Snozzcumbers and Bonecrunchers

*WARNING SPOILERS*

A review of The BFG

A couple of weeks ago, I went to see Steven Spielberg's new feature, The BFG. I was excited to see a live action re-creation of a classic film which was created as a visualisation of one of Roald Dahl's many masterpieces. Unfortunately, my excitement didn't last long as the film had numerous flaws that I couldn't overlook. My opinion would have probably been different if it had been made by other people but for a Spielberg film distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures I was rather disappointed. 

The two main actors in this were Mark Rylance and Ruby Barnhill. Rylance played the wonderous BFG who brought a perfect performance to the screen which portrayed exactly what you would imagine of the already loved character. His take on the character warmed my heart as I saw the age and loneliness of the character in subtle eye movements and the innocence of the Giant easily came through the speech chosen which Rylance spoke with ease (speech that has affected my inability to speak properly more than before). I truly believed his adaptation. Barnhill played Sophie, a young orphan who gets swept away one night after gazing upon The Dream-catching giant (who she later names The Big Friendly Giant). For a young actor to perform to basically no-one is a hard thing to do so I do applaud her on that but there were moments which I felt were overplayed and very stiff. Appearance wise she was the most accurate Sophie to Quentin Blake's original drawings but on acting alone it seemed she was just reading straight from a script which left me emotionally disconnected from the character.

On to one of the biggest parts of the film, the animation. Each individual animation was beautiful and creative, throwing me deep into the world that Dahl had first created back in 1982. I have two favourite scenes from the film which of course incorporate the special effects. The first being when The BFG takes Sophie to Dream Country. This sequence incorporated colour and effects to create a phenomenal picture. The Dream Tree actually stood beneath water creating a trick of the eye that could only be thought of in a dream. The dreams themselves where balls of light that could transform into the images seen within their individual stories. As someone who deeply enjoys deep colours in films, this scene has really become an inspiration for me because it took such a simple idea and made it sensational. The other scene which left me speechless was when The BFG shows Sophie how he makes the dreams that he places in people's minds. The scene lasted what felt like at least 5 minutes and again the colours were the most prominent part. Images of children dancing and soldiers parachuting into jars filled the screen and I just sat there grinning from ear to ear with joy. 

Of course, there were moments which the animation did waiver slightly. For instance, whenever The BFG picked Sophie up, you could almost see the tracking shots which were used to make it look like the young girl was being carried. Having said this, I do appreciate how hard it is to animate a film like this so it was something I could look past.

While the entire plot wasn't really my "cup of tea", and I did feel like it was more suited to the younger generation (both understanding and rather upsetting for someone who wishes to stay young at heart forever), there were funny moments which did succeed in making me laugh. The main one was when Sophie and The BFG attend breakfast with the Queen of England (Elizabeth II). As the giant is... well... a giant, he is given a pitch fork and a sword to eat his food. The small comical touches were perfect and really brought the scene together nicely and allowed me to really understand what it would be like if a giant just so happened to find itself dining in Buckingham Palace.

Overall, I enjoyed the look of the film and of course the plot is amazing as ever (but that is more thanks to Roald Dahl more so than the film creators). I just believe that if Barnhill was a little more convincing in her role of Sophie I would have enjoyed everything about the film and want to watch it again but unfortunately it is not going far up on my list of favourite 2016 movies.

Thank you for reading,

Haynes.