It’s the weekend again, and that means Film Focus. Here’s Mike Laidman with what’s new in local theaters.
Get ready to take a dark trip down a dark street this week. And that applies to both of our movies, despite their drastically different target audiences.

Suicide Squad, in theatres now, is a known quantity at this point: dark and maniacal. The children’s classic from author Roald Dahl, The BFG, on the other hand, is anything but, despite a dark figure reaching from a dark street into a dark room.

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Mike Laidman

Welcome to another edition of Film Focus. I’m Mike Laidman.

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Suicide Squad (2016, David Ayer)
A government group hires supervillains for black ops missions.

Suicide Squad has been long-awaited - the movie that is supposed to bring the DC universe up to the level of Marvel and signal a refreshing start that was missed with Batman vs. Superman earlier this year.

The plot? Assemble a team of the world's most dangerous, incarcerated supervillains, provide them with the most powerful arsenal at the government's disposal, and send them off on a mission. U.S. intelligence officer Amanda Waller has determined only a secretly convened group of despicable individuals with next to nothing to lose will do. However, once they realize they weren't picked to succeed but chosen for their culpability when they inevitably fail, will the Suicide Squad resolve to die trying, or decide it's every man for himself?

So is this the revitalization fans have been waiting for? Not quite.The consensus is that while the movie has a good idea and good intentions, there are too many new characters to introduce before the story really starts. DC has started a building without a foundation, something that Marvel avoided.

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The BFG (2016, Steven Spielberg)
A girl named Sophie encounters the Big Friendly Giant

Shifting gears to family-friendly fare now, The BFG opens next week in theatres.
Roald Dahl’s stories have been significant for many children for many years. So does The BFG hold up to the book?

In The BFG, a young girl named Sophie, the Queen of England, and a benevolent giant known as the BFG set out on an adventure to capture the evil, man-eating giants who have been invading the human world.

The movie more or less succeeds. While it minimizes the darker elements of Roald Dahl's classic in favour of a more good-natured tale, the heart and soul, the child-like wonder, is still all here. Visually stunning, this is a family-friendly adventure that children can enjoy with their parents, who would do well to take a moment to remember what it is to see the world through the eyes of a child.