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'Pete's Dragon' is magical fun for kids A still from Disney's "Pete's Dragon." (Disney) Thursday Aug 18, 2016 at 12:01 AM Chris Honoré for Revels Pete’s Dragon; Rated PG; 95min   “Pete’s Dragon” is a movie aimed squarely at the 10-year-old demographic and never wavers, avoiding inside jokes or frenetic, over-the-top chase scenes that might appeal to the accompanying adults. Here’s the wonderful assumption that the filmmakers build on: Kids believe in magic. They don’t have to push very hard to get the pre-tween crowd to suspend its disbelief and buy into a sweet premise involving a young boy (not exactly a feral child, but not far from Mowgli, either) and his only friend, Elliot, who happens to be a 24-foot tall, furry green dragon. Yep. And when he sneezes, you have to reach for a towel. But first things first: A young boy, Pete (Oakes Fegley), only 5, is on a vacation adventure with his mom and dad in the Pacific Northwest. He’s in the backseat of their station wagon, reading an illustrated story titled, "Elliot Gets Lost." Suddenly, his father swerves to miss a deer and rolls the car. Pete is thrown clear, uninjured. His parents are killed. Panicked, alone, surrounded by strange sounds, he runs into the forest where he is surrounded by wolves. Unexpectedly, he is saved by Elliot, who takes the boy under his wing, so to speak, and nurtures and cares for him (seeming half-parent and half-pet), helping him build an elaborate treehouse. Six years pass. Pete (who seems to have thrived) and Elliot have now formed a deep and abiding bond. Then one day, a group of loggers, who have penetrated deep into the forest, appear, and Pete is captivated by these men in their trucks and large bulldozers, signaling the encroachment of a civilization of which he is complete unaware. And so ends act one. And now begins the juxtaposition of two realities: Pete’s natural world, and a world that is filled with all of the layers of cars and hospitals and people, such as forest ranger Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard) who watches over Pete as he struggles to cope. For decades, in this small Northwest logging town called Millhaven, there has existed the legend of a dragon that lived deep in the woods, sighted rarely. No matter the witness, such sightings have always been immediately discounted as fantasy or perhaps simply wind in the high trees. One such purveyor of the Millhaven dragon legend is a wizened woodcarver (Robert Redford), who, like Pete, believes that if we look hard enough, magic will reveal itself to us. His daughter, Grace, is a lifelong skeptic. What happens next will be embraced by the youngsters without question, as is the relationship between Elliot and Pete. There’s magic in this world if we are only open to letting it into our lives, amazing things are possible. Magic can transform our lives. The way it has transformed Pete’s. What wonderful about this film is that Pete also discovers that there is magic in being enfolded in the collective arms of a family and that the two are not mutually exclusive. Kids love this stuff.