It is always a privilege to only see a new Spielberg film on the big screen. But also hear a new John Williams score, who has been Spielberg's regular composer.
This story of The BFG has had history within the world of film, as an animated version was made in 1989. It has been well praised and considered by a lot in the UK as something every kid should see. After re-watching it, I was highly intrigued to see where Spielberg would go with it, how true to the story it would be and if the story still transcends will with today's audiences.
Well, I am sad and shocked to say that I was hugely disappointed and a real let-down.
The first half was quite pleasant. Despite the over-longess of various scenes, I liked the introduction of our main characters, the look of it, the score was moving a long nicely, there were memorable sequences and the visual effects and motion-capture were quite impressive to say the least.
However, it was the second half that made the film falter in a dramatic way. The over-sustainability of the scenes were showing more and more and actually became boring at times. I was screaming in my head for something to happen. I don't mean an action sequence. I mean something to move the story along.
There were set-pieces in this that for me was unforgivable and had me shaking my head in disgust, and the final act was done a lot sooner then I thought it would. I was expecting a big climax. However, it just did it without a fuss from the antagonists which was odd.
Mary Rylance is the only performance worth giving praise to. With the addition of the quite perfect motion-capture work, it was a really strong and terrific performance. He definitely captured the wacky dialogue of the Roald Dahl novel.
Ruby Barnhill plays Sophie. She seems good at first. But in the end became quite annoying. So a bit of a mixed bag on her performance. I might in the end give her the benefit of the doubt as I can probably imagine that acting on your own on green screen is tough for any actor to pull off.
No other performance was worth mentioning or memorable at all. Not even the angry giants, which were not scary at all. Even kids will find them non-threatening. That made the film feel less risky, gritty, dark and too squeaky clean in the end.
By far the films strongest positive is the visual effects. This film really showed that it is now hard to distinguish what is motion-capture and CGI and what is real.
I was disappointed to see the world of giant country feel too nice as I imagined it to be. Previous adaptations had it as this baron wasteland where giants found it tough to find food. Also, it felt too small in terms of the geography. We never got the chance to explore the full scale of it all.
But in the end, the film was remarkably unremarkable. There does not seem to be any love, soul or enough magic to see as one of Spielberg's greats.
I cannot believe I am about to say this. But this is the worst Spielberg film I have seen and the only film of his back catalogue that I do not like. I don't know if my nostalgia for the 1989 animation has got in the way. But I felt the transition from book to film did not work for me, the pacing was incredibly slow, the childish humor in the second half was not funny at all, the antagonists felt so generic and frankly quite poor.
It is great to see Spielberg make films for kids again. But I will be surprised if today's kids rank this with great esteem like my generation did with Hook, Jurassic Park or E.T. A real shame for such probably the most celebrated director of all-time.
Rating: 6/10
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