YMMV / Pan

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • The whole film has one for Hook, turning him from the Pirate Captain whose hand Peter cuts off, into a heroic prospector helping Peter to overthrow the Pirate Captain.
    • One theory for the film is that James is not the pirate Peter ends up fighting. In fact one of the WMG for this film is that Blackbeard survives the attack, murders James and takes on his name in order to spite Peter. Hence the mutual dislike of each other. It would also make sense due to the fact that James himself was kidnapped as a child in order to work in the mines, Barrie states in the novel that "Hook was not his true name. To reveal who he really was would even at this date set the country in a blaze" and that Hook attended Eton College and Balliol, something that the Hook seen in the movie wouldn't have been able to do.
  • The mermaids rescuing Peter. Is this Adaptational Heroism? Or do they just recognise that Peter is half-fairy and therefore one of them?
• Awesome Music: Whether you think it belongs within 20 miles of a Peter Pan movie or not, the Blackbeard pirates' rendition of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is 'epic'.
• Base-Breaking Character: Hook is despised by some people who found him an unlikable Indiana Jones wannabe. Others found the Ham and Cheese performance one of the better things about the film.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Viewers may wonder if something is wrong with their ears when they hear the pirates singing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as Peter enters Neverland. It's a deliberate Anachronism Stew, because Neverland is outside of normal time and space.
• Broken Base: Either you love that they sing Smells Like Teen Spirit to introduce Neverland or you are too distracted that they are singing Nirvana in a movie that started out being in WW2, and is a prequel to a play written before World War I to pay attention to anything else going on.
• Cliché Storm: There's the fact that Peter is The Chosen One and he refuses to believe that he is, the amulet he had since his birth is the key that unlocks a hidden world, his mother was a powerful warrior who fell in love with a prince of that world. The heroine who helps Peter knew his mother and trained with her. His first friend in Neverland, just happens to be the one man who could and would help him escape and find his mother.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Even though most of Neverland's characters are criticized, many people enjoy the antics of Blackbeard and his delightfully dimwitted henchman, Bishop.
• Estrogen Brigade: Given that Hook is played by Garrett Hedlund and other possible reasons. Funnily enough the same thing happened to the character when he was used in Once Upon a Time.
• Ethnic Scrappy:
  • The film has one scene where the tribe trots out their fiercest warrior, who is indeed an Asian man presented as a voiceless, savage fighter. He also takes orders from Tiger Lily, who has been race lifted to become white.
  • Earlier in the film, Peter's orphanage is run by a ferociously stereotypical Irish nun, who is fat, greedy, and cartoonishly child-hating.
• Faux Symbolism: There's actually quite a lot of religious symbolism in the movie. Heck, even Peter's mom is named Mary!
• Funny Moments:
  • In the second trailer, Peter looks with wonder at Neverland and asks if it's Canada.
  • Hook attempting to present Peter to Tiger Lily...only to get knocked out midsentence as it Smash Cuts to the next scene.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: This movie was a box office hit in Japan and topped the box office for two weeks there, thanks to the story of Peter Pan being extremely popular in that country.
• Ham and Cheese: Even negative reviews have observed Hugh Jackman is having the time of his life as Blackbeard. Also noted in reviews is Garrett Hedlund's interpretation of Hook, complete with his bizarre voice and facial expressions.
• Heartwarming Moments: After trying and failing throughout the film, Peter finally flies in order to save Hook from falling to his death.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Both the Mara sisters star in 2015 blockbusters where they play the white daughters of fathers who are clearly a different ethnicity. Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily in this, and Kate Mara as Sue Storm in Fantastic Four (2015). It's Harsher in Hindsight that both these films were notorious bombs.
• Narm / Narm Charm: Hook and his cohorts sing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Blitzkrieg Bop" with all the brutality and harshness of a bombastic villain song, which is either horribly absurd or delightfully absurd. Interestingly, when the song is removed from its intended context, quite a few people state Pan's version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is actually an enjoyable track but the song really has no place being in a Peter Pan film.
