Fabulously hammy Hathaway brings most wickedness to faithful yet inferior "The Witches"

The Witches (2020)

When Roald Dahl’s 1983 children’s book “The Witches” was first imagined on screen, Nicolas Roeg’s 1990 adaptation was something special. Much more than any PG-rated feature that gets made today, it was a children’s horror-fantasy fable that felt a little dangerous, malevolent, maybe even perverse, and truly nightmarish. Amidst Queen Anjelica Huston peeling off her human face and turning children into vermin (thanks to the grotesque, tactile practical make-up and puppetry out of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop), there was also a lived-in warmth to the relationship between a boy and his grandmother. With that film being so near and dear to this reviewer’s heart, it is still possible to assess 2020’s “The Witches” with an open mind on its own merits. However, with nearly every choice director Robert Zemeckis (2018’s “Welcome to Marwen”) makes to recreate Dahl’s twisted but sweet story with his movie-magic flair, Roeg’s film did it better. What Zemeckis does have is a big, insanely over-the-top spectacle in the form of Anne Hathaway within an already larger-than-life fantasy.

2020's “The Witches” is a more faithful adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book, even if the director and co-writers Kenya Barris and Guillermo del Toro have their way with the material by transplanting the story out of Europe and into 1968, Alabama. Losing his parents in a car accident, a young boy (Jahzir Bruno) falls into the care of his grandmother (Octavia Spencer). After Grandma finally boosts her grandson’s low spirits, the boy encounters a strange, gloved woman who tries luring him with candy (and a hissing snake slithering down her arm) in a general store. All signs point to this woman being a witch. Having a history with these human-skinned demons, Grandma springs into action and they go on a holiday to a swanky beachside hotel with the boy’s new pet mouse in tow. Unbeknownst to them both, the hotel is the same meeting place for the same coven of witches. These witches, led by the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway), are under the guise of holding a convention for the International Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. As the boy overhears, the hags plot to lace irresistible chocolate bars with a potion and transform all children into squashable mice, rubbing out every brat in the world. 

Whereas the beloved 1990 adaptation felt more like a child’s gateway into horror, “The Witches” is just more kid-friendly. It’s broadly comic, cartoonish, whimsical, and at least occasionally given the chance to be mildly ghoulish. The gnarly details of the witches, as described by Grandma, live up to their description. All of the witches have noticeable scars jutting out from the corners of their mouths, and in the case of the Grand High Witch, she has the mouth of a shark. Her hands are also more like claws, and her arms can stretch through a vent. And to get the whiff of a child, her nostrils will flare like a wild bloodhound. Despite all of these details captured from Dahl’s writing, there is never really a feeling of dread or looming threat here. The darker elements are defanged and overly softened with the cutesy attempts at playful comedy. Once the Grand High Witch finds the boy hiding in the conference hall and turns him into a mouse, the film spends most of its time with the boy and his fellow mice on their adventure of close-calls before giving the coven a taste of its own delayed action mouse-maker potion. He is joined by pet mouse Daisy, who now talks and sounds like “Wicked” superstar Kristin Chenoweth, and Bruno Jenkins (Codie-Lei Eastick), a chubby British boy who can’t resist the sweets (or cheese once he’s a mouse). 

Octavia Spencer (2019’s “Ma”) brings all of the heart as the grandmother, but a fabulously hammy Anne Hathaway (2019’s “The Hustle”) steals the show. She preens, camps it up, and devours the scenery as if it were "six whole bars of cream-whipped hazelnut milk chocolate." There might be no comparison to Anjelica Huston’s deliciously wicked and seductive performance as the Grand High Witch, but Hathaway is game to be devilish and clearly having a grand high time. Speaking (and shouting) in a goofy Norwegian accent, like Natasha Fatale looking for “moose and squirrel," her Grand High Witch comes off more like a shrill shrew by way of Cruella de Vil than a menacing child-exterminator, although the “Fright Night”/Pennywise grin certainly helps. Aside from a few lightly amusing exchanges between Spencer and Hathaway, Stanley Tucci barely registers as hotel manager Mr. Stringer, previously played by Rowan Atkinson.

Bigger-budgeted and more CGI-laden than the earlier adaptation as expected, “The Witches” isn’t without its bright production design and eye-popping delights, but one still longs for more of an edge. Robert Zemeckis seems content to let the digital effects do most of the heavy lifting and let the story trail behind them. Going through the motions, the story feels rushed and manufactured somehow, certain story beats being solved too quickly and too easily. In what is a simple tale, the film is also needlessly smothered in voice-over narration by Chris Rock, playing an adult version of our boy hero and describing exactly what one is seeing on the screen for the blind. If only “The Witches” had been emblazoned with more of the invention and mischievous bite Zemeckis brought to "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and "Death Becomes Her" once upon a time, this adaptation might have felt more inspired than merely cute or passably fun. 

Grade: C +

Warner Bros. is releasing “The Witches” (105 min.) to HBO Max for streaming on October 22, 2020.