WHAT in the world was Steven Spielberg thinking?
Whatever it was, it clearly missed the mark as his latest film, “The BFG,” will go down as one of the worst movies of 2016.
The BFG—short for Big Friendly Giant—is a fantastic adventure that the maestro both produced and directed and is based on the 1982 novel by Ronald Dahl in which an orphan girl is kidnapped . . . snatched from the bed of her London communal home in the middle of the night and whisked away by The BFG to “Giant Country” located somewhere in England’s remote northern coastline.
Oh and yes, The BFG is very tall (at least 30 meters) and very old (since the beginning of time) and there are a half dozen other giants living in “Giant Country” that are some 30 times the height and girth of The BFG who also kidnap little boys and girls and eat them. Preferably raw.
What was Steven Spielberg thinking?
The BFG also steals the dreams of each of these hapless minors and keeps them in glass jars as tokens of his “affection” (he calls it his work, don’t you know)—much like personal trophies before they are each gobbled up like so much fried chicken.
Mark Rylance (“Bridge of Spies”) is a brilliant stage actor who was tapped for the titular role as The BFG who is outfitted with oversized ears that he “winks” constantly at our little 10-year-old orphaned girl Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) who is constantly screaming at her massive captor to do this and do that. Within the film’s first 11 minutes, she is captured and only two minutes later is plopped down on the butcher’s table as The BFG starts carving away at the vegetables our little Sophie is going to be sautéed with.
Oh, thank goodness, because you really do want our little Sophie to be served medium well with a brown gravy sauce because she truly is most obnoxious little brat ever put onto celluloid. I was hoping against hope that The BFG would gobble her down just to shut her up.
Instead he just steals her dreams.
What a monstrous creature this BFG is . . . and his fellow giants are no better.
And the special effects? Rubbish.
Back in 1958 was a charming little film called “Tom Thumb” which enchanted the world with the singing and dancing of Russ Tamblyn as a diminutive little man who was, as the title says, no larger than your thumb. Taken from a Hans Christian Andersen short story written in 1621, ”Tom Thumb” was a brilliant musical movie for its day, winning an Academy Award for special effects.
In “The BFG,” the same can’t be said as the oversized giant/girl visual relationship looks washed out and positively cheap. Of goodness, it is worse when the really big giants use The BFG as a plaything on the top of a mountainside.
I was straining to see if I could see the strings manipulating the giant puppets.
The story of the giants is rushed as the director was in a gosh darn hurry to place our little Sophie on the dinner table, offering you, dear reader, with absolutely no understanding of the giants, what their world is all about and how they became giants in the first place.
What in the world was Steven Spielberg thinking?
It gets worse when The BFG drinks a spiked green goo. Dear Reader, if you have ever wanted to see a grown giant levitate from his “passing gas,” then this is your movie.
This film then sinks down into the eight level of Hades when our little Sophie convinces The BFG to take them both to visit the Queen of England (no snickering please) to convince Her Highness to mobilize the British Air Force to invade “Giant Country,” grab the really big giants and air drop them onto a deserted island where they can no longer eat cute little boys and girls.
UGG.
Wait, wait . . . Can you also imagine the Queen of England and Her Royal Staff also consuming this green goo and likewise “passing gas” all over Buckingham Palace? Good grief!
Stay far away from this “Harry Potter” wanna be. It doesn’t work and next to “1941,” “The BFG “will go down as Spielberg’s worst movie ever.
Can you imagine a two-hour movie about a “friendly” giant who is stupid as the day is long and dumb as a rock?
Even my three-year-old Antoinette was bored.
Now that should be made into a movie!
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