5.8 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
During World War II, an orphan named Peter is kidnapped by pirates and brought to the magical realm of Neverland. There, he discovers he is destined to save the land from the pirate Blackbeard.
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Levi Miller (II), Garrett Hedlund, Rooney Mara, Adeel AkhtarAdventure | 100% |
Fantasy | 78% |
Family | 65% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
English DD 5.1=descriptive audio
English SDH, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
UV digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Director Joe Wright's Pan has already been punished with the film industry's equivalent of the
scarlet letter, joining Tomorrowland and
Fantastic Four as one of 2015's biggest flops. To
date,
its worldwide gross is barely half of its estimated $250 million production and marketing costs, and the
critical reaction has been scathing. The film suffered negative pre-release publicity when it was
postponed from the summer to the fall, and it was also attacked for its casting, notably the choice
of the caucasian Rooney Mara to play Tiger Lily, a traditionally Native American character. A
project which had begun with an original script so promising that it was chosen for the 2013
Black List is now being rushed to home video just two and a half months after its U.S. theatrical
release.
Is Pan the disaster that its box office suggests? No, but it's a different movie than what was
advertised, and its likely audience is far more specialized than the kind of broad demographic for
which studios greenlight nine-figure production budgets. Although Wright may have set out to
make a children's film—and repeatedly notes in his Blu-ray commentary that he often toned
down the violence so that younger kids would not be frightened—he ended up making a fantasy
for grownups. It takes an adult sensibility to appreciate the many references to J.M. Barrie's
original Peter Pan stories layered throughout Pan, as well as the collage of images and sounds
drawn from sources as diverse as The Lady from
Shanghai, the Spanish Baroque painter
Velázquez and the Nirvana song "Smells Like Teen Spirit", which plays a crucial role in Peter's
introduction to Neverland. There's also a distinctively adult perspective in the film's celebration
of the imagination as an escape from institutional oppression and small-mindedness.
The script by Jason Fuchs (Ice Age: Continental
Drift) combines familiar elements from Peter
Pan lore with the classic tale of a hero's journey that has sustained popular mythology from King
Arthur to Star Wars. But it was Wright, making his first foray into effects-heavy filmmaking,
who developed Pan's visual vocabulary, which relies as much as possible on the
physicality of real sets (huge construction projects, in many cases) and in-camera effects to
provide a sense of weight and density that is typically missing from pure CGI. The result, at its
best, recalls the loopy, harebrained style of Terry Gilliam in The Adventures of Baron
Munchhausen. That film, too, was a box office flop and was not for kids—and its reputation has
steadily grown over the years.
Pan is credited to two cinematographers, Jon Mathieson (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) and Seamus
McGarvey (The Avengers) and was shot digitally on
both the Arri Alexa XT and the Red Epic
(according to IMDb). With post-production completed on a digital intermediate, including
extensive digital effects, Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray was presumably sourced from
digital files.
The Blu-ray image has the clean, grainless and noiseless quality we have come to expect from
digitally acquired CGI extravanganzas, except that Pan has it more than most. Even scenes in a
war-torn London orphanage or in Blackbeard's dusty mine lack the gritty texture that digital
photography is fully capable of conveying. This doesn't appear to be a fault in the Blu-ray
presentation so much as an artistic choice to present an "airbrushed" world of the imagination,
where harshness and evil are represented by darkness and an absence of color, rather than dirt,
grime and blood. The early London scenes are almost black-and-white until the moment when
Peter and Nibs discover the hidden supplies, at which point an array of warm colors enters the
frame, only to be smothered when the boys are discovered. The same eruption of color occurs
with the appearance of the pirate kidnappers, and the film's full palette appears with the arrival in
Neverland.
Assuming one's display is properly calibrated for black, detail is always good and often
excellent. Elaborate tableaux like the gathering of Tiger Lily's people in full ceremonial garb can
be studied at length for the ornate costumes and makeup; individual faces in the crowd of
Blackbeard's "followers" are easy to discern.
Warner has mastered the 2D version of Pan with an average bitrate of 23.93 Mbps, which is
somewhat on the low side, when one considers how much elaborate action occurs during the
course of the film. But careful allocation of bits and the film's digital origination seem to have
prevented artifacts from marring a superior presentation.
Pan is the latest Blu-ray release to arrive with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack, which will play back
on most current systems with its Dolby TrueHD 7.1 core (or 5.1, depending on the system). The
sound mix is as lively, complex and involving as one would expect from a big-budget fantasy
film, and it doesn't hurt that the sound designers were not constrained by any sense of realism,
because so much of what happens in Pan is impossible. A group of boys stampeding through a
dining room to get fed is something we've heard or can easily imagine, but what is the sound of a
flying pirate ship evading its pursuers by rising into the stratosphere (and beyond)? Pan's sound
team found expressive aural accompaniments for this and many other outlandish moments, some
of which occur simultaneously. The final battle in particular involves a cacophony of sword play,
swinging masts, toppling sails, collisions and near misses, and several other sounds that cannot
be described without spoilers.
The surround immersion is impressive. Whatever one may think of the choice to have
Blackbeard's miners chant the lyrics from "Smells Like Teen Spirit", the impact of the group
roar emanating from the entire speaker array as Blackbeard strides to his elevated podium is
memorable, especially as the camera narrows in on Blackbeard while the soundtrack picks out
his voice from the crowd. More subtle, but no less thorough, immersion occurs in scenes where
Peter is shown the past by Tiger Lily in a magic pool of water or by Blackbeard in a sequence
designed to resemble a hall of mirrors.
Dynamic range is broad, and bass extension is deep, especially when the ships are being tossed
about on waves of air. The dialogue is always clear, even with Hugh Jackman's ripely theatrical
delivery. The score by John Powell (Kung Fu
Panda and its sequels) expertly walks the fine line
between serious adventure and comical cartoon.
After so much negative advance word, I was surprised to find that Pan was an enjoyable viewing
experience. The visuals are often stunning, the story is classical, and the characters are
consistently interesting (and anyone who thinks they're unrealistic or too broadly drawn should
take a good long look at reality, which daily offers people every bit as extreme as Blackbeard or
Hook). If the film has flaws, they're in the restraint that Wright applied to keep the film family-friendly and in the vestiges of narrative
machinery (e.g., the opening voiceover) that dangle the
promise of an "origin story". Pan is something else, and if you can take it that way, the Blu-ray is
recommended.
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