Pete's Dragon

This review may contain spoilers!

How do you manage to make a film about a dragon so boring? I would give Pete's Dragon a 4/10.

This is a film with a lot of heart, it's exceptionally sweet and uses slapstick comedy a lot to get a few chuckles out of the audience. What really gives the story of this film life is the relationship between Pete and Elliot (AKA the dragon), the touching bond between these two results in several very emotional and powerful scenes. The cinematography is also quite good, the director of the film clearly has a great eye for framing and capturing the stunning environment that the film takes place in.

Robert Redford, who played Meacham, proved once again why he's one of the finest actors out there; Redford delivers lines in a beautiful way that really steals whatever scene he's in. Isiah Whitlock Jr. and Steve Barr, who played Sheriff Gene Dentler and Deputy Smalls respectively, brought a great comic presence to the film; these may have been minor roles but they're ability to make me laugh made their performances really stand out. Esmee Myers, Gareth Reeves and Levi Alexander, who played Mom, Dad and Young Pete respectively, really opened the film exceptionally well; I thought the instant charm of this family dynamic was rather heartwarming and made the ensuing scenes all the more tragic.

However the best performance came from Oakes Fegley, who played Pete. Disney always does so well at casting great up and coming young talent and Fegley is just another great example of this. There are several well renowned actors and actresses amongst the cast but none shine anywhere near as brightly as this young actor. Fegley does so well at creating a bond with a character who was little more than a special effect, the emotional link between boy and dragon is all thanks to Fegley's talent as a performer. Beyond that I loved seeing the mannerisms of Pete, how society seemed alien to him and how he moved differently from having lived in the woods.

Pete's Dragon is an unbearably predictable film, it plays out exactly as you'd expect and doesn't work hard to surprise you or make you feel any strong emotion. The film starts with a very quick pace then slams on the brakes for the rest of the film, the pacing was horrible and the narrative really dragged itself along. The story about Pete and Elliot may have been interesting but the introduction of the rest of the ensemble let the film down big time; none of the ensemble characters were developed very much and every time the film focussed upon them things became dull. The editing was poor, the fading transitions felt tacky and overused. The special effects weren't great for a film so heavily dependent on a central CGI character; Elliot looked pretty bad bar his facial expression detail and the other CGI animals were even worse, the only good effect of the film was the dragon fire. The score for this film felt really tacky and a bit plain, the soundtrack wasn't much better and felt kind of tiring.

Bryce Dallas Howard, who played Grace, could have bothered to show a bit of emotion in her performance; as it was Howard presented a very stiff role that felt out of place in a family film. Oona Laurence, who played Natalie, isn't a very good child actress; she had a lot of scenes with Fegley and couldn't really match up to his acting technique. Wes Bentley, who played Jack, really was up to nothing in the film; he felt really out of place in most of the scenes he was in and he had no chemistry at all with Howard. Karl Urban, who played Gavin, made for a downright awful antagonist; Urban just didn't suit slapstick comedy nor did he feel nasty enough to really encompass the villain of the film.