Sacrées sorcières

In 1968, a young Hero Boy is forced to go live with his grandma (Octavia Spencer) after losing his parents in a car accident. She tells him that witches are real and they hate children. As a child, she lost her friend when a witch turned her into a chicken. She gives him a white mouse. She takes him to a seaside hotel for an escape hoping that witches would not search there since black children are rarely at the luxury hotel. Unfortunately, the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway) has gathered her followers to present a potion to turn all children into mice.

This is the second film adaptation of the Roald Dahl children's book. The 1990 adaptation stars Anjelica Huston and is a fan favorite. It's probably a fool's errand to try to do another. The only reason is to upgrade the mice with CGI and that's often a bad idea. The charm of the old animatronics is actually more timeless than CGI which ages over time. It does inject some American racial divide into the story but the movie drops that interesting take rather quickly. The one awful thing it does is to replace the greatness of Huston with a terribly weird Joker-smiling Hathaway. It is bad. There is no good reason for this movie and watching it proves that.

The original "The Witches" is a Childhood Classic that we all grew up watching & the setting & the actual Witches themselves looked way better back then in 1990 than these CGI creations look today in 2021.

Robert Zemeckis is an excellent director & he does good here but like every big film today it's overrealiant on CGI affects & even with it's mega budget it doesn't look as good or as richly beautiful as the darker original old Classic. Also the actors were alot better in the original as was the Hotel but as a new version as a fun fantasy adventure it's still a decent watch.

Anne Hathaway is good as the main head witch but again got nothing on the scariness of Angelica Huston.

The characters have changed to the cast of a Black version which was ok because i liked Chris Rock telling the story & Octavia Spencer is really good as the grandma who takes the little boy to a big beautiful Hotel to escape a Witch encounter but end up right in the middle of a Witches meeting place. Stanley Tucci is fine but felt very subdued & not fun like Rowan Atkinson's Classic part. The kids are fine & the CGI mice are cartoony looking but there is some Magic here & the story is pretty much exactly the same as the original but just not done as great.

Still this update is a fun film with decent performances & nice cinematography but it just ain't on the level of that Original Classic.

If I hadn't seen the original film, then I may have scored this higher. There's nothing overtly wrong with it but to me it feels just a little flat vs the original, and only improves once the cgi kicks-in. People new to the book may even prefer this version but for me the original is far better.

I'm sure people will hate this movie no matter what because they love the original and I get that but it's not bad at all. My kids loved it and love the original so they actually pulled it off in my opinion. People may also find other ways or reasons to hate it (probably involves current issues politics bs etc.) but seriously it's not bad. You also have to remember these movies are kids movies based on a kids book so if your pissed that a movie from your childhood has been remade, that's sad. At least they waited 30 years to do it. The first one is a lot scarier but that's because of the awesome makeup and not cgi.

I was surprised to the reaction to this film... It's completely inoffensive and does everything it needs to with the charm of grandma, the malice of the Grand High Witch, etc. I'm getting the feeling that these are reactionary responses to yet another 'bland and unoriginal Hollywood' trend even though this is an adaptation of Roald Dahl's book, just like the 1990 version is.

It's alright if people don't like this movie I suppose but acting like it's the worst thing to come to screens is an exaggeration to say the least. Kids are most definitely going to enjoy it, it is for them after all, not the adults comparing it to the 1990 adaptation, so I'd say this film was a success in what if wanted to do.