Family-Friendly Choices on DVD This Week: The BFG and Pete’s Dragon

Rating: PG, for action/peril, some scary moments and brief rude humor.

Kids of all ages should be fine watching Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel. It’s visually dazzling, with seamless special effects that blend computer-generated giants with real-life actors. Mark Rylance stars as the title character – the Big Friendly Giant – who teams up with a spirited, 10-year-old orphan named Sophie (Ruby Barnhill). Together, they try to stop other giants from eating people with the help of the Queen of England (Penelope Wilton) and the British military. Sophie is in near-constant danger of being smushed, stomped on or outright devoured by the hulking inhabitants of Giant Country. And while the BFG himself is gentle and kind, the other giants – who are much larger than he is – are grotesque and menacing, and might seem scary for the youngest viewers. Also, The BFG’s job is to capture dreams (and sometimes nightmares) to place in Londoners’ heads while they’re sleeping, so some of that imagery might be a bit creepy for little kids. And there’s a running gag involving flatulence that builds to an amusingly explosive climax.

Rating: PG, for action, peril and brief language.

Viewers around 6 and older will delight in this family film, which is sort of a remake of the 1977 movie of the same name in that it’s about a boy named Pete who has a dragon. Orphaned at a very young age, Pete (Oakes Fegley) has been raised in the forest by his only friend: a furry, green dragon he named Elliot. When a forest ranger (Bryce Dallas Howard) discovers him at age 11 and brings him home, he struggles to adjust to civilization, all the while trying to protect his magical friend from loggers who want to capture him for their own glory. Director David Lowery has created a film set in in the 1970s that feels as if it was made then, too. He’s unrushed in his pacing and uses wordless sequences efficiently to tell his story. And the relationship between Pete and Elliot is lovely – full of frolic and joy as well as quiet, intimate moments. But as I mentioned at the start, Pete is an orphan in the classic Disney tradition; in the film’s first few minutes, we see him lose his parents in a car accident that he survives, then wander alone in the woods until he meets Elliot. The sense of loneliness and loss is powerful here and might be too much for very young viewers. Also, a group of loggers take down the dragon using tranquilizer guns and chain him to a flatbed truck, which could be disturbing.