I was truly settled in for a good movie after the first third or so of this film, since Octavia Spencer was wonderful as the grandmother, the setting seemed on point, and there seemed to be the right amount of eerie suspense and witchy intrigue building.
But after that, all the intrigue and momentum of the movie completely falls off. We are introduced to the witches, who turn out not to be very interesting, and we are stuck in the hotel for the rest of the movie. An endless slog of a scene takes place in the conference room where the witches are meeting. Anne Hathaway does a good job as the creepy witch, but her character is just one long note that never ends. The witches are too shallow and boring to interest adults, but way too creepy and scaley to appeal to kids.
The rest of the movie degrades to a very, very basic kid's movie romp with boring CGI mice. I have not read the source material and I'm sure faithfulness to the book was a factory in the storyboarding here, but if that's the case then they should have taken some liberties and put some actual twists as well as some character development.
I was very disappointed, as I had faith in the style and humor of the movie but it all fell very flat very fast.
But after that, all the intrigue and momentum of the movie completely falls off. We are introduced to the witches, who turn out not to be very interesting, and we are stuck in the hotel for the rest of the movie. An endless slog of a scene takes place in the conference room where the witches are meeting. Anne Hathaway does a good job as the creepy witch, but her character is just one long note that never ends. The witches are too shallow and boring to interest adults, but way too creepy and scaley to appeal to kids.
The rest of the movie degrades to a very, very basic kid's movie romp with boring CGI mice. I have not read the source material and I'm sure faithfulness to the book was a factory in the storyboarding here, but if that's the case then they should have taken some liberties and put some actual twists as well as some character development.
I was very disappointed, as I had faith in the style and humor of the movie but it all fell very flat very fast.