Confession #1: I have never seen the original 1977 Disney classic “Pete’s Dragon”.

Confession #2: I found the 2016 remake utterly and completely boring.

This movie is the cinematic version of the vanilla bath product gift set that they only sell around the holidays and since you pulled the name of that one lady that seems nice but actually says things like “TGIF” unironically in the office Secret Santa, it’s absolutely perfect for her.

Pete’s Dragon begins with Pete and his parents ending up in a car accident somewhere in the beautiful woods of the Pacific Northwest. The parents end up losing their lives but Pete manages to survive and ends up living in the forest with a furry, green dragon named Elliott.

To its detriment, the movie never treats the title character with a sense of wonder or mystery. In other movies about a boy and his X such as “Free Willy”, “Big Hero 6” or yes, that other dragon movie “How To Train Your Dragon”, there is usually a huge chunk of the movie devoted to the boy getting to know his new, unusual friend. We get to bond with the two characters as they bond to one another and see that they are both capable of being devoted, powerful, and at times, vulnerable.

Here, we skip all that, jump ahead five years and get a quick sequence of Pete and Elliott frolicking in the woods, splashing through streams, and flying over the forest’s canopy. Yes, all the bonding has already taken place off screen. We are robbed completely of our chance to bond with them, we’re just supposed to take it on a quick montage’s word that we should feel for them as strongly as they feel for each other.

Perhaps if the rest of the movie was not mostly about Pete and Elliott NOT being together, we would have our shot at investing in this relationship. The movie is focused on Pete experiencing life for the first time in a long time around people. Most of the adults terrify him but since Bryce Dallas Howard is capital ‘M’ Maternal, he trusts her. He’s also curious about the young girl who is keen to teach him the finer points of sandwiches and vinyl records. However, all of these “human again” moments seem to be modeled from a Sears catalog or 1950s sitcom i.e. “Look at the funny faces we make in the mirror as we brush our teeth! No, little boy! Shaving cream is not the same thing as toothpaste! Don’t eat that! Oh my goodness, that is just too funny! Oh, Pete! What are we going to do with you?” Cut to commercial. Or buy our pajamas.

Elliott is mostly left on his own to defend himself against Karl Urban who is playing “Generic Human Intent On Shooting Or Capturing The Thing That Scares Him Because Humanity Is Flawed”. When Elliot finally manages to find Pete again, all that looms in front of them are a bunch of questions that only point to one logical and generic ending.

This movie is pigeonholed by the tropes of the genre and its own self-fulfilling plot. There’s no attempt to deviate from the formula and no success whatsoever to populate it with any kind of charm, comedic relief or offbeat characters. My Netflix queue is littered with generic  movies but I rewatch them ad nauseum because the wrapping is just a little bit different enough to hold my attention and amuse me.

The wrapping here is objectively pretty but so generic that it’s off-putting because I’m keenly aware that there are better and more interesting things to be had out there.

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