Steven Spielberg in Cannes with
“The BFG”
Filmlegend Steven Spielberg is back. His new movie The BFG, the Big Friendly Giant, was shown for the first time today at the Cannes Filmfestival. The film runs next to the main program, outside of the competition for the Palm D’Or in France. Unfortunately the movie is not much more exciting than its title.
Many big names from Hollywood can call themselves lucky enough to be chosen to run next to the official competition. Also Jodie Foster’s Money Monster with Julia Roberts and George Clooney was shown in the French film festival.
Steven Spielberg’s new piece has got everything todays film industry can offer. Only during the movie the audience recognised the missing part, that actually everyone was expecting from this movie: the magic, the love. The BFG has no depth, no love, no vision. It is too bad, that the most important ingredient of a good movie seems to be unimportant for the biggest names from Hollywood.
What’s that movie about anyways?
A brave and pretty orphan girl encounters a giant in her city by coincidence. Sophie could tell all her friends about her surprising encounter, so the giant decides to take her with him to the giant-world. She is lucky, because the friendly giant is the only giant, that is actually friendly. The other ones are all the opposite and want to eat human beings as often as they can.
Sophie is now in the house of the friendly giant. After a while the evil giants smell that jung human being and try to find (and eat) her.
Sophie likes the friendly giant and wants to be part of his wheelings and dealings. The BFG is catching and distributing dreams to little children. Firstly the giant wants to keep Sophie away from all the danger, but at some point the brave girl gets her will and joins him on the dreamy journey.
Not a family movie, but kids may like it
From a technical point of view the BFG hat got everything. Amazing Set, great costumes and astonishing animations. The combination between real people in an animated world works perfectly fine. Even when big giants fight with smaller giants to get to Sophia there is nothing to complain about.
The giants look amazing on the big screen in Cannes. Also the sound fits, as expected, perfect to the beautiful images in the movie. Hollywood says hello and takes away all our own imagination. The music tells us when to laugh and when to fear.
But where is the love?
The main character is played by the young Mark Rylance. Well, what to say… She is sweet and presented as a brave girl. Likeable on every level. But the character is missing as much depth as the movie. Sophie could have stayed in bed and kept dreaming instead of joining the BFG – the audience in the cinema would probably be fine with that as well.
The friendly giant was indeed friendly. But that’s about it. A shy giant that cannot say No und gives boring dreams to little, innocent children. He is doing that while jumping as nosy as he can through the city and is surprised when a little girl sees him picking up a fallen trash can.
There was no excitement and funny scenes were only identified as such after they happened. Kids who love friendly giants will love this movie. But don’t expect to be charmed away.
