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| It takes roughly two times the budget for a film to break even at the box office. |
The film's failure at the box office has perhaps damaged its reputation (after all, it's not a pleasant thing to be called a 'flop'). My review might as well act as an apology.
To no one's surprise, films directed by Steven Spielberg are at least good. Along with the usual Spielberg crew (e.g. Janusz Kaminski, John Williams, etcetera), this one even has the late Melissa Mathison (E.T.) serving as scriptwriter, Hollywood's leading producer Kathleen Kennedy behind, and most recent Oscar-winner Mark Rylance on screen. And of course, most importantly, the source material is arguably the most beloved story by one of the best – if not the best – children's writers of the last century, Roald Dahl. With such a great background, the hype for the film during its production and before its premiere at Cannes was oddly subdued and reaction from critics and audiences alike have been lukewarm at best. Why is that so?
Unfortunately, I have my fair share of criticisms.
Just by looking at the frame, don't you spot something uncanny?
Once the film started, it immediately reminded me of Spielberg's completely animated The Adventures of Tintin as well as Robert Zemeckis's ventures into motion capture and 3D animation during the 2000s (see: The Polar Express). Spielberg has worked with performance capture for Tintin before, and the industry-leading motion capture tech was at his fingertips. The production designers worked hard to create a motion capture-friendly set for the cast to work in, and the titular Giant was undoubtedly Rylance. Despite all of that, the picture quality was simply unsatisfactory and, in lack of a better word, creepy. Live action performance capture is difficult, but doable, and doesn't always require Avatar-level budgets (see: the brilliant Rise of the Planet of the Apes made with $93 million). With The BFG's budget of $140 million, I'd much rather Spielberg do the film in Tintin-style (even though I can see the reasons of doing it in live action and I'll explain it later). After all, Tintin was wildly enjoyable and I'm still waiting for its sequel today.
My other criticisms have something to do with the writing. Every film needs a story with high points and low points. However, it was difficult for the audience to keep up with the changing tempo when we follow a relatively intense scene with a slow one that tried to build up the trademark Spielberg sentimentality. That occurred for a few times and despite John Williams's greatest efforts to shape the changing mood with his score, it was still off-putting and worse, reduced the effect of the emotional poignancy.
The hugest challenge of adapting any Dahl property is getting his distinctly dark tone right. He wrote children's stories, but they were stories that involved Giants crushing children with their molars and witches transforming children into rodents. 1990's The Witches definitely amped up the horror but sadly undid that by including an ending that is in direct opposition of the story's spirit. For The BFG, Spielberg masterfully played up the wonder and marvel of Dahl's universe (those "dreams"!) but similar to The Witches, reduced the brutality. Never do we feel the evil Giants as a real, cruel threat. We don't see the Giants grabbing children out of dorm windows, and don't even expect to see them doing that in Sweden and America (as written in the book). The Giants lack a backstory, which was hinted at (Giants used to be nice?) but quickly glossed over. The villains's lack of depth hurt the story a lot, which is a part of the bigger problem of not being gutsy enough to portray Dahl's darkness. It's not as unforgivable as The Witches's ending, but certainly is a missed opportunity.
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| The Grand High Witch from The Witches looks way scarier than any of those man-eating giants from The BFG. Prosthetic's better than CGI I guess! |
Other than that, the film was fine and better than anything else this Summer has to offer. The BFG was my favorite book when I was 10. I read parts of it every day and couldn't help but revisit the chapter about the Queen's breakfast again and again. Reading Sophie sitting on the windowsill and The BFG munching his bacons gave me an irresistible giddiness from the bottom of my heart. I'm very glad that Spielberg was able to translate that giddiness to the film medium as I relived my childhood almost beat-by-beat. There was no other director who was more perfect to do that job and Spielberg executed it flawlessly.
There were other moments of greatness as well (e.g. the final shot of the teaser trailer, in which we see The BFG's hand engulfing Sophie). I can't believe the Dahl estate actually allowed Mathison to introduce new plot elements. (Dahl was enraged at the changes made at adapting his stories, such as the aforementioned case of The Witches and the case of the classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory). Mathison actually pulled off the impossible task of improving upon Dahl's story. Dahl's diction was also very unique – he basically invented his own language with words like "frobscottle" and "whizzpopping". There was no better choice to make than to keep Dahl's dialogue verbatim, and I'm very glad the writers did that as well.
Rylance was unsurprisingly great, and Ruby Barnhill who played our female protagonist Sophie was good but not great. As per usual for Spielberg films, the cinematography, score, production design, and everything else were all top-notch. Despite being a little hungry for more, as a Roald Dahl fanatic, I'm satisfied. The BFG earns a 4 out of 5.
P.s. at the age of 69, Spielberg has shown no signs of stopping. Can't wait for Ready Player One, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, and Indiana Jones 5!