Director Robert Zemeckis’s remake of Roald Dahl’s adventure/comedy classic The Witches promised a scary, funny and imaginative tale. One about a seven-year-old boy who has a run-in with some real-life witches.
Instead, ‘OK’ is the best I can say about the film. Anne Hathaway’s performance as the main witch wasn’t bad and I liked some of the special effects. Nevertheless, there’s a certain simplicity in the story execution that left me uninspired and dissatisfied.
In fairness, The Witches is based on a famous children’s book. So, naturally, I wasn’t expecting a sophisticated adult tale. Yet, I still hoped to feel more pleased to have watched it than I did.
Luckily, I managed to find parts of the movie that stood out to me in a good way. For example, the above perfectly infectious smile on Anne Hathaway’s face, Chris Rock’s fun voice/narration, the ‘comforted’ feeling I experienced once Octavia Spencer’s loving grandma character showed up. I also enjoyed the musical score and the wonderfully suspenseful scene that involves the task of getting the potion into the pea soup. A moment that took me right back to my favourite Disney Pixar movie, Ratatouille (2007). Lastly, there’s the very pleasantly dramatic dining scene that follows the pea soup ‘flavouring’ incident.
Overall, it’s ultimately the relationship between grandma and grandson that I loved most about The Witches. It’s just a shame that I didn’t find the film as a whole to be as satisfying as my favourite scenes in it.
Give The Witches a chance if you’re especially curious. Undoubtedly, it’s young children who will enjoy it most.
Happy Film Loving
G
The Movie My Life 
Had high hopes too because it’s a Zemeckis movie. At least it wasn’t completely terrible, right?
Yes, there’s almost always something to like in disappointing movies. Sometimes there’re too awful to stick with to find the good. Thankfully this wasn’t quite like that.
I was disappointed in this as well. I liked the version with Angelica Houston much better, and I really tried not to compare. Like you, I really did enjoy the relationship between the grandmother and grandson. I even liked the relationship with his friends, but at times the scenes with the witches almost had me cringing. No, it wasn’t horrible but it wasn’t the best either.
I’m still yet to watch the original. Hopefully I’ll get to before 2021! 🤓 I’m quite sure that I could have watched a whole movie about the grandma/grandson relationship, minus all the witch stuff. Perhaps something like that is coming our way soon. 😊🙏
That would be nice and so fun to watch.