Can you think of a Hollywood director more iconic than Steven Spielberg? After a long and storied history of crafting classic pieces of cinema, the man’s name has pretty much become synonymous the very idea of filmmaking itself. His latest film, an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic tale The BFG, has just screened at the Cannes Film Festival, and the reviews are coming in. It seems that, despite Spielberg’s amazing cinematic legacy, the reviews for The BFG are decidedly mixed.
Let’s get the ball rolling with the good stuff here. The folks at Total Film have praised the movie, and actor Mark Rylance, for injecting the narrative with immense levels of sentimentality and humor:
That being said, not everyone shares that same level of enthusiasm. Critic Nigel M. Smith took to Twitter after a screening of The BFG to state that, while the film has no shortage of charm, it has a tendency to drag and will likely appeal primarily to the youngest members of the audience:
Then there are the downright bad reviews, and there are plenty of those to go around as well. Fiona Williams posted about the film on Twitter, and stated that The BFG ultimately doesn’t have enough to grab the attention of anyone but the youngest members of the audience – and even kids might ultimately find themselves bored by the proceedings:
One of the consistent themes that seems to run through all of the reviews, positive or negative, is the fact that The BFG manages to honor the overall spirit of the source material. Centering on a young, lonely, English girl by the name of Sophie, the film follows her as she meets a 24-foot tall man named The Big Friendly Giant and the friendship they foster as she begins to learn about his gentle nature. It’s one of the quintessential Roald Dahl stories, and the film seems to capture the particular iconography of a tale that many people came to love during their childhoods.
Of course, that’s just what the critics have to say about The BFG. We will just have to assess the movie for ourselves when the adaptation of the classic Roald Dahl story hits theaters later this summer on July 1.
