BFG review

[Westside Steve]

The BFG

 

Disney

 

PG. 117 min

 

 

 

 

As you should know I often like kids movies especially when they are high class presentations. For the most part the people at Disney have that genre locked up, but not always.

 

Now I don't fault Disney for ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS; mostly I blame Tim Burton and the hit or miss Johnny Depp. For that reason I was really looking forward to a monumental comeback this week with the BFG. To be honest I haven't really heard about the author of the 80s book, Roald Dahl, but rumor has it he's pretty well known and very highly regarded. Fair enough. I have heard of Steven Spielberg who really is royalty among directors.

 

I've also heard, albeit just recently, of Mark Rylance who had just picked up an Academy Award for his performance in BRIDGE OF SPIES. He plays The BFG, which stands for Big Friendly Giant even though I'm sure the producers are having a little chuckle over what comes to mind when you first see it.

 

Perhaps for all those reasons I'm afraid my expectations may have been a little too high, and noticing the lack of success at the box office I'm not the only one.

 

Sporting a similar theme to Spielberg's legendary ET, there's a very strange creature that befriends a child who acts as a companion and protector from those who would do the creature harm.

 

And people would want to do him harm for good reason. Even though he's big and friendly there are lots of other giants in the giant's neighborhood who are not so benign and much bigger. They eat little children and while that may not particularly bothered me I understand that most families and townspeople would find that disturbing.

 

The child here is Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) an orphan who accidentally catches a glimpse of the giant who, fearing for his safety, spirits her off to his home in Giantland.

 

This isn't as much of a problem as you might think since the orphanage isn't a very pleasant place. How much worse can the Giant's house be?

 

Soon she learns that BFG is a vegetarian while the rest of the Giants relish the taste of human flesh. And these nasty Giants don't like BFG at all suspecting that he has a human child hidden in his house. Fee-fi-fo-fum, you knoe the drill..

 

So the two of them decide they must find a way to rid the world of the bad giants and since this is a little kids movie they must do it without killing them. The solution? Well seeing as how this is an English setting the two of them make a journey to Buckingham to visit the Queen, who, after a stately dinner (set up as comic relief) for everyone at the palace, convinces the English and the United States military to... Well you'll see.

 

To be sure this is a sweet film and it's really hard to work up any nastiness but still the reasons for the box office failure is pretty obvious. BFG is a beautiful film jam-packed with dazzling special effects and artistic sets and Rylance turns in a memorable performance but the rest of the cast from Sophie to the queen to everyone else rarely rise above mediocre. The giants comical speech patterns are endearing for a while but not enough to carry the entire film. And personally, even though this is a PG film I thought the fart jokes were somewhat out of place depending on the ages of the children in the audience.

 

The funny parts aren't that funny the exciting parts aren't that thrilling and the entire story seems to be in slow motion. Then again like I said it looks great and I fear the producers decided that's all they needed.

 

So sorry for the pun but in my opinion Big Friendly Giant falls just a little bit short.

 

C

 

 

WSS