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Roald Dahl's The Witches
2020 104 min Mexico, United Kingdom, United States of America PG 12+
★5.6
Comedy, Fantasy, Family, Horror
Director: Robert Zemeckis
🎭 Based on
«The Witches»
byRoald Dahl
Trailers
Description
In late 1967, a young orphaned boy goes to live with his loving grandma in the rural Alabama town of Demopolis. As the boy and his grandmother encounter some deceptively glamorous but thoroughly diabolical witches, she wisely whisks him away to a seaside resort. Regrettably, they arrive at precisely the same time that the world's Grand High Witch has gathered.
US Gross:
$203,571
Worldwide:
$29.3M
Starring
Anne Hathaway
Actor
Octavia Spencer
Actor
Stanley Tucci
Actor
Awards
Razzie Awards 2021
— Worst Actress
Saturn Awards 2021
— Best Fantasy Film
Key opinion
Robert Zemeckis's adaptation of The Witches is widely viewed as an uninspired, overly saccharine remake that fails to recapture the dark charm of Roald Dahl's source material or the 1990 film. While the production design and Octavia Spencer's performance earn some praise, critics largely find the film's tone uneven, its CGI effects lackluster, and its narrative themes hollow.
| Acting | Anne Hathaway's portrayal of the Grand High Witch is widely criticized as an over-the-top, cringey caricature that lacks the menace of Anjelica Huston’s original performance. | |
| Adaptation | The film fails to capture the macabre, misanthropic spirit of the source material, opting instead for a bland, overly sweet, and sanitized family-friendly tone. | |
| Acting | Octavia Spencer is consistently identified as the film's strongest casting choice, though some argue she is miscast or underutilized in the role of the grandmother. | |
| Production | The visual effects are a point of contention: some viewers appreciate the cartoonish design of the mice, while many others dismiss the CGI as cheap and uninspired. | |
| Screenplay | Opinions on the screenplay are divided: some find the plot a functional, if modest, fairy tale for children, while others criticize it as weak, predictable, and devoid of emotional depth. |