Pete's Dragon (2016)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It is so daring, it is so ambitious, it is so thrilling and weird and pointed and powerful. I never knew where it was going.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

A story about a lost orphaned boy who befriends a magical dragon. But really it's a story about loneliness. The rest of civilisation, who find the boy six years later, think the boy is lonely, missing his family, but he's made a family with the dragon, whom he calls Elliot. But Elliot needs Pete just as much as Pete needs Elliot, both were orphaned and lonely, and need each other to survive. But the dragon was the loneliest of all the characters because it had never met another of its species.Unfortunately some thought the dragon was a monster, that needed to tamed, captured and exploited, when in reality the dragon was a rare endangered species that needed protecting and preserving, and to with its own kind.A wonderful children's story and definitely worth watching as a film.

Pete's DragonAn appreciative homage and throwback to all those early Disney features that meddled with such beasts and monsters in their self-created fragile world. The feature has the heart is in the right place in here but the emotions it draws out isn't something new that may bedazzle or mesmerize the audience contradictory to the expectations. The technical aspects like background score and vfx could have been a lot better if supervised properly. On terms of writing, it offers a wafer thin script that is saved by the performance and execution for it loses its track within its first few minutes and never lifts up. David Lowery is the saviour of this sinking ship that helps the viewers survive the journey with the perfect editing and stunning colourful visuals. The performance is decent by Oakes Fegley and is supported with a good cast like Robert Redford, Bryce Dallas Howard and Karl Urban. As such animated feature (the premise is similar to it) requires, the tiny rich details is the missing puzzle that fails to connect this character driven feature with the audience. Pete's Dragon is a feasible pet but not worthy of the time and the suffering that it takes to appreciate its art which too is familiar to the viewers.

I liked this movie, but not as much as I wanted to...Elliot is a CGI beauty, no doubt about it. The green dragon is perfectly incorporated in the film and it doesn't feel like Oakes Fegley is acting in front of a green screen instead. It's hard not to be convinced by it and that helps when at the end, they give us all the usual dramatic showdown because I genuinely cared about Elliot.And that's the main problem with this adaptation: there's so little Elliot. I mean, the movie's called Pete's Dragon, so one instantly assumes that this is a story about Pete and his dragon. The truth isn't quite that, since there are a lot of supporting characters that act like they're the protagonists. Jack (Wes Bentley) doesn't have a single bonding scene with Pete, Karl Urban as Gavin is intended to be the unnecessary "villain", Natalie (Oona Laurence) has a lot of screen time as well as Grace, and Meacham (Robert Redford) is just the old man who once saw a dragon ...  A whole bunch of scenes is spent with these and more characters, which proves that the film really struggles to find someone for the audience to identify themselves with.Even the kid is not as compelling and captivating as he should be. Oakes Fegley is fine, but he should have been a lot better (he doesn't get close to Mowgli, in The Jungle Book, for example). There's a gap between the moment where Pete leaves the dragon for a while and from the moment where they get back together: that gap takes forever to close and it definitely brings the movie down.It might feel like I disliked this movie, but don't be mistaken. This IS a GOOD movie, but it could've been great. Elliot is a wonderful CGI creation, the film is beautiful to look at, Pete and Grace's family scenes are really heartfelt and it does bring you the "feels" by the end, if you know what I mean.MSB Reviews - If you like my reviews, please follow my blog :)

"You know, when I was a little girl…I wanted to live in the forest more than anything. I love being out there. It was so fun, with the squirrels and the birds and the trees… So, when I grew up, I made it my job to protect the woods, and everything in them. Which I supposed includes you." I've just written down my opinion about "Beauty and the beast" and I realized that I've been watching "Pete's dragon" a couple of times already, along with my 7 year old daughter, without telling anything about it. Some catching up to do I guess. Let me just pull a short and powerful piece of opinion out of the hat. As I mentioned before, I always appreciate a live-action rendition of a Disney cartoon. Now, the 1977 version was actually already a sort of a mixture of an ordinary movie and pieces of drawings (and late Mickey Rooney starring in it as well). The dragon in this newer version looks lifelike and fortunately it doesn't have that pink wig anymore, but it lights up like a green lantern whenever Pete touches it.There's only one way to keep my kids interested while watching a Disney movie. Try to suck them into the story instantly and immediately show them that specific item which was the initial cause for them to watch the movie anyway. So no long-lasting digressions at the beginning, please. And that's why my impatient daughter liked this Disney so much. It didn't take long for the dragon, who set himself the task to look after poor Pete (Oakes Fegley), to reveal himself. Before my daughter knew it, she was watching breathlessly how trees were smashed down and she saw this immense green dragon appear (a cuddly kind of dragon thanks to his soft looking fur). An additional positive element is the fact that the fatal accident isn't portrayed explicitly. As a result the curious question "What happened to Pete's mom and dad?" was asked lots of times. But this incident was forgotten quickly as soon as the adventurous pace was switched into a higher gear.The rest of the film isn't very original and contains the known theme with young people who still believe in fairy tales and are amazed by these fairy tale-like events without thinking of any financial gain. And of course they have to contend with adults whose intentions aren't so good when it's about these miracles. Indeed, money or fear are usually motives to capture the fantasy. In "Pete's dragon" it's Gavin (Karl Urban) who wants to make money out of Elliot, by using him as a sideshow attraction. Of course there are still adults who believe in legends and fairy tales like Meacham (Robert Redford). And then there are those who begin to believe in it after a while, like Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Jack (West Belley). And all this is supplemented with youthful enthusiasm, adventurous experiences and terribly exciting action. On child level, that is.Oh well, ultimately I've enjoyed myself with this simple youth movie. A moment of relaxation and a feeling of childish amazement. And at the same time enjoying the applied modern techniques and graphic magic. The moment Pete and Elliot were chasing each other and Elliott splashed into the flowing river, was a beautiful scene. And as an adult, I also appreciated the acting of Robert Redford, Bryce Dallas Howard and of course Oakes Fegley. But do you know what pleasured me the most? That moment my daughter looked at me with such smiling eyes, full of sparkles, and asked me convincingly if we would watch it again one time. Mission accomplished Disney! More reviews here : http://bit.ly/2qtGQoc