The BFG Review
An outspoken orphan girl suffering from insomnia finds herself whisked away to a magical land after she is captured by a friendly giant on his way to deliver dreams to children. It soon becomes apparent that the gigantic man is by no means a monster and he introducers her to the many wonders of his world. While snozzcumbers and golden phizzwizards are intriguing to the young girl at first, she soon discovers that there are also many dangers within the new world after a group of bloodthirsty giants decide to hunt down young children for their supper.
Adapted from a classic Roald Dahl book, The BFG is the first big screen adaptation of a story that has been floating around for decades. For those who were lucky enough to catch the 1989 television adaptation, it’s easy to be blow away by the contemporary visuals which breathe new life into the characters and settings. It’s also great to see that the musical numbers have been scrapped in favour of a more standard family movie set-up. Aside from this, however, the story remains deftly untouched and it’s no surprise that its immature sensibility has been preserved.
If you do have a familiarity with the source material then it’s unlikely you will expect a story of much substance and, as The BFG is incredibly faithful to the original text, this indeed turns out to be the case. Thankfully this doesn’t prevent it from being fun in places even if the jokes are mostly there to be appreciated by the five year olds in the audience. The BFG is a children’s story through and through, with a lot of random and overly-convenient moments on top of a ton of pacing issues but it’s a difficult one to hate. It’s also easy to see why it’s taken so long any filmmaker to attempt to give the story a big screen adaptation given its lack of substance but Steven Spielberg is honestly the best man for the job and the film is as competent as it could possibly be.
Spielberg nails the majestic dream-catching sequences and really brings the nuances of the big friendly giant to life for a new generation. Even the snozzcumbers are beyond anything they have ever been before. On a visual level, this was the right time to adapt the book, even though The BFG will never be the most outstanding out of Roald Dahl’s stories.
