Pixar's forgetful fish may have dominated the box office for the past few weeks, but there's a good chance she'll be stepping aside to make room for another Disney venture this weekend, as Steven Spielberg's The BFG finally makes its way to theater screens. It's been more than 30 years since Roald Dahl's beloved children's novel was published, and while a theatrical version has been in various stages of development since at least 1994, it's hard to imagine that a better version of "the big friendly giant" could have been created before now.
With the latest advances in motion capture technology, Oscar winner Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies) transforms into a gangly 24-foot behemoth with an affinity for crafting dreams and distributing them throughout the working class neighborhoods of mid-1980s London. Spied from the window by a 10-year-old orphan named Sophie (Ruby Barnhill), he whisks the girl away to Giant Country to prevent her from alerting others to his presence, and an unlikely friendship forms in the process.
Whip-smart and precocious, Sophie dubs her new friend "BFG," but he's the only inhabitant of Giant Country deserving of such a moniker. With names like Bloodbottler and Fleshlumpeater, his siblings - all of whom tower over their "runty" brother - are far more interested in consuming the flesh of "human beans" than forming relationships with them, stealing into the city to snatch children from their beds and devour them whole. If Sophie is going to stay in her new pal's homeland, then something will have to be done about the rest of those giants...
Just a few weeks ago, Warcraft set a new standard for what could be achieved via motion capture, and while The BFG doesn't quite reach those same heights, the work of Mark Rylance is truly astonishing. Spielberg's newest muse is still recognizable beneath the enormous ears and prodigious proboscis, and he does a tremendous job of humanizing the big oaf with a subtle, nuanced performance. As his eyes twinkle merrily while spouting off nonsense words like "snozzcumber" (a vegetable) or "whizzpopper" (you'll see), it's easy to forget that we're watching a character that has been created inside a bank of high-powered computers.
That being said, Spielberg relies a bit too much on visual flair at certain moments, and seems to forget about storytelling altogether during the third act, which finds our heroes interacting with an important British political figure for an admittedly hilarious dinner banquet that offers some of the film's best laughs. But we can't help but wonder if those laughs are being used to distract us from the narrative shortcomings, as the ensuing "climax" is resolved so expediently that we never believe for a moment that Sophie and her gargantuan guardian are in even the slightest peril.
The BFG will no doubt draw comparisons to another family-friendly Spielberg adventure about an intelligent outcast who bonds with an otherwordly being, and even though The BFG could never hope to match the near-perfect execution of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, its ambition and scope is an achievement unto itself. Book readers and newcomers alike will find more than enough things to love here, and that's all we really need from a film like this.
