Pete's Dragon just sucks. The Boatniks is also relentlessly offensive. Which makes it more entertaining.
Joe Flynn's flunkie in McHale's Navy. (And how was Joe Flynn NOT in Boatniks?) And I'm with mawnck. If I'm going to watch something awful, I'll go with relentlessly offensive over garden variety sucks most days of the week.
Just got back from Pete's Dragon. There was one other couple of two people in the theatre. I have to tell you, this is seriously the best movie Disney has made in years. It had heart, and was a tear jerker. Go see it. It's old school Disney magic. Not a boatniks, not a Superdad. This is more like Old yeller with a dragon. Great, great movie.
Yeah, I know, flawed system... but 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, and 7.2 out 10 average. Some of the reviews are excellent! I was also completely unaware that Robert Redford was in it. Is it a cameo? Shouldn't he have been part of the marketing?
I think he's been in some of the marketing, though more understated than I would have expected. If I'm not mistaken he plays Bryce Dallas Howard's father (the role that Mickey Rooney had in the original, though I suspect the character is no longer an alcoholic played for comedy)
I saw the movie over the weekend and have to say that I was quite surprised by how good it is. I found it totally engaging and even quite moving. If they are going to keep doing remakes, perhaps the right strategy is to go with source material where the premise was a lot better than the original film. Redford does have a substantial supporting role and is very good in. He's particularly pivotal to the last 1/3 of the movie.
I've seen plenty of commercials for it, but was unaware Redford was in it. Not that he never picks a bad project, but he's at the stage now where he doesn't HAVE to do anything, and tends to pick good ones. So if they'd shown him in commercials, I might have thought "Hmmm... maybe this is better than I was thinking it would be..." - because my initial reaction was the same as many others here: "Really? What an odd choice for a remake. No interest."
While I'm heartened that the film was as good as Jeff claims (I rarely disagree with his impeccable movie tastes ), I'm still disturbed by this never-ending push by Disney to remake what appears to be their entire film catalog! Lowery's next project is rebooting Peter Pan. If there's one IP in the Disney canon that needs to be permanently vaulted, it's Pan. Enough already!
Aww. Thanks Jim. I will say that while I think this live-action-conversion spree is a bit silly, I can't complain too much if it produces Jungle Book and Petes Dragon, two of the best studio films of the year. And in the end, I just want good movies. Besides, it's not like they're not making new content. Zootopia was excellent and Moana looks like it could be another winner. Both in the same year. And at least Disneys finally making good live action films. Who'd a thunk? And anyway, like the cheapquels, this too shall pass. When the money dries up.
But with the Jungle Book making 940+ million worldwide and I think Beauty and the Beast is going to be huge next year. Like possibly 400 million/1billion huge, it's going to be awhile.
Fingers crossed for a re-boot of 'One of our Dinosaurs is Missing' 'The North Avenue Irregulars' and 'Condorman'
