The BFG

The Big Friendly Giant, as played by Oscar winning actor Mark Rylance, is a kind, warm and welcoming giant.  He shanghais a young orphan named Sophie (played with just the right amount of feisty innocence by Ruby Barnhill)  because she accidentally sees him while looking out of her window late one night, and takes her to Giantland.  The BFG and the  little “human bean”  get off to a rocky start but become fast friends.  He protects her from the big carnivorous giants (he is a much smaller giant, they call him “Runt”, and is a vegetarian) and she helps him catch and bottle dreams.  The CGI effects are spectacular.  I especially enjoyed the meeting between the BFG and the Queen of England ( surprisingly well played by Penelope Wilton).  He introduces himself by saying he is her “humbug servant” and shares the secret of having a good  whizzpop (the BFG delightfully mangles the English language throughout the movie).  How Sophie, the Queen and the BFG work together to defeat the evil giants, with names like Bloodbottler and Maidmasher, is clever and exciting.  This is the last screen play that Melissa Mathison wrote before passing away at the age of 65.  I think she would have been proud of the way the whole thing turned out.