SummaryFor years, old wood carver Mr. Meacham (Robert Redford) has delighted local children with his tales of the fierce dragon that resides deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. To his daughter, Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard), who works as a forest ranger, these stories are little more than tall tales until she meets Pete (Oakes Fegley). Pe...
SummaryFor years, old wood carver Mr. Meacham (Robert Redford) has delighted local children with his tales of the fierce dragon that resides deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. To his daughter, Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard), who works as a forest ranger, these stories are little more than tall tales until she meets Pete (Oakes Fegley). Pe...
Our best fables and fairy tales are the ones that speak truth, and this version of Pete’s Dragon easily takes its place on any short list of the great films for young audiences as a result.
If your kids can get through the first five minutes of Pete’s Dragon (which rank right up there with the shooting of Bambi’s mother on the Disney trauma-o-meter), then you won’t find a sweeter family film for the waning days of summer.
The best family movie for a last decade. Genuinely interesting for adults as well as kids, beautifully shot, excellently acted and never stupid. A perfect counterpoint to the ADHD paced, candy coloured, CGI ridden nonsense made for idiots that parents usually have to suffer when taking their kids to the cinema.
Finally, Jon Favreau's Jungle Book has some competition for the best film this year. Unfortunately for other studios, it's also a Disney film. David Lowery's reimagining of Pete's Dragon is absolutely stunning. It's beautifully written, acted, directed, and shot. It's hard these days to find a film that excels in all of those categories, but Disney has managed to produce two of them this year. It's a much slower pace than The Jungle Book, but Pete's Dragon is a completely different type of film (even though it shares a common theme: family). Elliot will steal your heart, and not only do you believe he's 100% real, but you'll leave the theater wanting one of your very own. Go see this on the big screen & go see it now. If your kids have short attention spans, leave them on a corner somewhere…just go.
More than anything, this is a slice-of-life tale, whisper-thin but still full of feeling and a generous sense of place. With the world's most adorable dragon at the center of it all.
If the cast were less likeable, the predictability of the story might become wearisome. (Of course, it’s not likely to be predictable if you’re 9.) But all the actors, especially young Fegley and Laurence, engage us.
Pete’s Dragon sports an undeniably old-fashioned, even slightly square demeanour, but even when that aura feels a tad forced, Lowery’s loving care gives the movie a likeable, small-scale charm.
Those with fond memories of a gentler era of boy-and-his-insert-critter-here heartwarmers are bound to welcome Dragon’s old-fashioned vibe. But it still feels almost perverse to place all of Weta’s hi-tech wizardry at the disposal of a film so stubbornly, studiously lo-fi.
Haphazard plotting and seriously undernourished character development aside, none of the emotional stakes have been planted deeply enough to elicit audience involvement in young Pete’s plight.
It's Disney's best remake alongside Jungle Book. Go see it. It's worth all your money to see the story of an orphan boy and his pet dragon best friend.
For Pete, home is where Elliot is.
I saw the '77 film prior to this so that I'm not going to miss anything if the upgradation was done in this new version. That was a quite okay film, so do this one. The difference between two was mainly the technology, but there's a major surge on all departments. Somewhat this looked more enjoyable than the old one. Visually very good, all the actors are great and so the locations, but the story was too short, not the film. It was over a 90 minute long and the entire film looked like an introduction. So there were no developments, everything was just like a beginning. That means the sequel could become a great adventure or it should be.
The five year old boy Pete, who lost in the wood after the car with his parents met a mishap, is raised by a dragon named Elliot. Now, eleven, meets some people from the nearby town who came with an agenda. It's like he got everything back what he had lost 6 years ago. Followed by misunderstanding and the human interference in the Elliot's enclosure, the chaos unleash and thrilling final act proceeds before the narration concludes in a style.
The kid who played Pete looked some kind of related to Sarah Snook, but he was good and so the others. The film was not good as I was expecting. The box office success was not that great comparing with other Disney films. So the sequel is in doubt, yet the story had ended with a wide open. I am sure you will enjoy watching it, because everything was so pleasant, but only a few people would like it at the end. I don't know if you are one, but definitely worth a try.
6/10
Although it stars Robert Redford, Bryce Dallas Howard and (for some reason) the boyfriend from American Beauty, the Pete's Dragon reboot amounts to nothing more than a bunch of sentimental drivel. Nothing like the original.
The positive, challenging aspects of the original have been removed. For instance, the original was a friggin musical. No sign of that in this remake. The original was a romping, gritty, kid's fantasy. This new one feels like a sappy remake of King Kong, with 5% children and 95% folk music.
Remember the dad from the original? Robert Redford portrays him as straight-laced, benign and one-dimensional. An extra child has been added to the story, which is so unnecessary. The Gogans, the abusive, controversial foster family from the original, are completely absent. And the dragon, Elliot, has been stripped of his outrageous, hilarious personality from the original, to that of a mere dog. They should've named this movie Pete's Giant Green Puppy With Wings.
This is not for little kids. I don't even think it is good for bigger kids. It was such a sad movie. Even the happy boy and dragon at the end didn't make up for the horror of a 5 year old watching his parents die in a car accident. I did not get over the horror of their death so could not enjoy the rest of the movie. Even I, as a grandmother, am not old enough to have seen this. I avoid horror movies and this felt like one.