THE WITCHES

Three reasons we’re excited for Robert Zemeckis’ dark fantasy

ANNE HATHAWAY GOES BIG, NOT HOME

There are people out there who love to hate Anne Hathaway, and people who believe — correctly — that she is talented, hard-working and far cooler than she gets credit for. As the flamboyant, scenery-chewing Grand High Witch of Roald Dahl’s story, she may have found a way to finally unite both groups (told you she was good). She’s thoroughly evil and unbelievably hissable, which will make the haters happy, but — we suspect — should also be an absolute delight to watch laying waste to obsequious hotel staff and lording it over her fellow witches.

THE EFFECTS SHOULD ROCK

Much as we love Nicholas Roeg’s 1990 version, there were certain things that were difficult to do with the special effects of the day. Now, there are essentially no barriers left, especially for a director as well-versed in VFX as Robert ‘Performance-capture’ Zemeckis (pretty sure that’s legally his middle name). Much of this story takes place from the point of view of two small boys turned into even smaller mice, but that sort of scale-shift should be no challenge for the man who made Welcome To Marwen — although we’re betting these heroes will be significantly cuter.

THERE’S A NEW SETTING

Dahl’s book was set in a small English seaside town. Zemeckis’ film, however, takes place in the Deep South of the 1960s, adding an extra dimension to the power struggle between Hathaway’s big bad and Octavia Spencer’s grandmother, over the latter’s young grandson (newcomer Jahzir Kadeem Bruno). If the English book touched on questions of class, this one stays true to that and adds the element of race. That should give it even more resonance and power in our times, casting the Grand High Witch as the ultimate Karen against a determined, defiant Spencer.