‘Pan’ Trailer: Peter Pan Gets the ‘Batman Begins’ Treatment

On the master list of characters who deserve exhausting origin stories that go into every single detail about how they came to be, Peter Pan is somewhere near the very bottom. So  we can get all smug and dismissive of the new Pan trailer, which has its fair share or eye-rolling moments, or we can get excited that director Joe Wright has a new film on the horizon and hope for the best.

Or maybe we can just do both?

Like Atonement and Hanna before it, Pan simply looks stunning. This two-and-a-half minute preview is filled with shots and images the boggle the mind and ignite the imagination, from WWII-era planes battling a flying pirate ship to jungle fantasias that look delightfully alien. Watching Wright utilize his skills to service a colorful, family-friendly story should be worth the price of admission. This is going to look like something we’ve never seen before.

However, those visuals don’t make the groan-worth moments of the trailer feel any more forgivable, like the fact that Peter is apparently some kind of “chosen one” destined to save Neverland and that his name comes from the very literal pan he wears around his neck. Ugh. Ugh, we say! Ugh, we say again!

But who are we to write off Hugh Jackman hamming it up as a preposterous-looking pirate? And color us intrigued by Garrett Hedlund, who seems to be doing, well, something with Captain Hook. Pan could be disaster or it could be a charmer, but it looks impossible to ignore completely.

Pan opens in theaters on October 9.