[yasr_overall_rating]
The adventures of an orphaned boy named Pete and his best friend Elliot, who just so happens to be a dragon.
“Pete’s Dragon” is an upcoming American fantasy adventure film directed by David Lowery from a screenplay written by David Lowery and Toby Halbrooks and produced by Walt Disney Pictures. The Studio claims that “Pete’s Dragon” is a remake of the 1977 film with the same name. The 1977 and 2016 versions share the same name, both have an orphan boy named Pete and a dragon named Elliot who protects Pete but aside from that, they are two entirely different stories.
The 2016 re-spinning of this tale: The new story’s tone is set by the very delicately filmed opening scenes of 4 year-old Pete losing his parents in a horrific car crash deep in the woods and finding the orphaned dragon Elliot who becomes his protector, playmate, friend and companion. For years, old wood carver Mr. Meacham (Robert Redford), has delighted local children with his tales of the fierce dragon that resides deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. To his daughter, Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard), who works as a forest ranger, these stories are little more than tall tales…until she meets Pete (Oakes Fegley). Pete is a mysterious 10 year-old with no family and no home who claims to live in the woods with a giant, green dragon named Elliot. And from Pete’s descriptions, Elliot seems remarkably similar to the dragon from Mr. Meacham’s stories. With the help of Natalie (Oona Laurence), an 11 year-old girl whose father, Jack (Wes Bentley) owns the local lumber mill, Grace sets out to determine where Pete came from, where he belongs, and the truth about this dragon.
The original “Pete’s Dragon” is, without a doubt, one of the most eccentric entries in the Disney canon – an almost hallucinatory lie-action/animation hybrid, crammed wall to wall with singing, about a 9 year-old orphan and his magical green and pink sidekick, who practically nobody else can see. One had to be either Pete’s age or a child at heart to appreciate the trippy film when it came out, and time has only rendered the original movie that much weirder, making it a prime candidate for a Mouse House remake than many of the studio’s more beloved classics. Re-imagined nearly four decades later, Disney’s in-name-only “Pete’s Dragon” reboot trades the earlier version’s goofy cartoony sensibility for a sort of stylized realism, one in which everything looks a bit too good to be true (including the stunning Weta Digital-animated dragon himself), and yet the story is geared in such a way that we desperately want to believe.
There simply wasn’t enough meat and potatoes to the story that made it up on the screen. I constantly wanted to know what was left on the editing room floor – or delete bin as the case is today. I also wanted better casting and characterizations. The only three characters that I believed, were Pete and 11 year-old Natalie and Elliot. The adults all come across as very two dimensional. Most disheartening of the adult actors, was Robert Redford as the grandfather figure Mr. Meacham. Instead of the magical story spinner and believer of dreams, Meacham was simply Robert Redford reciting lines as Robert Redford.
I realize that the children of today, and most adults under the age of 40, will have absolutely no idea what the original “Pete’s Dragon” was. With that in mind, there is no dishonor in Disney reinventing a new telling of Pete and Elliot’s story. However, there should still be joy, laughter and light throughout the story, and there simply isn’t. I spent the entire movie waiting for joy and humor which never really came until the very end. There are small sparks of joy and laughter here and there, but not enough. My 9 year-old was my date last night at the press screening I attended and she was in tears at least three times during the movie.
So while a cutting CGI dragon may win hearts with his dog-like behaviors, “The Neverending Story” charm, and completely believable magic abilities, I wish a more loving joyful story had been told. At the very least, a more complete story. Children and adults alike will leave the theater believing in dragons, myself included. Unfortunately, I also left believing that Disney missed the mark with this one.
In theaters Friday, August 12th
