How did this movie end up being so bad? The trailers looked promising, the cast is made up of capable actors, and it's the fabled Peter Pan story. How did it become so bad?
One thing's for sure, director Joe Wright is not suitable for fantasy. I think the size and budget of this movie got away from him. When Wright does it right, we get Atonement and Pride & Prejudice. But when he does it wrong, it's Hanna and The Soloist.
Another factor that didn't work in Wright's favour was Jason Fuchs' writing. It was juvenile and illogical with countless of bad one-liners. I think we should all be afraid that this guy is the writer for DC's upcoming Wonder Woman.
Many times Wright had to use some editing skills because certain scenes couldn't be told in its entirety. It felt like the budget wasn't enough to shoot every single scene, which was why many times the movie felt like a driver of a car stepping on the brakes too hard.
An example, how did Peter and Hook get into baskets floating down a river from jumping off a cliff after a bomb went off and none of the hundreds of people in a canyon-like place heard it? Illogical.
And speaking of budget, that "Neverbird" looked like a puppet, and all the flashbacks were horrendous. And whoever decided to have Blackbeard face carved onto, or CGI'd, the head of his ship, made it looked like a face from the Manchurian times - horrible decision.
The next two paragraphs may contain some SPOILERS as I continue with my rant.
Towards the end in the action sequences, there were too many factors contributing to the failure of storytelling. We never knew why Peter wanted to go to the Fairy Land. He never got any training on how to use his powers, or were those just fairies; but he seemed to have used them fluently. Tiger Lily and Blackbeard's swordplay were more like child's play.
And why did Peter went from steering one ship to jumping onto the other, causing the first ship to crash? Made no sense.
The only positive was Hugh Jackman's performance and as great as he was, he couldn't save this disaster of a movie. Garrett Hedlund was channeling Nicolas Cage, Rooney Mara had no chemistry with anyone, and Levi Miller couldn't ride on his cuteness for the entire movie.
I can see why nobody liked this movie, although watching this in a three-quarter filled cinema in Manila almost sounded like people were enjoying it. But Wright's storytelling was the ultimate downfall for any potential sequels.
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