It’s not quite as dominant as Netflix, but Disney+ has emerged as one of the biggest streaming services in the world. As you peruse it, though, you might find that it mostly directs you toward the things you would expect to watch there (i.e. Star Wars, Marvel, and various animated movies).
If you’re looking for something on Disney+ that’s a little more off that beaten path, you should start with Pete’s Dragon. While it’s a live-action remake of a Disney animated classic, Pete’s Dragon is not as soulless as many of those movies have been. Telling the story of a young boy who lives alone in the woods with a dragon, it’s actually a pretty moving story. Here are three reasons you should check it out this December.
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It’s genuinely heartwarming
Disney has made its name by telling stories that leave you feeling warm and fuzzy inside, but the studio’s dream machine doesn’t always achieve that. Pete’s Dragon is a wholesome winner, though, in part because it focuses squarely on the relationship between Pete and his dragon, and because it understands that their bond was one forged in tragedy.
Pete’s Dragon somewhat modifies the story of the original film, turning the movie into something much closer to E.T. In doing so, though, the movie gains a humanist touch courtesy of its director, David Lowery, that ultimately makes it hard not to weep at the film’s closing moments.
It looks really good
Director David Lowery is among the better directors that Disney has ever worked with, and Pete’s Dragon might be his crowning achievement. Lowery seems to understand the best way to balance his own artistic vision with the needs of the corporation that he is ultimately working for.
The movie’s opening sequence alone has more visual style than most other Disney projects, and the titular dragon is actually rendered with the right level of cartoonish detail. Pete’s Dragon could be a movie defined by CGI goop, but instead, it has the look of a real movie.
It features vintage Robert Redford
Robert Redford is basically done acting now, but Pete’s Dragon gave us a reminder of everything he was capable of even in old age. Playing an elderly woodworker who has always believed that there’s some genuine magic in the woods around him.
What Redford is really doing in Pete’s Dragon, though, is reminding us how much power a genuine movie star can have. Few actors know how to hold a camera the way he does, and there’s just as much movie magic in every Redford closeup as there is in the more outlandish sequences of the movie.
Pete’s Dragon is streaming on Disney+.