Movie of the Week: BFG

Alexa: I remember loving the book “The BFG” when I was little, and so much about the film adaptation works well. Spielberg and Co. bring Roald Dahl’s fantastical world to life beautifully. It’s a visual treat from start to finish. The BFG’s home and Dream Country are stunning. Even the London locations outside Giant Country have a sort of magical glint to them. And the motion capture work is pretty spectacular. Mark Rylance delivers a lovely performance as the titular character, and the CGI only enhances his presence rather than detracting from it. His sweet friendship with Sophie anchors the film. This could have been a delightful 90-minute kids’ movie, but its major flaw is its pacing. “The BFG” is a charming fairy tale but the story isn’t particularly robust. Yet the filmmakers somehow felt compelled to stretch it into a full two hours unnecessarily. The padded runtime adds nothing to the story. Some scenes drag on for twice as long as they should, and it weighs the movie down as a result. With some tighter editing, “The BFG” could have been a family classic.

Joel: Maybe it’s because I read the book much later in life than other Roald Dahl books, but “The BFG” never really stayed with me the way some of his other books did. (“Matilda,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” and “James and the Giant Peach” being the three big ones for those who are interested.) But I remember reading the book and feeling like for a story that featured Giants, distant fantastical countries, and the ability to capture, and possibly control dreams, it somehow felt like a remarkably simplified and low stakes story. I got that same feeling with the movie. For a good chunk of the movie it felt like, while things were definitely happening in the story, the stakes weren’t really there. I’m not even sure that the movie was too long as the pace didn’t feel like it was dragging or anything, and again it did remind me of the book, but I don’t ever feel like I was getting as invested as I should have.

The interesting thing is, that I’m not sure this complaint actually means that it’s a bad movie. While it wasn’t the kind of movie where I was terribly invested in the characters, I was never bored watching the movie. Visually the movie is captivating throughout. And Spielberg continues to be one of the best people alive behind the camera. The movie still feels like a joy to watch. Mark Rylance gives an amazing performance as the BFG. It’s easy to see why Spielberg wants to cast him in everything he can these days. The of the BFG is created through heavy input from CGI, but Rylance gives a performance that is not only unhindered by the computer graphics, but is able to shine through in a really emotional and heartwarming way.

It seems that even when Steven Spielberg puts out a movie that isn’t one of his instant masterpieces, it’s still a movie that’s worth taking the time to watch.

Chris: I understand that I would feel differently about BFG had I read the book so I will try to judge it too harshly but it all kinda fell flat for me. Clearly this movie was made for kids and fans of the book and since I’m neither then obviously BFG wasn’t made for me. The pacing felt slow and honestly the fart jokes made me reminiscent of the first Hobbit movie and that’s not meant as a compliment. The movie really didn’t going for me until they return to normal people country and enlist the help of The Queen. Up until that point, I found myself being distracted by made-up British slang words (and I’m not even talking about the pronunciation issue BFG had) and maybe that was something that was more charming and endearing in the book. Also, I found that there was no real depth to Sophie other than we were suppose to be sorry for her that she was in an orphanage but that’s mostly said and not seen. I think an improvement here could’ve been to cut short one of the scenes that went on a little too long and added some more at the beginning to show exactly why the orphanage was so terrible for Sophie to stay at. The positives were that it was an incredibly pretty movie and I wouldn’t even go as far to say that BFG was a bad movie because it wasn’t, it just could’ve been so much better with a few rather small tweaks.

Jason: The BFG has always been my favorite of Roald Dahl’s novels. Of all the magical imagery throughout his collected works, the way this book as written painted a picture in my young mind that I have never been able to shake. And while the technology to make a “live action” film out of this story is still not quite convincing 100% of the time, this movie was still able to make me look past that and see that image from my childhood brought onto the screen. In his writing, Dahl takes time to point out minute details about a character or setting that would otherwise be inconsequential. For instance, when describing the BFG’s appearance, he mentions the way his open-toed boots are laced up. Those details jumped directly off the page and landed in the character design for the film and all that attention really helped immerse me in the world. Other important things made their way into the film as well. The BFG’s soft spoken tone was spot on for the character and he made Roald Dahl’s unusual language feel almost natural.I felt like they captured the book with integrity.

I am impressed by how much they were able to do with the technology in conjunction with performances here. The characters are all so vastly different in size, even from one giant to the next. It must have been incredibly challenging. Apparently, while filming scenes with the BFG and Sophie, Mark Rylance was standing atop a 20 foot scaffolding, delivering his lines to Ruby Barnhill just so they could get eyelines correct. Additionally, they were using a bit of tech developed for James Cameron’s “Avatar” where the digital parts of the scene were played back in real time on the monitors while the live action parts were being filmed. This allowed for shots to be perfected without having to imagine where the big CG parts would fit in. Add onto that some enchanting lighting work and a score by the ever amazing John Williams and you get a wonderfully immersive movie experience. This is easily one of the best book adaptations I’ve seen in a long while.