The BFG

A pretty enjoyable fairy tale from Spielberg on a subject I like and is somewhat rare these days, it's just a shame that the appropriate age range is around 13. The downside is the plodding pace which detracts from the fun and the leading girl got on my nerves like no one has in a long time (I would go crazy if I had a British intellectual woman like her at home). The visuals were nice and the evil giants managed to take care of the suspense. 60% (27/10/2016)

A pleasant, beautifully shot visual treat with nothing wrong filmmaking-wise, but the whole thing flows so casually, freely and focused that everyone will be looking only for the flaws. Magical atmosphere, lovely cinematography and setting, irresistibly charismatic Mark Rylance.... Spielberg can create family stories around child heroes more engagingly than anyone ever. (29/01/2017)

A bit of a vegetarian agitprop. Spielberg decided to revive this project probably because of his weakness for Mark Rylance’s acting charms. And because of the possibilities of WETA Digital, which he didn’t have in the 1980s. The BFG is a magical trip into a child’s imagination with a soundtrack by John Williams, embellished by precise set designs and emotionally filled with Rylance’s eyes and great motion capture of his movements. The poetic theme of dreams and the concept of the land of giants are used well and the story is unpredictable. If it hadn’t been for those weird things that start happening in the last third of the film, it would have been a worthy successor to Spielberg’s best fantasies. (28/09/2016)

The movie didn't seem bad for the most part, but from the first scene with the Queen, I liked it less and less. From then on, it seemed to be aimed purely at a children’s audience, the dialogue and would-be funny scenes got infantile to the point that I didn't even want to wait and see how the story would end. I stuck it out and got the expected dose of poignant speeches and British army heroism. To sum it up, about 60% of the film was entertaining, the rest was terrible. The funniest character was definitely the Fleshlumpeater, the main antagonist, excellently voiced by Jemaine Clement. (13/01/2017)

I'll admit, I didn't have high expectations for this Steven Spielberg film, but it simply turned out that he knows how to direct, and Roald Dahl wrote intriguing source material. The story is lovely, and imaginative, but the execution mainly relies on fantastic visuals, which were successful. There is little to fault with that. The characters are often almost unnecessary, the best being the BFG and Sophie, which is probably to be expected. (09/01/2017)