Sacrées sorcières

The Grand High Witch is killing it. but seriously, she's terrible. From the start on, with the weird Chris Rock voice-over, this remake goes wrong wherever it can wrong. The acting is stiff, the focus is hardly on all the other witches, the CGI is not good. Even the housekeeping cart seems to come from the CGI box. Positive thing: Octavia Spencer is doing her best to be a genuine grandmother, and she succeeds, but that's about it. OK, yes, I am a fan of the 1990 movie. Even though it wasn't as close to the original story, I really can't believe Roald Dahl would recognize his book in this mess. The first movie was gorgeous in it's authenticity. It has folklore, it has an edge, it has a heart. This is Hollywood factory work and seems to want to be much more than it can deliver. It made me miss much more than the purple glow in the witches eyes. It made me want to just throw up like a witch who smells children. I'm not saying you shouldn't watch it. I am sure that an entire generation who never grew up with the original will disagree, but to me, this is like cursing in a church. It's horrible.

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.

Oh Dear,

This should have been good, it needed to be good, sadly it just isn't. It's one of those films where a remake didn't seem to be necessary, but as someone that loved Roald Dahl as a child my interest was peaked.

It's inconsistent throughout, did they perhaps rush it because of Covid? The special effects look decent in parts, and woeful in others, Anne Hathaway displays personality it's fair to say, but her accent..... If anyone remembers Rentaghost, think Miss Popov, she spans countries from Ireland to Russia, it had me chuckling.

Once again, please, please try and give us something new and original, stop taking things that have already been made, and making them ten times worse. An extra point for casting the wonderful Josette Simon.

It made me want to watch Anjelica Huston.

I paid to download it, that money could have gone on something less awful, like a Donny Osmond cd.

Naff, 3/10.

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.

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.