Wasn't sure what to expect from this 1990 kiddie fantasy film, but thought it was worth taking a look at for Dahl's original story and performances by Rowan Atkinson and Anjelica Huston. The film passes the grade -- it doesn't talk down to either its child or adult audience, and contains a dark sense of humor combined with memorable characters.
The plot concerns a little boy named Luke (Jasen Fisher), recently orphaned, who is taken with him grand mom (Mai Zetterling, showing impressive gravitas in this role) on a holiday by the beach, staying at a posh hotel run by a "stuffed shirt" who sleeps with his hired maids, Mr. Stringer (Atkinson). They become enmeshed in a conspiracy launched by the Grand High Witch (Huston) to turn every child in England into a mouse. After he and a corpulent friend are turned into mice, Luke must attempt to save the future of the Kingdom and escape all cats in the vicinity at the same time.
The film is somewhat remarkable for being so straightforward -- these witches just HATE children and that's pretty much what they are about. I'd say the screenplay was good; I haven't read the Dahl story but it had enough of the sense of irony and self-awareness that I've seen in his other books to believe it's a reasonably faithful adaption. Roeg tones down his sometimes chaotic style of directing and gets some fine work in here, even managing to make some of the film's more casual scenes memorable.
I have to admit I'm a fan of Rowan Atkinson, and this was one of his better small roles. I've never seen him in a romantic situation as they showed which was a novelty. He's perfect for the role, which he invests with his best sniveling self-superior nerd act.
If there's a problem with the film for me, it was with the lengthy sequences where the Grand High Witch explains her plan to the other witches. It went on for far too long for an expository scene in a children's film, and I can only imagine that the film-makers (chief among them Jim Henson as exec producer, one of his last credits) wrongly believed that the animatronic work on the GHW's "true face" would sustain the scene's dynamics. Instead we feel as if we are watching a puppet talk for 5 or 10 minutes, which is exactly what we're doing. At this point the scene fails to generate the excitement or dread that it should -- or that for example Walter Murch created in his scenes with the evil headless witch in "Return to Oz". We've seen too much already, there is nothing for the rest of the film to build up to. I felt that Huston is a great actress and they should have allowed her to do the scene instead of cheating with effects. The scenes with Huston in her campy witch persona without makeup are among the best in the film.
Only other problem, the ending felt a bit rushed to me, the problems were solved a bit too easily. On the whole though, this is a film I would think kids would enjoy and adults will not feel insulted by, so people might want to think about seeking this out instead of a lot of the awful stuff being done nowadays. It's become an oldie-but-goodie in the fast-moving kiddie fantasy world.
The plot concerns a little boy named Luke (Jasen Fisher), recently orphaned, who is taken with him grand mom (Mai Zetterling, showing impressive gravitas in this role) on a holiday by the beach, staying at a posh hotel run by a "stuffed shirt" who sleeps with his hired maids, Mr. Stringer (Atkinson). They become enmeshed in a conspiracy launched by the Grand High Witch (Huston) to turn every child in England into a mouse. After he and a corpulent friend are turned into mice, Luke must attempt to save the future of the Kingdom and escape all cats in the vicinity at the same time.
The film is somewhat remarkable for being so straightforward -- these witches just HATE children and that's pretty much what they are about. I'd say the screenplay was good; I haven't read the Dahl story but it had enough of the sense of irony and self-awareness that I've seen in his other books to believe it's a reasonably faithful adaption. Roeg tones down his sometimes chaotic style of directing and gets some fine work in here, even managing to make some of the film's more casual scenes memorable.
I have to admit I'm a fan of Rowan Atkinson, and this was one of his better small roles. I've never seen him in a romantic situation as they showed which was a novelty. He's perfect for the role, which he invests with his best sniveling self-superior nerd act.
If there's a problem with the film for me, it was with the lengthy sequences where the Grand High Witch explains her plan to the other witches. It went on for far too long for an expository scene in a children's film, and I can only imagine that the film-makers (chief among them Jim Henson as exec producer, one of his last credits) wrongly believed that the animatronic work on the GHW's "true face" would sustain the scene's dynamics. Instead we feel as if we are watching a puppet talk for 5 or 10 minutes, which is exactly what we're doing. At this point the scene fails to generate the excitement or dread that it should -- or that for example Walter Murch created in his scenes with the evil headless witch in "Return to Oz". We've seen too much already, there is nothing for the rest of the film to build up to. I felt that Huston is a great actress and they should have allowed her to do the scene instead of cheating with effects. The scenes with Huston in her campy witch persona without makeup are among the best in the film.
Only other problem, the ending felt a bit rushed to me, the problems were solved a bit too easily. On the whole though, this is a film I would think kids would enjoy and adults will not feel insulted by, so people might want to think about seeking this out instead of a lot of the awful stuff being done nowadays. It's become an oldie-but-goodie in the fast-moving kiddie fantasy world.