Movie Review: The BFG (2016)

Newest Review is LIVE!!!! Let's take a trip to the land of giants with The BFG.

Hello All,

    Okay, I’m going to be honest. So far this summer season movie wise has been mostly meh. Don’t get me wrong, there have been good movies, but at the same time nothing seems to be really jumping out and grabbing me. If you don’t count May, I’ve given only one 10/10 rating so far. Sure there’s been a few 8’s and even a 9, but honestly it’s mostly movies that really haven’t felt like strong summer blockbusters. While I’ve liked films I normally might not have, the stuff I feel like should be right up my alley has been mostly just okay or worse.

    It doesn’t help that we had a bit of a mixed lead in into the summer, especially in the blockbuster department. We had two major superhero films completely disappoint, and we’ve also been swamped by a wave of just bad, or even pointless sequels. It feels like an inbetween year for movies, so who better to try and save it than Steven Spielberg right? Not to mention his film of choice this time is an adaptation of a Roald Dahl novel, so what could possibly go wrong with this one right? Let’s find out together shall we?

Plot Summary - When the orphan girl Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) is abducted in the night by a giant known as The Big Friendly Giant (Mark Rylance), she ultimately befriends the giant, and then proceeds to help form a plan to get rid of the other, man eating giants, once and for all.

Pros - The cast is solid, especially Ruby as Sophie. I do also want to mention Rylance’s performance as the BFG, because even though they use his face, you just get lost in the character. It is also quite a pretty good looking film as well. It was also quite funny during the scenes where the BFG was eating with the queen (which if you don’t know the book I swear it makes sense.)

Cons - Okay, this might sound weird but hear me out. Here's my biggest problem with BFG: I can’t tell if it’s trying too hard to be whimsical and magical, or not hard enough. I don’t if it’s the story or just the whole idea of it, but it’s just not a very engaging movie. It just feels like it’s on autopilot, as most of the film basically didn’t interest me much beyond the ‘I’m simply watching a movie’ level. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen the ‘kid goes to a strange new world, and saves the day’ thing done to death. I really did want to like this film but ultimately, I was just disinterested with the story overall.

Final Score - 5/10

It’s well acted and it does look amazing, but there’s not much more beyond that. Honestly it’s pretty much view at your own risk for me.

Next - The Secret Life of Pets, or Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. I know which one I want to see less, but it’s just a matter of which one I’ll have time to see first. If I have nothing else to do, I might try and catch up on the Purge 3. Yeah this is not going to be a great week for me. At least the week after is Ghostbusters………..Oh boy this is going to be a rough couple of weeks.

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Until next time, I’ll see you folks at the movies.