Okay, continuing the HBO Max binge, I guess I should write something about "The Witches," since it was one of my most anticipated titles for last year. This is a new film adaptation of the Roald Dahl book, directed by Robert Zemeckis, with a big list of great creative people both behind and in front of the camera. The cast includes Anne Hathaway as the evil Grand High Witch, pitted against Octavia Spencer as our young hero's wonderful Grandmother. The screenplay is credited to Zemeckis, Kenya Barris, and Guillermo Del Toro. So I think I can be excused for having some high expectations for this film.
To their credit, the filmmakers make some good and interesting choices. The action has been moved from Scandinavia to the American South circa 1968. The heroic young Boy (Jahzir Kadeen Bruno) and his Grandmother are African-American, and there are some lovely early scenes of the two bonding in the wake of tragedy. However, the filmmakers also make some regrettable choices. There are the wraparound scenes with Chris Rock that are awful. There is the heavy, heavy emphasis on CGI imagery and broad slapstick once the witches enter into the picture. Maybe I've been watching too much "Lovecraft Country," but you'd think the film would do something with the new racial dynamic of the characters and the Southern Gothic setting. This version keeps Dahl's original, bittersweet ending, but then promptly undercuts it with goofy antics.
This feels like a film that was intended to be dark and strange and unsettling - and you occasionally see hints of that here and there in "The Witches." However, this impulse has been totally subsumed by more kid-friendly, pandering elements that trade in real scares for humorous grotesquerie. I like Anne Hathaway's campy Grand High Witch performance very much, but she's not frightening. The transformation sequences look silly instead of alarming. While the CGI enables some impressive visuals, the design choices leave a lot to be desired. There are mouse characters in the film, voiced by Codie-Lei Eastick and Kristin Chenoweth, who are far too anthropomorphized. The film ends up looking and sounding very much like every other overly bright, overly colorful, overly cartoonish fantasy adventure aimed at small children of the past decade. I hesitate to be too harsh, since I'm clearly not the target audience for this one, but it's a disappointment all around. Even Stanley Tucci as an unwitting hotel manager looks lost here.
Now, on to the long-delayed "The New Mutants," which takes place in the "X-men" universe, and follows five troubled teenage mutants who have been sent to a specialized hospital facility overseen by the mild-mannered Dr. Reyes (Alice Braga). A good collection of young actors have been assembled to play the mutant kids. Our lead is Dani Moonstar (Blu Hunt), a Cheyenne girl whose entire reservation was wiped out by some unseen force. She's quickly befriended by Rahne (Maisie Williams), who can turn into a wolf and hybrid wolf-girl, and bullied by Illyana (Anya Taylor-Joy), who can teleport and grow a sword out of her arm. Rounding out the group are Sam (Charlie Heaton), a literal human cannonball, and Bobby (Henry Zaga), an entitled Brazilian who overheats in destructive ways.
Fox originally sold this film as a merging of the superhero and teen horror genres, but chickened out in the execution. For a horror film, this is very tame and plays like a PG-13 installment of "Nightmare on Elm Street." However, I like it as a superhero film, though one that's leaning hard on teen movie cliches. It's good to see the usual origin story formula shaken up a little, and it makes it all the more upsetting that Disney's merger with Fox means the end of the cinematic "X-men" universe, and this kind of experimentation. I mean, Disney is never going to be gutsy enough to have one of their Marvel films lead by a LGBT Native-American teenager. Or heavily imply trafficking and sexual abuse in the backgrounds of other characters.
That said, the film clearly went through a shaky production, and seems to have spent the vast majority of its budget on effects. The cast is limited, and mostly stuck in a single location for the entire film. There are sequences where footage appears to be missing, and awkward edits abound. The performances are also uneven - bad accents are endemic - and unfortunately the greenest actors get the most screentime. That said, for all its deficiencies, I found the film an easy and enjoyable watch, and I'm sad the planned sequels will not be forthcoming.
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