Post by PhantomKnight on Dec 15, 2020 19:54:15 GMT -5
Just when I thought Artemis Fowl would be the worst movie 2020 had to offer, along comes Robert Zemeckis to prove me wrong.
And that's really perhaps the most depressing thing about this iteration of The Witches: that the director who once gave us classics like Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Forrest Gump (fight me, you haters) has given us what is easily not only the worst movie of his career, but one of the worst family films of the 21st Century so far. If his misguided Polar Express movie wasn't a clear-enough sign, then The Witches is absolute proof-positive that Robert Zemeckis has become tremendously out-of-touch when it comes to effects-driven studio movies. Memorably, the motion capture in Polar Express is incredibly stiff and lifeless, but I'll take that over the horribly dated-looking CGI on display in The Witches.
Having recently re-watched the original 1990 film adaptation of Roald Dahl's book, while that movie certainly had a couple of issues, at least it had an edge. Director Nicolas Roeg brought a dash of darkness to that movie that ended up benefitting the overall tone, as well as provided memorable imagery through some great make-up effects. As expected, though, this version feels toothless and sanitized to the point where the movie has no personality or degree of subtlety for that matter; it's every bit the loud, obnoxious sort of family film you'd expect the Hollywood of today to shit out. After a certain point, it feels like everything in this movie needlessly gets turned up to 11, from the dumb humor, to the overacting of a lot of the cast, to the emphasis on CGI mice and just bad effects in general. I remember there being kind of a creepy and tragic backstory in the original film that established the general aura of the witches quite well, and while this movie attempts the same thing here, it's instantly marred by the clearly-wrong instincts for the material on full display throughout the movie(the first time we see a witch in this movie is when the question of this movie's quality is truly sealed). For example, whereas Angelica Huston's performance as The Grand High Witch in the original certainly had its sillier side, Huston still knew when to turn up the camp and when to be more subdued. By contrast, Anne Hathaway's performance here is always campy and over the top, right on down to her accent. I'll give Hathaway credit for at least committing to such an approach, but it just doesn't work. Much like the majority of the movie surrounding her, the performance is just devoid of any real bite and downright obnoxious.
There's one bright spot, however, and that's Octavia Spencer as The Grandmother. Spencer really brings a welcome warmness to the movie, and a result, she's the only one who emerges from this thing relatively unscathed. Also, apart from a painfully overdone opening scene, the first fifteen to twenty minutes, which largely focuses on the main kid gradually opening up to Spencer's character after the loss of his parents is hands down the best stretch in the movie. It's here where we see glimmers of the Zemeckis of old; the sentimentality is well-played and both actors are genuinely charming, which make moments like Grandma trying to cheer the kid up with music well-earned. But whatever goodwill those scenes drum up is promptly squashed by the rest of the movie.
You're really just better off with the 1990 movie. While that one is by no means a masterpiece, it still had better instincts and grasp on how to tell this story than this new version. Robert Zemeckis's take on the material is just a blob of bad CGI and annoyingly overdone humor; too safe for adults and not edgy enough for kids. It gives us every reason to fear his Pinocchio remake coming in 2021.
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