It can be easy to be cynical about Disney’s relentless franchise machine, a highly lucrative process that sees the studio reimagine, remake or prequel-/sequel-ize valued properties with big budgets and stars. While Disney cares about their legacy titles, they aren’t precious about them, and instead aim to reach a new generation of viewers with versions of those films, or continued storylines, that have the bells and whistles of contemporary tentpoles. From the outside, it can seem like a soulless enterprise, which makes “Pete’s Dragon” all the more remarkable. The 1977 original never achieved the kind of popularity of “Beauty And The Beast” and “Cinderella,” and there are likely any number of ways it could’ve been retooled as your standard big summer movie. But something else happened: Disney gave director David Lowery a bunch of money and let him make an intimate, character-driven movie about the relationship between a boy and his dragon. It’s a lovely film that resonates all the more so in a summer of louder, more cluttered movies, and knowing that Disney had the confidence to allow Lowery’s vision to flourish is the icing on the cake.
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Right off the top, Lowery makes two bold choices: The audience joins the kindergarten-age Pete in the back of the family car, and watches as he bears witness to his parents’ death in freak accident; and before the title card comes up, the dragon of the film is revealed. It’s a filmmaking statement that makes clear that Lowery wants to get the mechanics of establishing the premise out of the way quickly and familiarize the audience with titular pair immediately, so he can start investing in their friendship.
Indeed, when the movie starts proper, we’ve jumped six years ahead and Pete (Oakes Fegley) and the dragon Elliot (voiced by John Kassir mostly in a number of canine-like sounds, and brought to life with some impressive CGI) are living an idyllic life in the far reaches of a sprawling Pacific Northwest forest. Following the car crash that claimed his parents, Pete has been taken under the wing and cared for by Elliot, and they have since built a sturdy home around the trunk of a huge, ancient tree, and spend their days side by side romping through the woods. Looking more Mowgli than young boy, Pete runs barefoot and carefree through the trees, with Elliot charmingly acting more like a dog than a dragon (right down to chasing his own tail), more likely to sneeze on you than breathe fire. However, the outside world is literally carving their way toward them.
The bluntly named nearby town of Millhaven is built on the logging industry, driven by the relentless ambitions of Gavin (Karl Urban). Openly flouting regulations, he has taken his team of cutters beyond the authorized boundaries to take down trees, much to the consternation of his business partner and brother Jack (Wes Bentley) and, more importantly, his sibling’s Forest Ranger bride-to-be Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard). No-nonsense and level-headed, she’s grown up with these woods and knows them inside and out, which is also why she has long resisted the urban legend, largely spun by father (Robert Redford), that a dragon inhabits the forest. He claims to have seen it for himself, but Grace has always chalked it up to a tall tale told to thrill children. But all of that begins to change when Pete and Elliot find their sanctuary shattered, are pulled away from each other, and must find their way back together. Grace and everyone in Millhaven will soon understand that the woods hold many secrets.
At first glance, Lowery signing up to make a Disney movie after riding high on the indie success of the moody “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” was an unexpected move, but the material here is a surprisingly good fit. While not as contemplative as ‘Saints,’ “Pete’s Dragon” is similarly grounded in a world that feels like it has some dirt under its fingernails. And it’s that kind of necessary authenticity that the characters inhabit that makes the sense of discovery by the townspeople of Millhaven, as Pete and Elliot come into their view, all the more palpable and deeply felt. The film continually benefits in this regard from the tremendous sense of storytelling economy in the script, co-written by Lowery with his “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” producer Toby Halbrooks. With the audience dropped into the deep friendship between Pete and Elliot from the start, as the picture heads into the second and third acts, when the pair are revealed to the wider world, we understand that sense of magic felt by those seeing something completely unfathomable for the first time. It’s almost as if the audience is sharing a gift with the rest of the characters in the film.
For much of the picture, Lowery displays a firm handle on the tone of storybook wonder, but at times the feeling becomes overplayed. Unfortunately, this tends to be when pop songs appear on the soundtrack, with tunes by Lindsey Stirling, The Lumineers and St. Vincent rubbing against the homespun feel of “Pete’s Dragon” and sometimes explicitly underscoring a particular sentiment when a score cue from composer Daniel Hart or even silence would’ve been more evocative and effective. Even the theme song by Bonnie “Prince” Billy feels more superficially cornpone than authentic. These bumps in the road are infrequent, but jarring enough to serve as a reminder of what Disney pictures can be when they tilt toward the unsophisticated.
Thankfully, however, “Pete’s Dragon” is much more often technically smart and emotionally intelligent, with this endearing bauble of a film containing a big beating heart inside. Just scampering over the 90-minute mark, and featuring little in the way of grand spectacle, “Pete’s Dragon” is an anomaly in the summer season, but perhaps that’s what makes it so special. The film doesn’t just show you Pete and Elliot taking to the sky in majestic flight. It makes you believe that it’s real. [B+]