Not quite a 'Pan,' but certainly not a rave

THE reimagined "Pan" takes place in a nutty new Neverland - so nutty it actually includes music from Nevermind.

Yes, it's Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," chanted by captives as they mine pixie dust for Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman), the tyrannical pirate who has dominion over all things (except, apparently, his freakish wardrobe, hair and make-up). What sort of director would create a fantastical imaginary world, then risk deflating the illusion by bringing us back to earth with 1990s grunge?

Smells like British director Joe Wright, known for his bold adaptations of Austen ("Pride & Prejudice"), McEwan ("Atonement"), and Tolstoy ("Anna Karenina"). He's at his most madly ambitious here with his new take on J.M. Barrie's classic children's story.

The opening shots find Amanda Seyfried leaving baby Peter (Levi Miller) at an orphanage. The rebellious lad grows up under the grim supervision of sadistic nuns, who hoard the children's food and sell off the orphans, who are taken away at night by pirates from another dimension.

Peter is whisked away, hauled up by a sailing ship that floats on the air, even as it's strafed by British fighters (we start out in WWII) - an elaborate special effects sequence and, for "Pan," a typically garish stew of motifs and periods and ideas.

In Neverland, Peter works in the mine, escapes with an Indiana Jones-ish adventurer named Hook (Garrett Hedlund) and hides out in a forest inhabited by Blackbeard's enemies, the original inhabitants of the island that is Neverland.

Again, the Neverlanders are a crazy quilt of cultures and motifs - Australian aborigines, tribal Africans, Asian martial artists. One is Tiger Lily (Rooney Mara), Native American in Barrie's story, but dressed here like a Cabbage Patch kid.

All of this builds to a confrontation between the island people and Blackbeard's army, and it all rides on Peter. For the good guys to win, he needs to summon the nerve to fly.

Nerve is something Wright does not lack. His "Pan" is a brash concoction, a prequel that gives speculative makeovers to beloved characters (Hook's a good guy), while preserving a few key images and ideas (the mermaids and crocodiles of Neverland's lagoon).

The episodic narrative is a bit startling, but easy enough to follow, and there are enough Avatar-like visual wonders (especially in 3-D) to keep children occupied.

In the end, though, "Pan" over-invests in special effects. This is painfully felt in the movie's endless, noisy and emotionally inert climax, where the characters and story get lost in the digital razzle-dazzle.

Tiger Lily and Blackbeard have the world's longest and dullest sword fight, Hook re-enacts Han Solo's story arc from "Star Wars" and Peter has a dull encounter with a digital version of his mother, who materializes amid a swirl of fairy light.

Why digitize Seyfried, one of the natural world's most amazing effects? Why not allow real actors to do what only real actors can do: Feed off each other's energy and generate emotion?

Why not? Oh well, whatever, never mind.