from, maybe don’t. Read full review
40
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlOct 5, 2015
Jackman occasionally wins a laugh, when he manages to impose himself over the movie's restless clamor. Read full review
40
Total FilmMatt MaytumSep 26, 2015
As Peter Pan should be one of the ultimate wish-fulfilment heroes for kids, it’s baffling to see how he’s been appropriated for such an awfully middling adventure. Read full review
40
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 19, 2015
At no point in the entire film is any character allowed to have any fun at all, which is a rather devastating flaw for a movie that’s supposed to be set in an eternal wonderland of play and arrested childhood innocence. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineEric HendersonOct 8, 2015
Whatever drugs director Joe Wright may or may not have been on when he wrestled Pan to the ground, pulverizing the material into a quivering mound of monkey-bread dough, you can trust that they were synthetic. Not a single emotional moment in this entire origin story for J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, Captain Hook, and Neverland feels organic. Read full review
38
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanOct 6, 2015
Writer Simon Fuchs begins with a reasonable idea – we’re all likely to be curious about the origins of Peter Pan – and does unreasonable things ever after. Read full review
37
Washington PostStephanie MerryOct 8, 2015
Pan doesn’t deliver on its own promise. The movie doesn’t so much enhance our understanding of the flying boy as it demonstrates how little thought went into crafting his back story. Read full review
30
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriOct 9, 2015
Careens helplessly between the garish and the generic. Read full review
30
The New York TimesA.O. ScottOct 8, 2015
The dominant emotion in Pan is the desperation of the filmmakers, who frantically try to pander to a young audience they don’t seem to respect, understand or trust. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesOct 7, 2015
Ill-conceived from any number of angles, this Peter Pan origin story, scripted by Jason Fuchs (Ice Age: Continental Drift), plays topsy-turvy with J.M. Barrie’s beloved characters. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthySep 19, 2015
What fun there is falls to Jackman, who gives the grand old man of pirate characters plenty of fresh and unusual wrinkles and emerges better than the others simply by virtue of playing a two-dimensional, rather than one-dimensional, figure. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter TraversOct 9, 2015
Joe Wright's origin story of Peter and the lost boys has to be the dimmest, deadliest take ever on J.M. Barrie's Pan myth. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleOct 8, 2015
A complete washout, a joyless, pointless and fundamentally idiotic enterprise. Read full review
25
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 8, 2015
The most joyless revisionism since Disney's "The Lone Ranger. Read full review
25
RogerEbert.comSusan WloszczynaOct 8, 2015
To begin with, the very premise feels off. Peter Pan isn’t a superhero and doesn’t really need an origin story, especially one that opens at a London orphanage for boys during the Blitz and borrows heavily from the “Oliver Twist” handbook. Read full review
25
HitfixDrew McWeenyOct 8, 2015
With no clear purpose in telling the story and no real focus in the actual storytelling, Pan never gets off the ground. Read full review
25
The PlaylistNick SchagerSep 24, 2015
Pan is a cacophonous assault on the senses, all computerized cinematographic mayhem and deafening noise, and its hurried pace extinguishes any genuine character development. Read full review
15
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeSep 19, 2015
A thoroughly unpleasant experience. Read full review
0
New York PostLou LumenickOct 8, 2015
This joyless, 10-megaton bomb fails in just about every imaginable way, as well as some you couldn’t possibly imagine. Read full review
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