Pete's Dragon

Love, Just a one syllable four letter word. So simple yet so powerful. Hatred, a two syllable word, complex but powerful. Both the words are powerful enough in their ways. Both resides on us, but it's us, humans, who have to decide which side we will take, on which word we will act on! Animals are primitive, ferocious, vicious and wild, but it's ours, men's point of view. May be they think of us the vice-versa. We fail to see the beauty of them, beauty of this planet. It's because we look upon them with our greedy eyes and filthy souls. But what of a child, who looked in a different way, . He saw them kind, naive and innocent. He could see the goods in them because he acted on the first word, Love! The message was great. To talk about the direction, it's overall an average, sometimes down to the marks direction! The boy is a brilliant actor, with some help of a good director, he can deliver the goods.

Liked this a lot. I was 4 when I first saw Pete's dragon way back in '83 or whatever back in England. I remember how much I loved the idea of Pete's dragon. I watched the original a few years back and realized that it was a fairly average musical with an animated dragon. But still!!!! I remember how great the story or idea of a personal dragon was. The modern spin is very sentimental, but never cheesy. Everything was great; from casting to special effects. I really enjoyed this movie. If you remember the old Pete's dragon from back when you were a skid, you'll love this movie. To be completely honest, there were several tear jerker moments. I guess they really nailed down the aspects of a child becoming suddenly orphaned. They also did a really good job if propelling the story so that it never sat idle. Robert Redford played the integral old timer part, but played it exceptionally well as to be expected. It is also relevant to mention that I typically do not review movies I have just seen immediately after I have seen them. This film made an exception for me.

I watched the original movie when I was kid, and my brothers and I still consider it one of our fav children movies ever. You can imagine my excitement and also my apprehension when I learned that this film was being filmed.

This is a very enjoyable family film that has lovely moments of tenderness, wonderful special effects (the design of Elliot, flying scenes, etc.), it has fun and plenty of action, and Redford and Howard are good in their roles and seem to believe in magic because I thought they were the best thing in the film.

However, the movie lack the most important thing to me -- magic. All the characters keep speaking about magic, but the actors playing them don't believe in magic, the film does not create magic, so it feels a lovely fantasy film not a magic children's film. I didn't feel it in my heart. And that being the case, the film is not memorable to me.

I haven't seen the original yet, but this is a real family movie. And yes some may be surprised by the fact that the voice of the Crypt Keeper (Tales from the Crypt) is "speaking" the Dragon, but that would mean you are not familiar with the versatility of the guy behind the voice and also his body of work (no pun intended).

But apart from the good effects and some good family story, you also have some heavyweights in front of the camera. Redford alone is amazing, but he gets support (literally) by everybody else. A story with highs and lows and while it is predictable, it is also exactly what family entertainment should be. Nothing more but certainly nothing less

I thoroughly enjoyed 'Pete's Dragon' because it made me remember that there is magic if you dare to believe!

To be fair, there were a few things that were not too great (like some of the actors), but for some reason I could see beyond that. Thanks to the beautiful story itself, the magnificent cinematography, the lifelike CGI animation of Elliot (the dragon) and the superb acting of Oakes Fegley as Pete.

David Lowery did a good job directing the movie, and casting Robert Redford as Meacham was a smart choice.

I can only recommend this movie - and not only to families and kids, but to everybody who's open to fairy tales and magic.