(2020) The Witches - The Second Adaptation of the Popular Children's Dark Fantasy Novel

This weekend, there were a number of new movies and series released in various platforms. I thought there was going to be one movie that I had been waiting for a while, but it did not come true. Anyway, this film is playing on HBO at 8PM Saturday, but since I have access to HBO Go, I could see it earlier. It looked interesting enough, plus if I am not mistaken, it did play in Indonesian theaters few months ago. So here's more on the film.

Brief Story Line

Set in late 1960s, a young orphan boy (Jahzir Bruno) had moved to live with his grandmother (Octavia Spencer - Thunder Force, Onward etc) in Alabama. One day the boy was approached by a terrifying woman with a snake offering him sweets, but he managed to get away. Later the grandmother revealed that it was no ordinary woman and it was actually a witch who had been living amongst normal people and she also had prior bad experience with witches.

As the grandmother feared for the boy's safety, she decided to stay at a fancy hotel far away. Unbeknownst to them though, there was a convention of witches led by Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway - Locked Down, Ocean's 8 etc). While the boy was playing around the hotel, he met and befriended an English boy named Bruno Jenkins (Codie-Ley Eastik). Unfortunately the boy later found out about the witches plan which endanger his life.

So what would happen to the boy and his grandmother? You can find them all in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Now this movie was a bit unexpected for me. In the beginning, it look heavy on comedy, then it change swiftly to a bit sad & finally shifted to a bit cheerful and all this happened in the span of around 10 minutes only. But once the witch appeared, the movie became more exciting as I started to see where it is heading. And when the boy and grandmother moved to the hotel, and especially when the Grand High Witch showed up with her theatrics, it became quite fun.

As the story progressed, I enjoyed the movie better and laughed a lot because of the interaction between the boy, Bruno and another female character played by Kristin Chenoweth (Holidate, Glee TV series etc). They actually made me happy just by watching them, although some audience might not have the same opinion as me. One thing that was funny and I realized a bit later was the boy, grandmother and Grand High Witch's names were never mentioned. Likely because they follow closely with the 1983 novel of the same title written by Roald Dhal which this movie was adapted from.   

Btw, I personally thought Anne Hathaway was pretty good in here. Her characterization of this leader of witches was amazing and becoming this sort of antagonist/villain seemed to suit her. So I am unsure why her part in this movie was rewarded with nomination for Razzie Award (award for honoring the cinematic worst under-achiever). Regardless though, I still liked her performance. Olivia Spencer was also OK. But the one I admired was the young Jahzir Bruno who was just perfect in his role. Aside from those, there were well known names like Stanley Tucci (Beauty and the Beast live version, The Lovely Bones etc) as the hotel manager Mr. Stringer and Chris Rock (The Madagascar movies, The Longest Yard etc). Although Stanley Tucci had too little screen time to leave any good impression.

The film also had wonderful visual effects and its make up effects were equally great. A lot of the scenes involving the witches looked real because of those effects. It is directed by Robert Zemeckis (director of hugely successful movies like Back to the Future trilogy, Forrest Gump, Death Becomes Her, Cast Away and many more), so it should not come as surprise that the effects here look awesome. Zemeckis also served as co-writers together with Kenya Barris (creator of black-ish sitcom series) and Guillermo del Toro (writer & director of Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth, Crimson Peak etc). However, these big names did not really impressed the critics since the movie got mixed reviews from them who believed it is an inferior remake of the 1990 movie directed by Nicolas Roeg and starring Anjelica Huston.

Overall, I personally was not disappointed with the film. It has some hilarious moments in the middle and the end might not be to the liking of most people, but I found it to be satisfying. If you happen to like fantasy movie a la Robert Zemeckis where the visual effects were wonderful and the story was adapted from popular children's book, then you would most likely enjoy this one. Before I forgot, despite the story was mostly about the boy, HBO categorized this as PG, due to children might find it to be disturbing if they are not accompanied by their parents.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars