Like so many revisionist Peter Pan spin-offs, from Spielberg’s dismal Hook to Fernando Trueba’s unfairly maligned The Mad Monkey, Joe Wright’s multimillion-dollar prequel has already proved an unloved progeny, abandoned at the US box office amid gloating “Pan gets panned” headlines. It’s actually not that bad, although crucially, it’s not that good either. With its piratical blend of Happy Feet-style reconfigured pop hits (Smells Like Teen Spirit, Blitzkrieg Bop), creaky funfair sets and weightlessly ropey wire-work, Pan is hardly timeless fare. Hugh Jackman plays Blackbeard, who steals away children to Neverland, like the bastard son of Johnny Depp and Dick Emery – all teeth, hair and gurning theatricality. He’s fun, but no match for Kathy Burke’s Mother Barnabas, or Adeel Akhtar’s consistently scene-stealing Sam Smiegel. Australian upcomer Levi Miller is an extremely likable lead as young Peter, but he has his work cut out for him breathing character into a drama whose primary agents include Rooney Mara’s controversially Caucasian Tiger Lily and Garrett Hedlund’s blandly hunky James Hook. Jason Fuchs’s script is full of one-liners that don’t zing so much as fizzle, while John Powell’s original score resembles Lord of All Hopefulness struggling to mutate into John Williams’s theme from ET. There are thrills and spills along the way, and Jack Charles lends a touch of much-needed gravitas as an elderly village chief, but for the most part this is as flimsy as Tinkerbell’s wings: big on gossamer sparkle, low on substance.