Pete's Dragon is an American drama/comedy meant for the whole family. It is based upon the 1977 musical of the same name. It is listed as a remake but it is less of a remake and more of a film "loosely based upon the original characters" kind of remake. The original was also a musical and was done in live action animation.

Pete's Dragon was written by David Lowery and Toby Halbrooks. It was directed by David Lowery and produced by James Whitaker. 

The film has some notable cast members. Most notably are Wes Bentley, Karl Urban, and Robert Redford. The cast in order of importance to the story are listed below.

Cast:

Bryce Dallas Howard

Oakes Fegley

Wes Bentley

Karl Urban

Oona Laurence

Robert Redford

Isiah Whitlock Jr.

Marcus Henderson

Aaron Jackson

Phil Grieve

Jim McLarty

And John Kassir plays the voice of Elliot the Dragon.

Plot:

The film begins by introducing us to Pete (Fegley). He is a boy about the age of 5 traveling with his parents on a family trip when a deer runs out in front of their car. While trying to avoid hitting the deer, the car drives off the road and flips over. Both of Pete's parents are killed in the car accident. 

Pete is left stranded deep out in the middle of the forest with nothing but the few possessions he had with him for the family trip. Shortly after the accident, a pack of wolves show up to eat young Pete. Just when it is looking the darkest for Pete, a large green dragon shows up and rescues him from the pack of hungry wolves. 

Pete is at first frightened by the dragon but quickly takes to him as a friend when he realizes he doesn't have much other choice. The dragon also seems to take quite a liking to him as well. Pete decides to name the dragon "Elliot" after the dog in his favorite children's book.

The two soon become best friends. They live and play together deep out in the middle of the forest, sharing a cave together. They really are the only family that each of them has. Since the car accident happened so deeply out in the woods no one ever found Pete or the dragon so they continued to live out there for many years. It really was a nice little life for them. 

However, that all changed one day when Pete was 11 years old. A lumber company had been making it's way deeper and deeper into the woods in search of more and more trees. They stumbled upon Pete and decided that he needed to be "rescued" so they took him into the town and tried to find out what had happened to him and why he had been living in the wilderness for the past 6 years.

Everything was going well in regards to Pete getting taken care of in the town, that is until the loggers stumble upon his dragon...

I won't go into any more details of the plot here. If you want to find out what happens next, you will just have to rent the film. ;)

Reception:

The film has received good reviews from both critics and regular viewers alike. Most critics seem to agree that the film does a good job of being exactly what it was intended to be, a family film that hints at magic and wonder that is out there hidden in the world.

Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an 86% approval rating while IMDB gives the film a 6.8/10 rating. 

That first number is rather surprising given the lower rating by IMDB users. In general the Rotten Tomatoes audience seems to be much more difficult to get higher ratings with. That 86% approval rating is a pretty high percentage. Therefore it could concluded that the film has had a slightly better reception among critics that regular viewers. 

Financially the film has done very well. With a production budget of "only" $65 million, the film has grossed around $144 million to date. Continuing Disney's recent hot streak of successful family movies. 

My Review:

Overall I felt the film wasn't quite as good as the critics and many of the regular viewers had thought. It was a decent film but it really does stray quite a bit from the original. Not sure about many of the other users here, but I grew up watching the original Pete's Dragon and it was one of my favorite movies when I was a little boy. Then when I heard there was a remake in the works I was pretty excited to say the least.

After finally viewing it, I felt like they deviated much too far from the original. I felt like if they were going to deviate this far from the original they should make it a little more realistic than it was. I would have liked to see some explanation of where the dragons came from and why one seemed to be stranded like it was, and then why it decided to befriend a little boy for that matter.

The movie basically just leaves all of that up to the imagination of the audience. I liked the imagination in the first one but maybe the producers felt this story would appeal to a larger audience than the original did, I am not sure. I just wish it would have stayed truer to the original or have been "more realistic" than this one was. I understand that a film can only be so realistic when it is based off of a dragon befriending a young boy, but still...

I thought the casting was pretty well done. However, it was an interesting mix of Hollywood hot shots and no name actors. It was a bit odd in that regard. Robert Redford was a great choice as the narrator/story teller. I could listen to his voice or Morgan Freeman's voice just about all day long, although I would probably fall asleep.

Overall I would rate this film as a 6.5/10.

It wasn't my favorite movie for some of the reasons stated above, but it still was done fairly well. It was magic entertainment for the entire family, which is exactly what it was trying to be I think. It did a good job not deviating too far away from the family movie it was intended to be. There are some films that are stated to be family films that turn out to be far from it, not this one.

I would recommend it if you can't find anything better at Redbox or if you are looking for something that the whole family can enjoy. Something that children 10 years and younger will like but also not too terrible that their parents won't be able to sit through it. This movie fits that category perfectly. For me personally, I just had such high expectations considering the original was one of my favorite movies as a young boy, it was hard for me to rate it much higher than I did. 

It's at Redbox right now. Worth the rent if your situation meets the criteria mentioned above. 

Live well my friends!

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete%27s_Dragon_(2016_film)

Image Sources:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2788732/mediaindex?ref_=tt_pv_mi_sm

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