The Hobbit Trilogy

The Hobbit Trilogy - 474 min  - PG13

I had the opportunity to do a Hobitthon when the final film of this trilogy came out.  It wasn't affiliated with any theater. It was my son and I watching the first two on video on demand and then going to the final one in the theater. As I was watching this with my son it was easier to take off the critic hat and enjoy it as a fan. I have always stated that the story doesn't have three movies worth of content. The BBC did a experiment and they found that it takes 5.2 hours to read the book where it takes 8.5 hours to watch the trilogy.

Is it quicker to read The Hobbit than watch Peter Jackson’s movie trilogy? http://t.co/V3Ir1MxRqe #BBCGoFigure pic.twitter.com/ICqA4S7sts
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) December 2, 2014

Face it, this trilogy is mostly fan fiction.  Because of the liberties that were taken with the hints and nuggets of story threads J.R.R. Tolkien left in the stories.  This is the best funded production of fan fiction I have seen. At times it feels like a contrived prequel to the LoTR movies. I can't ignore the heavy-handed attempt at blending the two. This story is a prequel on its own but on screen it feels overly so.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - 169 min - PG13

I have already reviewed this film here. I am not going to spend a lot of time on this one. But in retrospect it's probably the best one out of all three. It lays the groundwork to make transition from LoTR seamless, and gives us a look at what started Bilbo's journey. We also start seeing a lot of the fan fiction parts that Mr. Jackson created. 

The book never goes into what Gandalf is doing when he is not with the party. We just see him exist stage left to go do Wizardly things.  We wouldn't understand.  Poof he is gone. Mr. Jackson takes liberties and makes use of these gaps by inserting speculation on what Gandalf was doing.  That is one reason this story takes so long to tell.

We also get a lot more on Azog as he is the Orc who is relentlessly chasing Thorin down. He is a pawn in the larger subplot of Sauron's return. Again summation from Mr. Jackson as to what was happing behind the scenes.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - 161 min - PG13 

Breaking this story up into three parts is hard because you need a clear break point in the action. The second film feels heavier as it relies more on the fan fiction elements.  The end point here is the moment before Smaug takes his wrath out on Lake-town. In retrospect this is a good breaking point because we lead off with a kick-ass dragon fight on the last leg of this journey.

We also get a lot of backstory on the return of Sauron or the rumors of his interference. This second story feels less organic and more contrived to make it blend in with the other trilogy. I suspect that's what makes the final two seems so forced.

There is no doubt about the quality of filmmaking. The scenes draw you in and the sets and costumes are outstanding. The down side is that it's just too much information. I found myself feeling the time draw on. Especially during the setting up of the social structure of Lake-town. 

The humans of Lake-town are not important. We don't need to see how corrupt the government is. It adds needless flavor to a story that is rich enough on its own. It was nice to Stephen Fry on screen. I'm a fan, but it added more time where it wasn't needed. 

Kind of funny how much security is played up. The heroes gotta sneak in and stay out of sight and get in through a loo to Bard's house.  But elves and orcs seem to have run of the place and there is absolutely no sign of any sort of city guard during any portion of the last battle. The Master of Lake-town had people watching Bard's house.  You kind of think that his guards would have thought the parade of bad guys rampaging through town would have been noteworthy.

We also have a huge battle sequence in the dwarf's halls with the dragon. Great to see on screen but really it is only fan boy eye candy, because the battle ended the same with Smaug going to take out the city.  There was no change in the end result from book to mov'e. Yes it was cool to watch, not at the cost of time and attention span. 

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies  - 144 min -  PG13

The fight that was promised pays off here. We jump right into the battle over Lake-town and the death of Smaug. After the fight we see Thorin fall to the dragon sickness and the paranoia starts taking him over.  His affliction with greed sets up the events that lead to war with the elves and humans.  The orcs also take this opportunity to wipe them all out and join in on the battle.

The fan fiction storyline shows us that Sauron's attempted return is thwarted and we have a bit of a redemption story with Thorin and his realization of what a dick he has been. He has a change of heart and joins in on the fight and saves the day but at the cost of his own life.

Anyone who has seen all three films and is reading this I know I am cutting out the love interest between Tauriel and Kili. I am leaving them out of this review to illustrate that not every story element added to the film was needed to tell the story.  Again I am going to be using the analogy of too much spice ruins the sauce.

Some observations I made while watching, all of the hot looking dwarves die. What is that saying about the genetic diversity of the dwarves left to make more dwarves? This may explain why Gimli looks the way he does.

Perhaps I have an untrained eye but I saw no significant improvement in the 48 FPS over the normal 24 It really boils down to whether the money you spend on an effect or technique pays off in the final product. From this reviewer's point of view it could have been skipped. Filmmakers should spend less money on flash and more on substance.

After about eight and a half hours of eye candy I really needed a break and watch something with some really good storytelling. We were going to launch right into the Lord of the Rings trilogy but even my son didn't have the strength or interest in going that far.

Books that are turned into movies will always be a different version. The two mediums can't share the same elements. The changes to The Lord of the Rings were great. I appreciated the changes and understood why they were cut. The changes to The Hobbit really seem to be just filler to make a longer story than what needed to be.

After looking back at my binge session in Middle Earth, my son and I both agree it was a great ride, but we are not going to be taking it again anytime soon. Making a good movie that everyone sees is spectacular, but making a movie that people want to see over and over again is better.

