The Magical World Of Disney #360: Top 100 Disney Movies, Part 30

42. Pete’s Dragon (2016)

Pete’s Dragon is a 2016 American fantasy comedy-drama adventure film directed by David Lowery, written by Lowery and Toby Halbrooks, and produced by James Whitaker. The film is a live-action reimagining of Disney’s 1977 live-action/animated musical film of the same name written by Malcolm Marmorstein. The film stars Bryce Dallas Howard, Oakes Fegley, Wes Bentley, Karl Urban, Oona Laurence, and Robert Redford. The film tells the story of an orphaned feral boy who befriends a dragon in the Pacific Northwest, and the ensuing repercussions of their discovery by the town’s local residents.

Pete’s Dragon premiered at the El Capitan Theatre on August 8, 2016 and was theatrically released by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States in 2D, Disney Digital 3-D, and RealD 3D formats on August 12, 2016. The film received positive reviews from critics and grossed over $143 million worldwide against a $65 million production budget.

Essentially a remake of the 1977 film, Pete’s Dragon is the adventures of an orphaned boy named Pete (played by newcomer Oakes Fegley) and his best friend Elliot, who just so happens to be a dragon.

Now, I’ll be perfectly fair, it’s been a LONG long time since I saw the original Pete’s Dragon, this is back when it was airing on the Disney Channel in the mid 90s, that’s how long it’s been since I’ve seen the original so I don’t have a fair recollection of it but I do know that there was a lot of parts about that film that were very over the top like the main bad guys but the animation on Elliott, done by Don Bluth and his team when they were working at Disney, was pretty impressive for the timeperiod.

As I talked about when I talked about the trailer, it’s clear that Disney is trying their hardest to capture the spirit of the original Pete’s Dragon while putting it in a modern setting. As long as they can stay true to the original movie and get rid of the elements that wouldn’t work today, I think that there’s definite potential for something fun here.

And as this new film goes, I really loved the film. I think this remake does a good job standing on its’ own keeping a lot of the elements from the original film but also not going for too much over the top flair to it.

The connection between Pete and Elliott, voiced here by John Kassir while in the original it was Charlie Callas, is great, you really do believe their relationship in this and the motion capture work on Elliott is incredible.

The performances from the cast were really solid, Bryce Dallas Howard was really good in this, although was I the only one who kept making the jokes about her not wearing high heels in reference to that being one of the main complaints from a lot of people in Jurassic World.

Wes Bentley and Karl Urban were really solid in this as was Robert Redford and Fegley and Oona Laurence worked off each other really well too.

If there’s any real complaints that I had, I would say that the movie kind of has a hard time finding out what kind of a story they want to tell, like Karl Urban’s character is the closest thing this movie comes to a bad guy but even then, he’s not doing anything villainous, he just doesn’t know what to do about this dragon that they’ve just found out in the woods. There’s even a point towards the beginning of the third act where he says “this is gonna put me on the map” and his brother is like “really, what are you gonna do with this thing?” and Urban’s just like “uh….I don’t know.” Like the movie forgot to give him a motivation once they actually captured this thing.

Also, I thought that the ending of the movie was a little too happy. I do remember that in the original film, Elliott had to leave Pete to help another kid and it was genuinely heartbreaking because of the relationship of this kid and his dragon. In this remake, they do the same scene from the original film where Elliott lets Pete go but then, the last scene of the film is Pete reuniting with Elliott and his family so they made a much happier ending to this…not that there’s anything wrong with that but at the same time, they kind of missed the point of the end of the original film. When Elliott left Pete in the original film, he was never going to see him again but in this, it’s like he’ll still see him again.

Despite those problems, I really enjoyed the movie. In terms of Disney’s latest retreads, I would probably put it ahead of the Alice in Wonderland films and Maleficent but not quite as good as The Jungle Book or Cinderella.

41. Honey, I Shrunk The Kids (1989)

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids is a 1989 American comic science fiction film. The directorial debut of Joe Johnston and produced by Walt Disney Pictures, it tells the story of an inventor who accidentally shrinks his and his neighbor’s kids to a quarter of an inch with his electromagnetic shrinking machine and throws them out into the backyard with the trash, where they must venture into their backyard to return home while fending off insects and other obstacles.

Rick Moranis stars as Wayne Szalinski, the inventor who accidentally shrinks his children, Amy (Amy O’Neill) and Nick (Robert Oliveri). Marcia Strassman portrays his wife, Diane, to whom he delivers the titular line. Matt Frewer, Kristine Sutherland, Thomas Wilson Brown, and Jared Rushton star as Russ, Mae, Russ Jr., and Ron Thompson, the Szalinskis’ next-door neighbors.

The film became an unexpected box office success, grossing in excess of $222 million worldwide, and became the highest-grossing live-action Disney film ever, a record it held for five years. It was met with positive reviews from both critics and audiences, who praised the story, visuals and innovation. Its success spawned two sequels Honey, I Blew Up the Kid in 1992 and the direct-to-video Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves in 1997, which both received mixed critical reception, as well as leading to the creation of a TV show that ran from 1997 to 2000.

But we’re here to talk about Honey, I Shrunk The Kids and for the most part, Honey, I Shrunk The Kids is a great fun family adventure film.

Rick Moranis is great as Wayne Szalinski, the kid actors they got are very good, the rest of the cast is very solid all around. The overall script does a very good job of keeping the audience invested, the visuals are pretty impressive even by today’s standards and the action sequences that take place throughout the film are all very intense and very enthralling, very similar to some of the action scenes in the Indiana Jones films, how fitting considering Joe Johnston, the director, was the effects artist on the first two Indy films.

This is a great fun classic family adventure film, one of the best memories from my childhood, and one of Disney’s best live-action adventure films.

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