Review: The BFG
Tuesday, July 5, 2016 at 7:30PM Eric here, with thoughts on the new Steven Spielberg release, The BFG.
Spielberg lends his patented magical touch to this film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s story The BFG. It’s the tale of little orphan Sophie (Ruby Barnhill), who meets a friendly elderly giant (Mark Rylance) who instills dreams into children. They go off together to Giant Country, where we meet other giants who eat children, and Dream Country, where The BFG shows her how he harvests dreams. Then they enroll the Queen of England in an attack on the bad giants.
The first third of the picture establishes the meet-cute of our two leads, and it’s standard fantasy fare, albeit with a sleek look that blends the live action and CGI material quite successfully into one neat universe. It’s all a little sparkly and cute, and pitched as most kids’ movies are to generate response for twinkly endearment. At the end of this act, when we meet the bad giants, the film gets its first jolt of real gas...
