“What’s an adventure?” Pete asks his parents. The 5 year old is in the backseat as the family heads down a forest road into what promises to be a sunny summer vacation. But the deer crossing their path causes the car to swerve and roll onto its top. Only Pete survives, taking to heart his dad’s answer about adventure: “You gotta be brave,” especially when he’s approached by a creature anyone would be right to mistake for a monster.
Pete’s Dragon is a remake of a movie ripe for revisiting. Mildly entertaining but leaving few vivid impressions, the 1977 Disney children’s feature provides a suitable template for middle-aged parental nostalgia while keeping the kids amused by the spectacle of a large, frisky, flying dragon turned protective household pet. The creature has cuddly fur instead of the expected scales, and is given to sympathetic facial expressions and intelligent-sounding howls that recall Chewbacca the Wookiee rather than the fire-breathing leviathans of myth.
Directed and co-written by David Lowery, who grew up in the Milwaukee area, Pete’s Dragon stars Oakes Fegley as Pete, age 11 as the story begins in earnest. He’s agile and barefooted, wearing little more than a loincloth as he scrambles through the woods with his only friend, the dragon he named Elliot. Pete embodies the legend of the wild boy reared in nature that predates Tarzan by centuries. As always, civilization intrudes. Loggers are cutting their way into the deep forest; U.S. forest ranger Grace Meacham (Bryce Dallas Howard) is engaged to the most reasonable among them, Jack (Wes Bentley). Grace’s father (Robert Redford) is a benign codger who tells the small town children stories of the dragon he once saw in the woods. Grace doesn’t believe the old man. She is an empiricist who “sees only what’s in front of her,” her father complains. Her eyes will widen soon enough.
Enter the adolescent love interest: Natalie (Oona Laurence), who spots Pete in the woods. The kids are fascinated with one another and that’s a good thing—especially after the bad loggers decide they want to bag themselves a dragon. As in many stories of its kind, a conspiracy of children—and those few adults who see the world through their eyes—is mounted against the grim forces of what passes for adulthood.
Pete’s Dragon is a charming tale whose best moments concern the touching relations between a boy and a great furry creature unrecognized by zoologists. The computer-generated dragon is sufficiently convincing and lovable. Just don’t get him mad!
Pete’s Dragon
Bryce Dallas Howard
Oakes Fegley
Directed by David Lowery
Rated PG
