THE WITCHES

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2020 | PG | VOD

Director Robert Zemeckis

Cast Anne Hathaway, Octavia

Spencer, Jahzir Bruno, Stanley Tucci “Witches are real!” shrieks Chris Rock at the start of this glossy, Cgi-loaded adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1983 book. He’s not wrong, as our nameless orphan hero (Jahzir Bruno) discovers when he goes to stay at a coastal hotel with his kindly grandmother (Octavia Spencer). She knows all about witches, but Grandma is unaware that the hotel is about to host an arcane convention overseen by none other than the Grand High Witch herself (Anne Hathaway).

So far, so familiar to anybody who’s read the book or seen Nicolas Roeg’s creepy 1990 adaptation, but director Robert Zemeckis has a few aces up his sleeve. For one, he relocates the story to Alabama in 1968, giving familiar elements an Africanamerican spin that affords the film both fresh energy and an effective thematic subtext with the shadow of segregation.

Not everything sticks, though. Rock’s hyperactive narration is as unnecessary as the film’s bookending framing device, while a convoluted (and off-book) climax adds little to proceedings. And though Spencer is fantastic, Hathaway’s cabaret-level performance is more hammy than hair-raising (even if her Cg-assisted talons are pretty grim). It all boils down to a well-intentioned film that’s perhaps too puerile for adults and too gruesome for kids, and doesn’t hold a candle to Roeg’s definitive version.