"The BFG" Hurdles the Uncanny Valley

Steven Spielberg makes gobblefunking look good, but not as good as your childhood.

The BFG was my favorite book growing up, and like all Roald Dahl books, it's an ecstatic mix of the sentimental and cruel—the story of a young orphan named Sophie abducted by a lovable Big Friendly Giant who catches and releases dreams. It is also a cavalcade of bodily functions rendered funny and an encyclopedia of brutality at the hands of other, evil giants like Bonecruncher and Fleshlumpeater.

It's clear that Steven Spielberg loves the book just as much as I do, and that's the whole problem with the movie. Dahl's book is devoted to wonderment and the clanging together of jabberwocky gobblefunking words…and so is much of the movie. The BFG's first hour is a shamblingly slow, largely plotless sightseeing tour of giants-ville, less awestruck and mournful than merely lethargic. And it makes ill use of one of the most splendid animated creations in filmdom—the BFG himself (Mark Rylance). His empathetic face hurdles the uncanny valley with ease. It's the young Sophie (Ruby Barnhill), not the giant, who feels dead-eyed.

Luckily, the movie's second half redeems the early languors with a slapstick comedy of farting dogs and queenly manners. My niece and nephew may not have left the movie with a sense of the beauty and fragility of the world, but they did really love the fart jokes.

Rated PG.

Critic's Grade: B-

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