Pete's Dragon (2016)

The problem is that I like the 1977 version. Oh, it’s flawed, but so what? There are a lot of flawed movies out there, and if we stopped liking movies because they’re imperfect, we wouldn’t be seeing a whole lot of movies. And, yes, it’s possible that I’ve got nostalgia goggles on regarding it, but that doesn’t stop people around here when it comes to liking movies, either. Actually, I have to admit liking the remake more this time around than I did the first time that I saw it, but also that’s not the world’s highest bar.

In this version, Pete (Levi Alexander) is out on an adventure with his family in 1977. His father (Gareth Reeves) swerves to avoid hitting a deer, and he and Pete’s mother (Esmée Myers) are killed. A wolf pack goes after Pete, and he runs—pretty much straight into a dragon. He names the dragon Elliott, after a book he was reading when the car crashed, and they live together in the woods. For six years. A logging crew is working near their lair, and they discover Pete. Forest ranger Grace Meacham (Bryce Dallas Howard) agrees to take care of him.

She is in a relationship with logging foreman and single father Jack (Wes Bentley), whose daughter, Natalie (Oona Laurence), is the one to find Pete. Meanwhile, his brother, Gavin (Karl Urban), finds evidence of Elliott and decides to go after him. Grace has grown up on the story of the time her father (Robert Redford) saw a dragon, and Pete’s drawing of Elliott looks like the one her father drew for her when she was a child. Pete is desperately, frantically trying to get back to Elliott; Elliott is searching for Pete. And, of course, there’s the whole “what do you do with a feral child in the ‘80s?” aspect of things.

And, well, that’s part of where this falls apart for me. The original Pete, set some eighty years earlier, had no discernible family. His parents died, probably, or else he was abandoned. There’s a slim file on this Pete and his family, but I find the whole thing implausible. Presumably the wrecked car was found. You’d think the file on Pete would be much thicker, and there’s no suggestion that anyone is still wondering what happened to him—no other family and no friends. It’s possible that both his parents were orphaned only children, but it’s not likely, is it?

In a movie about a kid and his dragon. Okay, fair. Still. Pete is orphaned and lost, and Elliott is lost, and it’s charming. But I have too many questions. The original Elliott couldn’t talk but was clearly of human-level intelligence; this Elliott is more canine. (Including being furry, apparently to make him more lovable.) Bright canine, but canine. I don’t believe a bright dog could keep a kid fed enough so that he doesn’t appear to malnourished. I don’t believe Pete wouldn’t have more scars—kids who lead much more ordinary lives often end up with more scars than Pete has, and they aren’t running around in the woods all day for six years.

It’s also a dark movie. Not emotionally, particularly, but visually. It’s not as muddy as some movies, but even the scenes that are intended to convey joy are fairly dim. Okay, the original is fairly candy-coloured, particularly when it comes to Elliott himself, but the fact that it’s so bright really sets it apart from the griminess of a lot of other ‘70s film. If ‘70s film often seems to have dirt smeared all over everything, unto the film stock itself, 2010s movies never quite seem to be lit sufficiently. You could do an interesting contrast between the shadowed green of a pine forest and the brightness of a modern-day house, but they don’t.

I also don’t feel as though we get much in the way of character development. Pete is basically a cipher. Elliott, as established, is a dog. Gavin wants to hunt down Elliott but the film itself admits that he doesn’t know why or what he’ll do from there. When he shoots Elliott, it’s with a tranquilizer dart, but when he initially goes after the dragon, it sure isn’t. (How much tranquilizer do you need to take out a dragon that size in the first place?) Meacham is fascinated by dragons, and that’s it. Grace and Jack have no chemistry. Natalie doesn’t seem to have any emotional response to Pete at all.

In short, to me, the movie is simply flat. It holds no appeal. Granted, I can understand not liking “Candle on the Water” and finding the Mickey Rooney character insufferable and being creeped out by the acknowledged slavery of Pete. That’s fair. But at least there’s something memorable about the ‘77 version. This one is just another one of those dim attempts to produce The Wonder Of Childhood or similar. Dim, again, from a purely visual perspective. There’s no contrast here, either visually or emotionally.