Roald Dahl's The BFG (Big Friendly Giant) by A&E Home Video

Actors

• David Jason
• Amanda Root
• Angela Thorne
• Ballard Berkeley
• Michael Knowles

Format

• Animated
• Color
• NTSC

Editorial Review

When a giant silently snatches little Sophie from her orphanage bed and takes her through a vortex into another world, she has no idea she has just been rescued. The particular giant who kidnaps her is the friendly one of the title: an elf-like creature who forces himself to eat foul-tasting cucumber-like things instead of children and spends his nights delivering good dreams to them. Sophie and the BFG form a fast friendship in this animated feature based on the Roald Dahl book. But when they go back to England the next night, one of the evil giants follows them and eats several children, prompting the pair to seek intervention from the queen and a team of military helicopters. Once again Dahl's unique vision blends modern-day realism with a fantastical world, captured superbly in this 91-minute British production, starring the voices of Amanda Root and David Jason. Young ones may have a few anxious moments during Sophie's original abduction and a later chase by the meanest of the giants. But the scariness of child-munching is more than offset by the dream-like quality of the land of the giants, the BFG's sing-songy mangling of the English language, and the heroic pairing of orphan and oversized sprite. (Ages 3 and older.) –Kimberly Heinrichs