The Witches (2020) review (HBO Max)

 

When it comes to some of the most prominent authors in literary history, one whose work has consistently stood the test of time is Roald Dahl. From 1942 up until his death in 1990, Dahl was responsible for penning a whole bunch of classics such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and Matilda. To date, his various novels and short stories have sold over 250 million copies worldwide and are widely touted for their creative imagery and their unabashed knack for dark humor to contrast with their primarily whimsical nature. Many of his works have been adapted to the big screen over the years although it is worth noting that, when he was alive, Dahl was usually quite critical about them for the various changes that were made to his stories. This included the last adaptation that was released before his death, 1990’s The Witches, which was directed by Nicolas Roeg and notably produced by none other than Jim Henson. Dahl, however, was not too pleased with this adaptation of his 1983 novel, namely due to its drastically different ending. Nevertheless, the film was well-received by critics and while it wasn’t exactly a box-office hit, it has since gone on to become a cult classic of its time. But now there’s a new adaptation of The Witches upon us, and just like the 1990 film, this one is star-studded on both sides of the camera. For starters, the cast is headlined by a pair of Oscar winners in Anne Hathaway and Octavia Spencer. And as for the behind-the-scenes crew, the film serves as the latest outing from director Robert Zemeckis, AKA the man who’s given us films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump, and this reviewer’s favorite film of all-time, Back to the Future. However, Zemeckis isn’t the only big-name filmmaker attached to this project as it was originally proposed as a stop-motion film directed by Guillermo Del Toro, who instead serves as a producer alongside his good friend Alfonso Cuaron while also being one of the credited screenwriters alongside Zemeckis and Black-ish creator Kenya Barris. And while it may be far from being the best project that any of these men have ever worked on, it still manages to be a decently charming family flick that delivers a solid new take on Roald Dahl’s classic story.

In 1968, a young boy (Jahzir Kadeem Bruno) loses both of his parents in a car crash. He’s then sent to live with his grandmother (Octavia Spencer) in Alabama, and while it does take a while, she does help him start to overcome his grief. However, their idyllic lifestyle is soon threatened when the young boy has his first encounter with a witch. And since his grandmother is quite familiar with witches after seeing one when she was a child, she tells him everything that he needs to know about them; namely, that witches are really demonic creatures and are notorious for hating children and doing anything they can to get rid of them. Thus, to avoid any further witch-based encounters, the young boy and his grandmother promptly decide to take a vacation and stay at a prestigious hotel. Unfortunately, they end up arriving at the exact same time as a whole group of witches led by the most powerful witch in the world, the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway). The young boy ends up eavesdropping on their meeting, where the Grand High Witch reveals her newest scheme to get rid of all the children in the world by using a special potion to turn them into mice. And to make matters worse, the young boy is then discovered by the Grand High Witch, who immediately uses her potion to turn him into a mouse. Now stuck in mouse form, the young boy crosses paths with two other kids that were recently turned into mice, food-loving Bruno (Codie-Lei Eastick) and a girl named Mary (voiced by Kristin Chenoweth), who is revealed to be the mouse that the young boy had been keeping as a pet for the past few months. With both their help and his grandmother’s, the young boy now finds himself in a time-sensitive situation as he and his friends work to stop the Grand High Witch’s sinister plan before anyone else ends up suffering the same fate as them.

While it may be easy to simply call this film a ‘remake’ of its 1990 counterpart, this new version of The Witches does manage to avoid being a straight-forward retelling of its classic story, whether it’s by having African-American protagonists or revealing that the kid’s pet mouse was a transformed kid as well. Plus, if there’s one advantage that this film has over the previous film, it’s that its ending is a lot more faithful to the book since, as noted earlier, Dahl took significant issue with the 1990 film for having a more traditional ‘happy ending’. Granted, the changes that this film makes does mean that it takes a lot more liberties with its source material than even the 1990 film did, but at the very least, this isn’t a case like Artemis Fowl where the changes that were made significantly alter the story beyond recognition. At the end of the day, most of these changes are simply from a cosmetic standpoint, and for the most part, the film does an excellent job of maintaining Roald Dahl’s whimsical style that delivers a good-natured adventure where the kids are the heroes but is still allowed to have the delightfully twisted dark humor that Dahl was well-known for. And while I’m aware that the film has gotten some criticism for supposedly being ‘too scary for children’, I’d argue that it’s relatively tame compared to all the other family-friendly films over the years that have gained notoriety for their darker moments (and yes, this includes the 1990 adaptation of The Witches). All this makes up for the fact that the film ends up feeling like a routine affair for the filmmakers who are attached to it, especially Robert Zemeckis. It’s not that the film is ‘bad’ or anything since, if Zemeckis’ past work wasn’t enough of an indication, he’s not that kind of director. It’s just that, like what happened when Tim Burton made his remake of Planet of the Apes in 2001, this is one of those instances where, if you didn’t know that this was directed by the guy who made Back to the Future, you probably wouldn’t have figured that out until the credits because it could’ve been done by anybody.

