The BFG - Stephen Spielberg's Latest Movie

This movie actually already premiered in limited theaters last Saturday & Sunday, but as my wife and I were engaged in other activities during that weekend, we were unable to watch it until it premiered in all cinemas yesterday. As usual we watched the 7 PM show, though yesterday due to heavy rain poured Jakarta since 5.30 PM, the traffic was much heavier than it used to be and I was almost late reaching the location. Anyway, good thing I could still watch it from the start.

Brief Story Line

Movie started with the scene of Sophie (played by British actress Ruby Barnhill) a young orphan girl staying in an orphanage in London who had trouble sleeping. At 3 AM in the morning while she was reading a book, she heard a noise from outside her room full of other orphans. Though she tried her best not to get out of bed and walk to the window, she still did it and saw a giant hand holding a trash can. Feeling scared, she immediately went back to bed hiding in her blanket. But the giant's hand which fit through the window, picked her up and brought Sophie around using her blanket. The giant immediately ran out of London while also hiding in the shadows of houses and trees and reached his house.

Sophie tried to escape from the giant's house. But she was recaptured and put on top of the giant's kitchen table where he could see her. Sophie tried to ask the giant to release her, but he refused since he was worried Sophie would go out and tell everyone that there was a giant and there would be a big giant chase. Despite Sophie's promise not to do it, the giant still insisted her to stay at his house indefinitely.

Apparently, the giant (Mark Rylance - The Other Boleyn Girl, The Gunman etc) was staying in the Giant Country where he was considered small compared to the other 9 giants. Their leader was Fleshlumpeater (Jemaine Clement - Muppets Most Wanted, Rio 2 etc) always bullied the giant who they called Runt. He was suspicious that there was a human bean (what the giants refer to human being) hiding in Runt's house, but he could not find it.

Meanwhile, Runt and Sophie started to have a better relationship and she got to know what Runt do everyday which was to capture dreams in the humans world. Runt also seemed to give affection to Sophie, but he still have some hesitation. After following Runt's mission to capture dreams, Sophie began to call Runt the BFG shorten for Big Friendly Giant. She was very amazed of what BFG did especially where he could also put dreams into people. However, Fleshlumpeater and the rest of the giants found out there really was a human hidden by BFG and they would do whatever they take to find out and eat the human beans. Including to go to the humans city and take children to eat them.

There were other noteworthy characters apart from Sophie, BFG and the giants, such as the queen (Penelope Wilton - The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Downton Abbey TV series etc), Mary the queen's maid (Rebecca Hall - Iron Man 3, Transcendence etc) and of course Mr. Tibbs the butler (Rafe Spall - Life of Pi, The Big Short etc).

So how would this story end? Would Sophie be staying forever together with BFG in the Giant Country? You just have to watch it till the end. 

End of Brief Story Line

Well this movie was a little bit different from what I expected. Watching the trailer would somehow create the impression that the movie would be a cat and mouse type where smaller giant would be having to escape from the chasing of bigger nasty giants. However this is not that type of movie. This is a movie about relationship that could develop between 2 very different people. It is a drama movie with some brief adventures and some funny moments here and there.

Watching the movie for almost 2 hours, we would be pampered with cool CGI effects especially the giants computerized animation where they slotted perfectly together with the actual sized persons. However I think the movie lacked a bit of sound effects/music that could lift the mood of the audience. Most of the time, the feel of the movie was a little gloomy. Except for the brief moments involving the queen, her maid and her butler where the mood was lifted high as their characters were very lovable and we were able to laugh at those scenes.

Other than that, I think the movie itself was quite a touching movie. I believe Ruby Barnhill would make a great actress in future and Mark Rylance's characterization was so good that we could truly like him as a bullied kind & loving giant. Stephen Spielberg also did a wonderful job directing this movie, just like what he did on various great ones like Jaws, E.T to name a few.

Overall this movie would be a good family friendly movie. Kids could definitely enjoy it, but for people looking for a very adventurous type of man-eating giant movie, please do not watch this one as you will be disappointed. You might as well watch the much gorier version in the Japanese movie Attack on Titan (available on DVD and live streaming for the animated version). I think this expectation was probably the reason why the movie did not have a great success in US or anywhere. But for my wife and I, we actually quite love it.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Note:

This movie was adapted from a children's book of the same title written by Roald Dahl. It was written in 1982 so it would explain why the queen was portrayed quite young and the US presidents were referred to as Ronnie (Ronald Reagan). I did not notice this part had it not been for my wife's great observation (thanks Hon). Roald Dahl's other works included Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, and Fantastic Mr. Fox.