One boy embarks on a heart-pounding adventure, after meeting a lovable dragon who is later known to be “Pete’s Dragon”. Based on the 1977 Disney classic animated film of the same name, the story takes place in the Pacific Northwest United States, with forest ranger Grace Meacham (Bryce Dallas Howard) finding a young boy named Pete (Oakes Fegley) who has lived in the woods for six years with a mysterious dragon named Elliott. With help from her wood-carver father (Robert Redford) and Natalie (Oona Laurence), the daughter of lumber mill owner Jack (Wes Bentley), Grace sets out to find out Pete’s identity and the truth about Elliott. But problems arise when hunter Gavin (Karl Urban), Jack’s brother and Natalie’s uncle, plans to capture Elliott, with the promise of fame and fortune eating away at him. “Pete’s Dragon” is written and directed by David Lowery, and is rated PG for action, scenes of peril, and minor adult language.
After the surprising success of “The Jungle Book” remake this year, Disney is currently riding a live action reboot phase that has them riding forward through the next three years easily. “Pete’s Dragon” is their newest attempt at crossing over to modern film making, and while this movie strikes an emotional chord or two with the relationship of the two protagonists, it doesn’t quite come as close to “The Jungle Book’s” heart-pounding narrative. There is a lot in this story to be appreciative of; from a roaring musical score by composer Daniel Hart, a longtime composer who is getting his first taste of big budget cinema, to the brilliant composition of wide angle action shots to capture the immense size in woods for such a bold and beautiful creature. My problem is in the liberties that this one takes with the source material, opting for a modernization that just doesn’t blend and flow together entertainingly enough to justify its existence. This is one of the first times in the mostly successful Disney reboot franchise where I think the audience would be better off sticking with the original movie, and here’s why:
First of all, seeing this film in 3D gave it absolutely no artistic merit or special effects big enough to mention here. Sadly, most of the 98 minute presentation is dulled down with regret to your wallet, with very little bang for the sacrificial buck. What little effects that I did get were in the outlining of every character when put in front of the immense woods that surrounded them. This created a nice popping-out effect for our protagonists, but left very little else on the table for the imagination. As someone who enjoys his 3D in gimmick sampling, I was very underwhelmed with how 2D this movie felt, even so much as applying a darker layer of lighting to the movie’s otherwise gorgeous presentation. I seriously took my glasses off during the third act, and decided to watch this movie in 2D, and it made for a more enjoyable experience.
The very design of the dragon is muddled down, opting for an almost dog-like approach to the visuals of this monster. There’s a book within this movie called “Elliot Gets Lost”, and Elliot is a dog in the book. This feels like obvious foreshadowing to the very themes and attitude that this imposing character would take on over the course of these three acts, and I hit the nail dead on. Elliot’s scales are traded in for a soft and bushy layer of fur that gives the kids at home a feeling of a cute house pet. The problem with this approach is there are very few times in the film’s screenplay where I felt like they were playing the danger of such a beast honestly. There’s very little adversity or conflict for his story arc, and the first time he is really tested is within the final twenty minutes of the movie. Even at that, the dragon himself has to create the only kind of tension for his human counterparts, otherwise this would be a complete snooze-fest.
Luckily, the acting does offer a couple of choice performances that kept me from denouncing the movie all together. Oakes Fegley, welcome to the world. Your performance as Pete, one half of the title characters was truly magnificent, and it really is amazing what kind of facially emotive actor that he is throughout this film. Part of the challenge for Fegley is that he has to relate the emotional register inside externally without using very many words to play it up. This is challenging for any actor period, let alone a 9-year-old actor who has only been acting for three years. Fegley charms with the brilliance of a silent actor twenty years ahead of his prime, and I felt the relationship between he and Elliot really cast a spell on the register of my heart, and it made for a warm feeling throughout the movie that displayed the importance of friendship among family. I also greatly enjoyed Karl Urban as the antagonist of sorts for the movie. Urban has always been one of my favorite underrated actors, and here he has a blast hamming it up and having a little fun while playing against his usual typecast. Urban gets to showoff a little more personality for a character whose soul importance is a get rich quick scheme that will make him famous. It’s an enjoyable turn, and it made for intrigue any time his character showed up on-screen.
The screenplay is kind of very plain for something that had great adventure potential. While the story casts a strong ambition with the silent chemistry between Pete and Elliott, sadly the movie doesn’t have a lot for them to do. This reminded me a lot of the 90’s live action kids movies where the plot was very thin, and the characters were mostly one-dimensional. It can be entertaining, but my biggest problem was that every time “Pete’s Dragon” presented me with something impressive, it did something to dull down my interest and left me sitting impatiently for ten minutes at a time. The movie never feels like it gets off the ground running, and I blame a lot of that on a PG rating that plays it too close to the child demographic. To say this is a kids movie is an obvious statement, but one thing I loved about this year’s rendition of “The Jungle Book” was that it appealed to a broader audience of young AND old. “Pete’s Dragon” instead muddles with offbeat, underwhelming sprints of magic, instead of the musical charmer that was entailed with the 77 original.
“Pete’s Dragon” doesn’t quite fly as high as its central creature, but the movie does get off the ground a time or two with commendable performances, as well as a heartwarming and wistful emphasis on the importance of finding a place where you belong. David Lowery’s latest offering is a little unconvincing in its lack of magic visually on-screen, but this one breathes a little fire back into the silent kids summer movie offerings, which have disappointed.
6/10