For many people, one of the best aspects of the 1990 film was Angelica Huston’s standout turn as the Grand High Witch. But while that may have been an undeniably tough act to follow, Anne Hathaway proves that she’s more than capable of taking on that daunting task. With an over-exaggerated accent that’s matched by an equally over-the-top performance, Hathaway is clearly having a lot of fun as the main antagonist. And sure, it’s completely understandable if some may find her performance to be a bit too campy at times, but at the end of the day, she’s still one of the best parts of this film. This strong performance from Hathaway is then perfectly matched by Octavia Spencer’s equally terrific turn as the main protagonist’s grandmother. Spencer has always been well-known for playing characters like this who are very much good-natured protagonists but can still dish out some tough love when necessary, usually through some delightfully spunky snark. And while he’s not in the film too much, we also get the always-reliable Stanley Tucci as the manager of the hotel that all the main characters end up at who mostly spends his time trying to deal with the eccentric gestures of the Grand High Witch. Finally, to close out the main cast, we have newcomer Jahzir Kadeem Bruno as the main protagonist who, just like in the original novel (and not the 1990 film where he was named Luke), is unnamed. He is credited as ‘Hero Boy’, however, which is rather ironic because that makes him the second main character in a Robert Zemeckis film to be called that since that’s also what the main protagonist of The Polar Express was credited as. Nevertheless, while this may only be his first leading role in a film (that and his character is a mouse for half of it), Bruno instantly makes a strong first impression with some solid charisma for his age.

While it’s admittedly been a while since I’ve done so, I did read The Witches when I was younger. It was one of many Roald Dahl books that I read growing up alongside other classics such as Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. However, you may be surprised to learn that I never watched its 1990 film adaptation. Simply put, it was just one of those films that was never on my radar back then. As such, it goes without saying that I don’t have the kind of connection to it that many others from my generation have, which has clearly had a major influence on folks’ thoughts towards this new adaptation. I mean, if the usual reception towards Disney’s recent string of live-action remakes wasn’t enough of an indication, folks are always a lot stricter when it comes to remakes. And yet, from the perspective of someone who hasn’t seen the 1990 adaptation of The Witches, I’d argue that this new version of the story is a genuinely harmless affair. It avoids being a direct carbon copy of its predecessor and even manages to deliver a more faithful take on the novel’s ending… even if the changes that it makes everywhere else are more prominent than those from the 1990 film. Really, at the end of the day, the worst thing that I can say about this film is that it’s arguably the most by-the-numbers feature that Robert Zemeckis has ever directed. To be fair, his direction is solid as always, but at the same time, I will admit that I’m curious about how this film would’ve turned out had it been the Guillermo Del Toro-directed stop-motion film that it was originally planned to be. Ultimately, though, the film does manage to be a nice showcase of Roald Dahl’s brilliant storytelling and could very well serve as a gateway for younger generations to experience the rest of his work.

Rating: 3.5/5

The BFG (2016) review

Disney’s newest live-action flick, The BFG, certainly has a lot of prestige behind it in regards to its behind-the-scenes talent. Of course it all starts with its director, Steven Spielberg, the man who needs no introduction as he is quite arguably the most famous director in the entire film industry, having helmed numerous classics in his nearly six decades long career from the Indiana Jones films to Saving Private Ryan. This film, which also serves as his first directorial effort under the Disney banner, even sees him reteaming with one of his former collaborators, the late Melissa Mathison, who wrote Spielberg’s 1982 family classic, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which this new film definitely shares a few similarities with. But the other big ‘star’ of the picture is the author of its source material; Roald Dahl. Dahl of course was one of the most famous children’s authors of all time, having penned numerous classics such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda. This new film in particular is based off of his 1982 book of the same name, which centers on a young girl named Sophie and her adventures with a benevolent big-eared giant who is named the ‘Big Friendly Giant’, or ‘BFG’ for short, hence the title of the story. Previously there was a British animated TV adaptation of the story in 1989 but this is the first time that a live-action version has been made. And with the combined forces of Spielberg’s filmmaking mastery and Dahl’s imaginative writing at hand, The BFG is a very charming and imaginative family flick that very much wears its heart on its sleeve.

