Nobody was asking for a remake of Pete’s Dragon. The singularly peculiar live-action/animat⛦ion musical from 1977 has aged with a ‘you had to be there’ quality and hasn♎’t gained many new fans since.
Perhaps that’s why 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:the 2016 version didn’t make as much of a box-office dent as many of its stablemates, from 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Alice In Wonderland to Aladdin to 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Lion King. But for my money, it’s far and away the best of the crop of Disney’s redos.
Itꦐ helps that co-writer/director David Lowery departs almost entirely from the source; he crafts something much more timeless. Set in a ෴non-specific period (the 1980s, or thereabouts) in a nameless logging town in the Pacific Northwest, the movie feels almost as fantastical as the furry fire-breather itself.
Lowery calls the film “surprisingly personal”, and it doesn’t feel out of place in a filmography that includes 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013) and澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: The Old Man & The Gun (2018). That he was able to mak꧅e 𒀰something this intimate and folksy within the studio system is remarkable.
It’s as low-key as possible 💝for a film that features a 21-foot-tall, emerald-green, mythical beast. The nostalgia buttons hit are very different to those normally targeted: rather than striking predetermined beats with glossier visuals, Pete’s Dragon harks back to a type of family-friendl🃏y storytelling that favours emotion over set-pieces.
Dealing with big themes through a child’s eyes, the film moves at an unhurried pace while giving ample screentime to its main attraction. The decision to make Elliot fluffy was not uncontroversial, but it gives him a warmth and naturalism that’s 🍸totally i🌠n step with this story. While his wide eyes and expressive nostrils don’t lack for feeling, Elliot retains a believably organic quality.
Also, Oakes Fegley is great as the Tarzan-like kid readapting to civilised life, while Bryce Dallas Howard, Wes Bentley and Karl Urban all nail the required tone. Plus, Robert Redford tu♎rns on the late-career charm, as winningly craggy as the woodcarvings his charact꧅er whips up.
No doubt abo𒅌ut it, Pete’s Dragon escapes the subgen𒀰re to stand alone on its own four feet as a cracking film in its own right, besting its higher-grossing counterparts. Or is it just me?
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I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print,💃 including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.
