The BFG is an oddly paced but eventually rewarding film, with one or two flat-out magnificent stretches. You probably remember Dahl's book as being bubbly and bright, but the English author's humor and fluidity with language disguised a dark tale of Dickensian sorrow and Greek-god violence. Sophie is an orphan, a completely isolated (and tiny) figure in a decidedly inhospitable world. When she, in the dead of night, spies the 24-foot-tall BFG—which stands for Big Friendly Giant, although she doesn't know about the "Friendly" part just yet—outside her orphanage window, he abducts her and squirrels her away in his secret cave in Giant Country.

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