• One-Scene Wonder: The mermaids, as per Peter Pan tradition. They have only a couple of minutes of screen time but have interesting designs and are given Adaptational Heroism in comparison to their darker portrayals in other versions.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: The film largely only gets mentioned for the questionable Race Lift given to Tiger Lily.
• Questionable Casting:
  • Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily. The character has always been a Native American, even in the PJ Hogan film. So casting a white actress got all sorts of criticism. Some have theorised that the stereotypical nature of the character may have played a part in making her white, but it opened up a new can of worms.
  • Captain Hook has always been a 17th century British man. The decision to cast Garrett Hedlund and make Hook Younger and Hipper - and an American cowboy - is again very odd. It's especially jarring as Hugh Jackman's portrayal of Blackbeard is much closer to the media's typical portrayal of Captain Hook, yet for some reason he isn't playing Hook.
• Signature Scene: Anytime anybody is going to talk about this movie, they're inevitably going to point out the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" scene.
• Special Effect Failure: While its appearance in the film is very brief, many shots of the crocodile are very unconvincing, and at one point its crocodilian features seem to morph into alligator features.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: This movie ignores a lot of the established Peter Pan mythology.
  • Peter in the original play and book is a human boy who just chooses to run away to Neverland with the fairies - not a half-fairy Chosen One as depicted.
    • Although, given Book!Peter's penchant to make things up when questioned, e.g. telling Wendy that Neverland is "Second to the right, and straight on til morning", it's entirely possible that he has a different backstory. Especially considering that Peter states that he ran away as a newborn baby.
  • Captain Hook gets a Younger and Hipper approach and becomes an American cowboy.
  • Tiger Lily also becomes a sexy adult warrior who goes through a Race Lift.
    • Although, putting aside the Race Lift, Tiger Lily is fairly accurate to the original book, as she was a sexy adult warrior. J.M. Barrie mentions that Tiger Lily always took the back of the line while hunting, as that was the most dangerous place to be, and mentions her as being so desirable that many braves of her tribe had attempted to marry her, but she would ward them away with her hatchet.
  • The play took place in the Edwardian Era, whereas the film has Peter's origin story happening in World War II. This didn't go down well with diehard fans.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: Hedlund's interpretation of Hook has been heavily criticised for trying too hard to emulate either Indiana Jones or Han Solo.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Peter's friend Nibs gets left behind when the children are kidnapped, despite the potential he had in the film. Peter's eventual belief in himself probably would have had more weight if Nibs had been there to help him, rather than Hook and Tiger Lily - who he barely knows.
  • Tinkerbell has a small cameo and the film does not attempt to develop the friendship between her and Peter.
  • Wasting a character by appearing a short time is bad enough, but wasting by not appearing at all is worse. Word of God stated that Leni Zieglmeier was supposed to play Wendy Darling in the film.
  • Fans of Amanda Seyfried feel she was horribly wasted, only appearing in two short scenes and could have added even more to the story.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Most viewers tend to agree that if the film was a more straightforward adaptation where Hugh Jackman was playing Captain Hook himself, it likely would have been more enjoyable and more interesting than the cookie-cutter "Chosen One" plot.
  • Many people believed that it would've been better if Peter's mother had been a Fairy Queen and Captain Hook had both been his father and the one to kill his mother; it would've added deeper substance to the story, as well as add an interesting sense of cruel irony when Hook and Peter became enemies.
  • The WW2 angle seems to be pointless aside from the early chase sequence between the Ranger and a squadron of Spitfires. One of the pilots could have ended up in Neverland, and been James Hook.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Unlike Hugh Jackman and Garrett Hedlund's Ham and Cheese, Levi Miller and Rooney Mara seem to be attempting to pretend the film is anything other than a So Okay, It's Average Cliché Storm.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Most of the effects are nothing to write home about, but the visuals during the "memory tree" scene are pretty cool.

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