Pete’s Dragon

Other than the basic storyline about an orphan named Pete who befriends a dragon, Disney’s new Pete’s Dragon bears little resemblance to its 1977 original. Rather than a live-action/animated musical, it’s a live-action movie with fanciful CGI effects. And instead of a fishing community in Maine, the modernized version is set in a lumberjack town called Millhaven somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.

Ten-year-old Pete (Oakes Fegley) is a Tarzan-like boy who for six years lives in the woods with an emerald-furred dragon after a car accident kills Pete’s parents. He names the dragon Elliot, after a dog in his favorite book. Other than the fact that it can breathe fire and turn itself invisible, Elliot is an oversized, domestic pet with all the subtle human expressions that capture young hearts: big-mouthed yawns, cute sighs and snores, playful peekaboos. Elliot is the huggable buddy every kid desires.

Children run the show in Pete’s Dragon, whereas adults are sometimes-annoying people who react and worry and whisper. When park ranger Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard) meets Pete, she and the other grown-ups assume Elliot is Pete’s imaginary friend and insist on finding the boy a proper home. No doubt young audiences will bristle: Big people—why can’t they stop complicating things with their disbelief and fears?

For slightly cynical millennials like this reviewer, this PG-rated movie may feel predictable and wiped clean of anything dark, complex, and realistic. The story targets kids who haven’t yet shaken off their no-junk-added faith and curiosity in the world, and parents who envy those vanished days. They’ll enjoy the film’s straightforward narrative, winsome fun, and wholesome morals about family, loyalty, and courage.

Maybe that’s the whole point of Pete’s Dragon. “Stop thinking too much,” the creators seem to tell us. “We’re simple beings with simple desires for love, belonging, and safety—and not too different from when we were 10 years old.”