Critics reviews

...Because I was ultimately so bored by The BFG—reduced to a glazed state similar to but distinct from actual thrall—my mind wandered instead to another other aged, island-strewn magician. I thought of Prospero, at the end of The Tempest, brandishing his staff and sweetly begging our indulgence as he confesses a fear that his abilities are dwindling. Spielberg's charms are not yet overthrown, but his movie is not such stuff as dreams are made on.

Despite combining the powers of two of the 20th century's greatest chroniclers of childhood, there's something oddly generic about Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Roald Dahl's The BFG. The skeleton of the story is there but, as is true of the vast majorit yf Dahl's novels restaged for the big screen, this one has had its edges cut off.

The BFG, which stands for Big Friendly Giant, becomes too big, too friendly, and too giant, in its rollicking gambols, patronizing slapstick, and certainly in its swelling sentimentality. The giant functions well as an authorial surrogate—he blows dreams into the heads of sleeping children, a nice metaphor, easily translatable from Dahl to Spielberg—but otherwise the film feels slick and a little anonymous.

Spielberg's formal elegance can't be denied throughout; he's one of only a few filmmakers (James Cameron is another) to make largely virtual spaces feel like they have physical dimension (see also The Adventures of Tintin)... It's a frequently lovely film, not necessarily unsuccessful working with simple ideas like the power of fantasy to overcome loneliness. But maybe Dahl shouldn't be translated into something quite so innocuous.

Like the BFG, [the movie] cares about the little things, and it moves with a grace that belies its size. It's a film about about dreaming and storytelling, parenting and childhood, nostalgia and pragmatism, and the necessity of standing up for yourself even when you know you can't win. But most of all, it's a film about two unlikely friends.

It plays like a forced march of fun, a mandatory strain of magic and a prescribed dose of poetry, like a movie ready-made for screening in classrooms when a teacher is absent. Its protagonist, Sophie, is the Child Without Attributes.

Generally, Spielberg packs the frame with so much amusing clutter that he detracts from Rylance's witty, emotional line readings. The "gobblefunk" is beguiling but our eyes and ears can handle only a fraction of the daffiness. Despite the restrained pace, the result is audiovisual overload.

Far too long at 117 minutes, The BFG finds Spielberg pressing too hard for wonderment at times, particularly when he's dealing with the giant's passion for catching and concocting dreams like fireflies in primary color... The biggest emotional moments in The BFG combine Rylance's working-class humility and decency with subtle wrinkles in the animation that suggest a stirring of the soul. It's the rare CGI wonder that moves as well as awes.

The extravagant expense of this Steven Spielberg production is evident in every frame, but no amount of money or technical trickery can make up for a story lacking any dramatic tension or a sympathetic protagonist. The most fantastical aspect here may be the Queen Mother having actual political or military power.

But much of the film suffers from the one thing that Spielberg films almost never suffer from: stasis. He's made, essentially, a "hangout" movie, one in which we're supposed to luxuriate in our time with the characters, but this isn't a director who thrives on extended moments of just being, in the unpredictable give-and-take among people — or among people and giants.

Visually, The BFG favors sublime moments of revelation, where wisps of color and texture help to expand the emotional impact. Audacious showstoppers akin to the eagle chase sequence in Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin are noticeably absent. Yet the film's modest and dreamlike quality puts the emphasis squarely on the characters themselves, specifically the ways in which they communicate and challenge each other to make a difference.

The film's plot is so thin it could qualify as a hang-out narrative, and its big themes of trust and the importance of dreams are broad to the point of vagueness. But however CGI-abetted The BFG's low-stakes wonders are, they nonetheless feel like an implicit rebuke to a blockbuster ecosystem guided by the sequel prerogative. Sometimes a pleasant dream is more than enough.