Should Your Kids See 'Pan'?

We didn’t really know what to expect when we attended a screening of Pan, the new prequel to the classic J.M. Barrie play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up (and subsequent novels based upon the character). But we knew there would be pirates and the kids wanted to see it. Besides, who doesn’t love popcorn for breakfast?

While I am the first to admit that I carry a bias toward the Disney version of Peter Pan, I like to think I’m fairly open-minded when it comes to the character, and, to be honest, the makers of Pan had already impressed me by making a “significant donation” to the Great Ormond Street Hospital (the hospital was gifted the copyright to the original story by J.M. Barrie) despite it being a prequel and therefore not required to do so. I like people that do the right thing, so we went into Pan with few clues but lots of hope.

It turns out that Pan is much, much better than I could have expected, which was also the general consensus of other attendees that I spoke with at the screening.

My family loved it.

Pan is an origin story, following the life of a young boy named Peter (Levi Miller) and, spoiler alert, his transformation into the legendary character we all know and love. Imagine a Cirque du Soleil tribute to Indiana Jones by way of Moulin Rouge, sprinkle a bit of pixie dust and that’s Pan in a nutshell.

There are some wonderful talking points. Namely, rather than following the unfortunate choices made by previous Pan-related projects, the filmmakers chose to embrace the rainbow and portray the native population of Neverland in a vastly different light than the negative stereotypes we have seen all too often. Here, the tribe of “savages” better resemble a Holi-inspired rave than the Native Americans, Amazons or Australian Aboriginal peoples that we have seen (or read) elsewhere[i]. The natives are brightly adorned and painted, even bursting into clouds of color upon their demise, which not only serves to soften the more violent scenes of the film, but also implies that they are working on a mystical palette far beyond the hues of human existence.

Pan makes other tweaks as well, for instance, while Peter may be the chosen one, the action hero of the film is clearly Rooney Mara’s Tiger Lily, and Hook, played a bit brashly by Garrett Hedlund, is not the pirate (yet) we love to hate, but still going through his lovable scoundrel phase. Hugh Jackman as the villain Blackbeard will have you wondering, repeatedly, “Is that really Hugh Jackman?”

While my kids left the theater talking about flying ships and crocodiles, I was happy to have the opportunity to discuss the social dynamics involved with regard to the above, not to mention conversations about World War II (it’s in there) and their empathy for the poor treatment shown Peter and his orphans by most of the authority figures they encountered.

Yes, there is violence, but it is blurred by action and more fast than graphic. The kids weren’t fazed at all. In fact, the scariest part of the movie might be the scene(s) with the Never Birds: big, feathered skeletons that resemble Kevin from Pixar’s Up! after too many months on some fad diet. Hollywood, right?

Pan is a lot of fun and it has a lot of fun in the process, choosing to playfully allude toward the inevitable happenings of the next chapter in Peter Pan’s story rather than connect the dots for us, and the kids, familiar as they are with where the story goes, were filled with questions and the things left unanswered. Any movie that gets the kids thinking and wondering has earned its share of the box office in my book.

Whit Honea is the author of The Parents’ Phrase Book bitand his personal website the Honea Express whithonea.com. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, two sons, and too many pets.