Anne has some fun in the coven
ROALD DAHL’S THE WITCHES Pg ★★★✩✩
HIS name may be slapped above the title but you suspect Roald Dahl wouldn’t actually approve of this sugar-glazed adaptation of his stranger-danger classic. That said, it’s fun, warmhearted viewing for (almost) all the family – although best not show it to the under-eights if you ever want them to sleep again.
Co-producer/writer Guillermo Del Toro (The Shape Of Water) has relocated Dahl’s dark fable from 1980s Bournemouth to 1968 Alabama. Soon after a newly orphaned little African-American boy (Jahzir Bruno) goes to live with his grandma (a gorgeous and huggable Octavia Spencer), he’s stalked by an evil local witch. Fearing for his life, Granny skedaddles them away to a luxury hotel, little knowing that an annual witches’ convention is being held there.
Director Robert Zemeckis (Back To The Future, Polar Express) is clearly less interested in social context than special effects, which makes the dated-looking CGI creature work all the more disappointing. However, the human cast sparkle sufficiently.
Spencer is wonderful and there’s a delicious Devil Wears Prada reunion between Stanley Tucci (as the beleaguered hotel manager) and Anne Hathaway, who camps it up magnificently as the Grand High Witch, even if she can’t trump Anjelica Huston in the 1990 Nicolas Roeg version. Compared to the latter, this retelling is nothing to write home about but Dahl’s story still is a doozy.
If only The Witches 2020 had got its intended big-screen release – Hathaway’s Joker-like, splitfaced grin would have been a terrifying treat in 3D.
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