July 15, 2016 -- The BFG is an enchanting fairy tale about giants, dreams, children and benevolent monarchs. The visuals are dazzling, wondrous and beautiful. The CGI effects are seamlessly integrated with the live action shots. There are also some fart jokes and gooey, slimy vegetable stuff thrown in. It is a strange combination to say the least.

Steven Spielberg directs this warmhearted and slimy tale with his usual skill. The story is based on the popular Roald Dahl (“Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”) story. This is largely a feel good story about an orphan who is abducted and adopted for a time by a Big Friendly Giant. The giant, BFG, is huge, but not nearly as big as the other few giants who live near him in Giant Country, nasty giants with names like Bloodbottler, Maidmasher, Bonecruncher, Childchewer and Gizzardgulper.

As you can guess from the above, the bad giants not only bully BFG, but they eat children. They have to be stopped! While BFG is willing to put up with the bad giants, Sophie (played by young Ruby Barnhill, who is very good in this role) insists something has to be done about the bad giants. Sophie, kidnapped from an orphanage by BFG and brought to giant country, somewhere near England, is a very spirited child.

BFG kidnaps Sophie because she saw him one night from the window of her orphanage, and he, in turn, saw her looking at him. He is afraid she will tell people what she saw and reveal the secret of the existence of the giants. As time passes, Sophie chooses to stay with BFG. She does not like her life at the orphanage anyway. However, life in Giant Country becomes very dangerous for Sophie when the other giants learn of her existence. They try to find her and eat her.

The most magical part of the movie has Sophie going along with BFG on one of his nightly trips to capture dreams, which are arise from a magical tree in a kind of upside down mirror place. BFG collects the dreams in bottles and keeps them at his home in a large cave.

Sophie and BFG come up with a daring plan involving dreams and the Queen of England (played by Penelope Wilton of “Shaun of the Dead”) to deal with the bad giants and bring peace to Giant Land. I could have done without the slime and farts, but the rest of the story is enchanting and the film has a wonderful look to it. This is a very nice, heartwarming movie, that looks good in 3D. This film rates a B.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in digital formats, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2016 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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