Pete's Dragon

2016 remake

Rating: 12/20

Plot: An orphan and his dragon frolic in the woods until some loggers intervene.

Granted, it's been way too long since I've seen the 1977 Pete's Dragon, a much different story, but I think I definitely prefer that one. I was interested in this because of David Lowery's A Ghost Story. No, I didn't expect this to be anything like that movie, but I did want to see what Lowery could do with something on the opposite end of the cinematic spectrum. Turns out, he can deliver on-screen cliches with the best of them.

This pulls at the exact heartstrings you'd expect it to. You're one step ahead of the storyteller every step of the way, the emotions fail to resonate, and the constant musical score just pummels you into submission.

It's not all bad. The CGI Eliot is pretty good most of the time, especially his fur. The special effects were a little inconsistent, but they're definitely better than the storytelling here. I also enjoyed the CGI Robert Redford.

OK, I just did a little research, and apparently that was not a CGI Robert Redford. It was the actual Robert Redford. I thought his teeth and eyes looked a little fake, but apparently they're the real deals.

I tried to get my daughter Buster to watch this with me, but she refused. I don't think she would have liked a car accident at the beginning or the scene where Eliot goes crazy and starts eviscerating the townspeople while Pete wipes blood off his face and screams, "You fucking get them, Eliot! You let them know that a dragon doesn't have to take that shit from nobody!"

I just noticed something. I looked at a cast list for this movie and noticed that Bart the Bear is in it. Bart the Bear, star of The Edge, died in 2000. I just wrote about how he wasn't available for Annihilation. This is a different Bart the Bear. What the hell, Hollywood? When a legendary acting bear passes on, you don't just use his name for the next bear that comes along. I'm really having a difficult time with this news. Did you people know about this?