[yasr_overall_rating]
A girl named Sophie encounters the Big Friendly Giant who, despite his intimidating appearance, turns out to be a kindhearted soul who is considered an outcast by the other giants because, unlike them, he refuses to eat children.
“It was the witching hour.” That’s the opening line of narration in Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s beloved classic novel “The BFG.” It’s a fitting one, for the cinematic fable is both as dark and wondrous as its source. Many directors have brought the children’s author’s wonderfully odd books to the silver screen, with mixed results. The latest one from the man behind the awe-inspiring “Jaws,” “E.T.,” “Jurassic Park,” “Schindler’s List,” and “A.I.” falls in the “above average Dahl visualizations” category.
I touched upon the director’s ability to create pure magic in my review of “The Bridge of Spies” (read it here). A mix of old-fashioned entertainment and futuristic special effects, “The BFG” harks back to the glory days of Spielberg’s groundbreaking features, but rarely truly breaks new ground itself – except, perhaps, in the motion-capture technology it utilizes.
The opening narration comes from Sophie (Ruby Barnhill), a determined, book-smart troublemaker living in a London orphanage. “Don’t ‘little missy’ me,” she snaps back at a bunch of hooligans, sending them scurrying into the foggy, cobblestone darkness of the city. As with all the children protagonists in Spielberg films, underneath the veneer of confidence Sophie is lost and vulnerable. “Never get out of bed, never go to the window and never look behind the curtain,” she chants, terrified and alone. Of course, she does, spotting the titular giant (an impressively digital Mark Rylance), wandering the shadowy streets.
This leads to a jaw-dropping sequence, shot from Sophie’s POV, of the BFG kidnapping her, maneuvering and masquerading himself through London, and then hopping across vast plains and rocky terrains, to a mythical land called Giant Country. Those three or so minutes are magnificent; pure “can’t-take-your-eyes-off-the-screen” Spielberg.
Sophie promptly realizes that the BFG is harmless and simply doesn’t want the word to spread among the humans about the giants’ existence. Yes, there are many giants that populate Giant Country – though only six or seven are featured – all of whom are evil, dumb and much larger than our softie hero. They roam the land, interacting in a very Dahl-esque language that includes phrases like “trouble humper,” “bugs winkles” and “wiz poppers” (I’ll let you discover what that last one stands for – to quote the BFG, they are signs “of true happiness”).
The giants seem to spend the majority of their time sleeping under blanket-like layers of grass and violently harassing the BFG, literally using him as a football for their amusement. He therefore hides inside his workshop – for he is a dreamcatcher, you see, storing dreams inside colorful jars, which bring to mind the vibrant, sublime emotions of “Inside Out.” When Sophie, the lil’ hellion that she is, tries to escape, assuring the BFG that she is “an untrustworthy child,” he plants a nightmare into her head from one of his jars to scare her into staying. The way the BFG sees it, Sophie will live there with him, “for the rest of our lives.” “You mean my life,” she corrects him brashly. “I will run away.” Of course, she doesn’t, they bond, embark on numerous adventures, separate, and (spoiler alert) end up at the Queen’s Palace.
The film is filled with visual splendor, courtesy of Spielberg’s prodigy cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski. One standout sequence involves Sophie and the BFG visiting the Dream Country, where a Tree of Life (Dreams?) grows both up and down under the Aurora Borealis sky, with firefly dreams surrounding it, all birthed by its ethereal leaves. Another stunning display of the Maestro’s skills can be observed in a beautifully-rendered sequence of a little boy’s visualized dream – the director himself, as a child, dreaming up motion pictures in his head.
And – I have to mention it – there’s a flatulence joke (the title may as well stand for Big Farting Giant) that at first grates, but then ends up being the set-up for a later scene that takes “breaking wind” to such an extreme, it becomes funny… sort of. After the non-stop farting of “Swiss Army Man,” and now this, I think I’ve had my fill of cinematic, um, gastric gases for the week.
There are gripes: the story is highly predictable, especially the giant’s “tragic” backstory. Dull stretches slow an already-thin plot; this film could have made for a five-star 95-minute roller-coaster ride, but Spielberg bloats it with unnecessary sentiment and sweltering music to almost two hours. Ruby Barnhill is fine but unremarkable in the lead (Haley Joel Osmond absolutely OWNED “A.I.”); perhaps she’s yet to gain the charisma/experience to carry a film. The rest of the giants, whose names include Fleshlumpeater (Jemaine Clement) and Bloodbottler (Bill Hader), sort of blend together, and their world is never truly fleshed out. Worry not though, Mark Rylance is there to make up for most of those flaws.
Rylance, in his second collaboration with Spielberg after the aforementioned “Bridge of Spies” (which deservedly bagged him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor last year), shines beneath all the pixels, making you (mostly) forget about the whole “uncanny valley” thing (though it’s still there, gobblesmoockle it, and it’s creepy). By-turns rambling, uneducated, gentle and eager, the BFG is one of the only truly developed CGI characters (yes, yes, I know, Gollum), and all kudos go to Rylance for imbuing him with so much warmth and range.
Spielberg’s film stays true to the spirit of the book: it’s cozy, with laudable themes of friendship, a childlike naivety, and just enough visual wonder, muscular direction and prescient acting to keep the parents invested. “The BFG” is a few notches above Tim Burton’s schlocky Dahl adaptation “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” yet a few below Nicolas Roeg’s terrifying – and arguably truest vision of Dahl’s twisted world – “The Witches.” Stuffed with visual gags, slapstick, both subtlety and “in-your-face” sentiment, it’s exactly what you would expect from the director these days. Oh, and as for the nonsensical bits, to quote the great author himself: “A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men.”
In theaters Friday, July 1st
