“Pete’s Dragon” (Disney)
The classic boy-and-his-dog story assumes outsized proportions in this generally warmhearted fantasy adventure, a “reimagining” of the 1977 Disney musical.
This go-round, song and dance have been jettisoned, and hokeyness gives way to thrilling action and tear-jerking moments.
Orphaned by a tragic accident, a toddler (Levi Alexander) wanders into a remote forest in the Pacific Northwest where he’s raised by a friendly green dragon possessing the habits and charm of a basset hound.
Six years on, the pair (its human half now played by Oakes Fegley) are discovered by a kindly forest ranger (Bryce Dallas Howard) and her sympathetic woodcarver father (Robert Redford), who then try to keep a trigger-happy hunter (Wes Urban) from capturing the beast.
It’s a very tall tale, but a pleasantly fanciful one, directed at a gentle pace by David Lowery. The fact that Howard’s character already lives with her logger fiance (Wes Bentley) represents a strangely incongruous situation for a children’s movie, however. Though the precise nature of their relationship is, of course, never specified, the inclusion of this arrangement sadly bars endorsement for impressionable kids.
Apparent premarital cohabitation, potentially frightening action sequences, a handful of mild oaths. The Catholic News Service classification is A-II –- adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG – parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.
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“Cafe Society” (Lionsgate)
Writer-director Woody Allen’s seriocomic look at romance follows a Depression-era Bronx lad (Jesse Eisenberg) to Los Angeles, where he gets a job with his uncle (Steve Carell), a powerful Hollywood agent. But when his relationship with the agent’s lissome secretary (Kristen Stewart) leads to disillusionment, he returns to New York to manage a new nightclub owned by his gangster brother (Corey Stoll).
There a whirl of glamorous nightlife culminates in his marriage to a shimmering blond heiress (Blake Lively). The characters on offer in this nostalgic tale are all one-dimensional archetypes. Sincerity, moreover, gives way to the Allen’s one-liners, and no one becomes any wiser for their experiences.
Lost amid the trademark humor is any sustained, serious engagement with topics like marital fidelity.
Bloodless gun violence, mature themes, including adultery and prostitution, a drug reference, several uses of profanity, at least one crude term.
The Catholic News Service classification is A-III – adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 – parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