 

The film opens with a young girl named Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) living in a London orphanage. One night, while she is still awake even at 3:00 in the morning, she looks out of her bedroom window and sees a giant across the way. Said giant ends up coming to the window and snatches her up from right out of her bed. He then proceeds to take her to his home in the magical realm of Giant Country. But while Sophie initially fears that he’ll eat her, the giant, who refers to himself as the ‘Big Friendly Giant’ (Mark Rylance), proves to be just as friendly as his name suggests and is shown to only eat a disgusting vegetable known as a snozzcumber. During her time spent with the ‘BFG’ (the nickname that she ends up giving to him), Sophie learns that he is a dream-catcher. He catches dreams from another magical part of Giant Country and then proceeds to give them to sleeping children all over the world. Unfortunately for Sophie, while the 24-foot tall BFG proves to be a nice giant, there are also bad giants in Giant Country as well. Namely, a group of giants that are twice the size of the BFG, led by ‘the Fleshlumpeater’ (Jemaine Clement), that do eat ‘human beans’ and constantly bully the BFG around, as he is ‘a runt’ compared to them. This leads to Sophie and the BFG looking to find a way to stop the villainous giants before they can eat any more ‘human beans’, which soon results in them getting some royal help from the Queen of England herself (Penelope Wilton).

This is one really nice-looking film as far as the visuals are concerned. Obviously a lot of it was done with CGI, namely in scenes set in Giant Country in which Sophie is the only major ‘human’ character while all of the giants are created via motion-capture. And yet even with that said, the film does do a nice job of blending its ‘real’ and ‘digital’ elements together. Of course, being a Spielberg film, it’s certainly very well-made from a technical perspective. It’s well-shot by his go-to cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, well-edited by his go-to editor Michael Kahn, features the usual solid score by John Williams, etc. But what about Spielberg’s method of adapting Dahl’s original story? I bring that up because prior to his death in 1990, Dahl was never a big fan of most of the film adaptations of his books due to the deviations that they made to his stories, most notably/infamously the 1971 adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, dubbed Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I’ll admit that I haven’t read The BFG so I can’t really comment on how faithful of an adaptation this is. Though from what I hear, Spielberg did tone down some of the darker elements of the story (e.g. the villainous giants aren’t as frightening as they are in the novel), something that Dahl has always been known for as a writer. But even with that said, Spielberg does still manage to give the film quite a lot of heart and charm while also very much translating the zany imagery of Dahl’s story to the big screen, resulting in plenty of creative visuals throughout. Really the only thing that holds this film back is that the plot is a bit aimless though to be fair I guess that was the case with the book as well.

The BFG sees Spielberg reteaming with Mark Rylance, who starred in Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies last year and won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor (and deservedly so I might add for those still bummed that he beat out Sylvester Stallone) for his work as Soviet spy Rudolf Abel. This time around Rylance stars in the title role of the BFG and once again he is fantastic. While the role does require him to do a lot of motion-capture work, he works with it just as well as Andy Serkis does on a regular basis and very much succeeds in making the BFG a very endearing character and one that very much lives up to his title as a ‘big and friendly’ giant. As Sophie, this film marks the film debut of Ruby Barnhill and she makes a pretty darn excellent first impression. Conveying a great amount of maturity and spunk for her age, she also does a really good job in regards to making her interactions with characters created via motion-capture feel as real as possible. Rylance and Barnhill work off of each other extremely well and you can definitely sense the great friendship that emerges between them. Because Sophie and the BFG are the main focus of the film, other characters aren’t really given as much to do. The ones who arguably get stunted the most are actually the villainous giants. Sure they may seem intimidating, and for the most part they are in terms of how they tower over both Sophie and the BFG, but the film really doesn’t do much with them, which is probably an example of how the film eschews plenty of the story’s darker elements. And of the lot, the only one who gets any major amount of screen-time is Jemaine Clement’s Fleshlumpeater.  

The BFG is Steven Spielberg’s first live-action family flick in quite some time, as he’s come quite a long way since his days working on E.T., now helming Oscar-winning adult dramas like Bridge of Spies and Schindler’s List. One could say that this film is very much reminiscent of E.T. in terms of its overall light-hearted tone and charm. In this case, it certainly helps that Spielberg gets to use the imaginative worlds and characters of Roald Dahl and while the film may not entirely please fans of the book due to its more toned-down nature, it still very much captures the fantastical imagery of Dahl’s story to a fault. And while there may be some plot issues, namely in the form of its underdeveloped villains, the film itself is exactly what you would expect from a Spielberg in terms of how well-made it is on pretty much every level, from the visuals to the editing to the cinematography and so on and so forth. Clearly Spielberg set out to make a very charming and imaginative family film a la E.T. and he very much succeeded in that regard. As a result, families will no doubt get a kick out of Spielberg’s latest offering. Heck, pretty much any Spielberg film is worth checking out in theaters if you ask me. As for this film, I have the feeling that kids will probably get more out of it than adults but no matter what, it’s still very much a whizz-popping good time for all.

Rating: 4.5/5