Here we follow a young orphaned girl who is whisked away into a world of giants, where all but one have a taste for human flesh, the Big Friendly Giant who vows to keep her safe from his man-eating peers.
Unlike most of Spielberg's works this one manages to lack the magical whimsy that other films of this style seem to excel in. It's not that it doesn't have heart or imagination, it just doesn't seem to always have the wondrous enthusiasm one would expect from such a film. There's plenty of scenes of inspired delight but there's also plenty that are quite the opposite. The film's greatest strength is the chemistry between it's two leads where the storytelling finds it's most joy. If not for it's insanely dull second act and whimpering climax I might have enjoyed it a lot more in the end.
2½ dream jars out of 5
3 comments:
" insanely dull second act and whimpering climax"
Accurate.
I was really enjoying it when he snagged Sophie and had to find hiding spots throughout the city as he made a break for Giant Land...then it hit a lull....a very long lull of ho-hum.
I didn't start enjoying it again until BFG was in Buckingham Palace...and then the big climax came and it wasn't big at all. In face it kinda mostly really sucked.
It's like Spielberg lost enthusiasm for the film somewhere along the line but was on contract to finish it.
Kudos to the little girl, though, for acting so well against something that wasn't actually there. Quite believable.
I remembering feeling like the scene at the palace wrecked the pacing entirely. The scene of her running from the giants was right before that, iirc. Sure, let's ram that momentum into a wall for some size jokes and then go into a non-climax once you've almost forgotten that there was a dilemma afoot. Did we come here to address that, or faff about? Faff about, apparently...
Brilliant.
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