Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) is a lonely, insomniac orphan. Awake far too late for a little girl, she spies a giant (Mark Rylance) roaming the streets. He, in return, sees her, and kidnaps her so she canât tell anyone, taking her back to Giantland. Quickly it is revealed that he is a kindly giant who delivers dreams, surrounded by nine much larger, cruel and stupid child-eating giants.
The BFG was a surprise failure. With Steven Spielberg at the helm, a script based on a book by Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), and the very latest and greatest in motion capture effects, it was a license to print money. Or not. Poor marketing and bad timing (the film had been in the planning stages for years) were mainly to blame, though children shrugged through screenings and parents found more to admire than enjoy. The BFG is at times wondrous, but just as often infuriating, and the whole is lacking.
The BFG could and should have been a clever family film, but it is instead a childrenâs movie, in the worst sense of the term. Everything is simple and blatant. Quips and loud music replace earned emotion, and bright flashy colors are meant to distract the short-attention-span viewer. Plot doesnât pop up till the last third and substantial time is set aside for a reoccurring flatulence joke. Its messages that âbullying is meanâ and âstand up to bulliesââright out of the 1950sâare delivered with all the subtlety of a tuba blast with your face in the bell.
Children deserve better. Families deserve a different movie.
Thereâs no question The BFG is a superb technical achievement. In a normal year Iâd say it was a shoo-in for an FX award for its motion capture CGI work. But this is the year of the âlive actionâ Jungle Book and the return of Governor Tarkin, which makes it a year too late. Still, the work is excellent, and the dream-catching scene is particularly fetching. But it is all to no purpose. Weâre shown Giantland purely because it is nice to look at. With no story kicking in until the final moments, itâs all just pretty lights.
Ruby Barnhill is cute and spunky enough, but her Sophie is aimless and annoying. Ignoring danger and suicidal leaps to get attention are not adorable. Some âsmartâ to go with the spunky would have helped. The giant is nicely constructed and Rylanceâs voice work is solid, but he isnât engaging and is a side-kick in search of a protagonist who never arrives.
There is some nice concepts surrounding dreams that could have been the core of a better film. But those nice concepts, instead of helping, just point out where the film didnât go and how it failed.
Perhaps someone should have informed the filmmakers that since the childrenâs book was written, âBFGâ has picked up a meaning: Big Fucking Gun. But blindness to the last twenty years could explain the whole movie.