My advice would have been to stick closer to the book. The Hobbit should have been and would have been a great single story movie even with the preamble that set it up for the other films.  But keep the story as one. Then take the secondary story of Sauron's return into a Gandalf film, I would watch the hell out of that film, that blends into the other story. It always bugged me that Gandalf was a part of this group and kept popping off and not an explanation but he was always there when he was needed. If done correctly you could have included scene from the first film and shown it from his point of view.

Drop the Azog and the love story altogether and you make it a wonderful launching pad for your true treasure: The Lord of the Rings.

The World's End

The World's End - 109Min – R

The final installment of the Cornetto Trilogy does not disappoint. Admittedly I am a huge Simon Pegg fan and I have been since Spaced. I am looking at this as a separate movie from the previous ones because they aren’t tied together except for the wonderfully delightful Cornetto cameo in every movie. So setting down my copy of Nerd Do Well I am going to try and be as objective as I can. I LOVED IT!!

This movie surrounds the life Gary King (Simon Pegg) who is stuck in the past trying to hold on to the glory days of his youth. While all of his friends have moved on in their lives, Gary has not. While in group therapy he realizes they never got a chance to finish an epic pub crawl known as The Golden Mile. He gathers his friends together to try and complete what he failed to do in their youth: a pint in all twelve pubs in one night ending at the pub known as The Worlds End.

Gary talks his old friends, Andy (Nick Frost), Oliver (Martin Freeman), Steven (Paddy Considine) and Peter (Eddie Marsan) into going back to Newton Haven to finally complete The Golden Mile, Going home is hard. Nothing is ever quite the same, especially as almost everyone you knew has been replaced with an identical-looking robot.

By the by on our trip to London we were actually in the town of Welwyn Garden City where they shot this film. We did not know it at the time but once the group got back to their home town my wife recognized it immediately. I said all small London suburbs look the same. She was right. POINT wife.

Edgar Write co-wrote this with Simon Pegg and he does an excellent job of mixing in emotional connections with the characters and humor at the absurdity of the fact they have to fight killer robots. You can pick out people in your life from the types of characters they are portraying. They are so identifiable you have the person who is pining for a love they passed up, or the over-achiever or the Bluetooth guy. Everyone has one friend who is still trapped in the high school glory days. If your circle of friends doesn't have one, then it might be you.

Edgar Write makes a well-balanced film, the action scenes are spot on. It has the pace of an Asian action movie with sci-fi elements and a great mixture of humor and seriousness. The fights have attack and counter-attack pacing that is on par with a few Jackie Chan fight scenes but no death-defying feats. Plus, it gets quite bloody, but not bloody as the robots all use a blue coolant-like substance for blood.

This level of work is nothing new to writer and crew. It’s like his previous work, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. The truly good story-telling is when you allow the audience to feel for the characters. Through the story we learn more and more about Gary King and realize how lost in his youth he is.

Another good thing about this crew is they can be used as an example for movie studios, if you have a good cast and crew and you want to do another movie please don’t do a sequel just to do a sequel. Here is a perfect example of working with people you like but doing a different movie every time. I could watch more from this group of performers. Ok, so fine! I am letting my fanboy self write this review. So what? I love this film, so sue me.

If you excuse me I am going to go re-watch Spaced and plan my movie marathon when this comes out on 

DVD. I wonder if I could order Cornettos from London to Denver.

What movie have you been looking forward to seeing and completely enjoyed once you saw it?

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – 169min - PG-13

I went to see this movie on Monday of last week and I just got out of the theater to write this review. It’s that long. Let's be clear on my feelings for this movie. I truly enjoyed the incredibly long, long ride. It takes liberties with the story much like the last films, but I enjoyed them. There were a few parts I didn’t care for but I am going to talk about them in the spoiler section. For its length and its use of a higher frames per second incorporated with the 3D presentation I say it is a win. This movie gets a green light from me. Yes it’s a long film, yes Peter Jackson is very proud of the sweeping landscapes of New Zealand, AND yes he is a good storyteller.

This movie starts off right at the morning of Bilbo Baggins's eleventy-first birthday party. Bilbo (Martin Freeman) is working on his story and Frodo (Elijah Wood) is still young and unaware of the massive quest that awaits him. Bilbo reflects on all of the history surrounding his journey. This story is told in correct order instead of the information we gather along the way we see the historical events before Bilbo’s journey even begins. I usually go into a breakdown of the film and only talk about the highlight that on might see in the trailer. This time there is so much other stuff that I can’t spend the time talking about it. A good way to explain it is with this example from the book. When Bilbo and the dwarves meet back up after they are separated by the Goblin ambush, Bilbo says he burgled his way out, the dwarves say they had to fight their way out. We see both sides of the story and that’s what takes up a lot of time. When Gandalf (Ian McKellen) is off doing Wizardly things we see what he is doing

Andy Serkis brings Gollum back to life and does a wonderful job with his vocal and physical acting is outstanding. I know they put him in a suit and his actions are what we see with the Gollum body. We see him a lot more menacing this time around. He is still broken into two parts, but the evil part of him is far more powerful and extremely creepy. However the scene where Bilbo spares him is a very well done scene.

The company of Dwarves is great casting. All of them seem to be perfect fits. The one that stands out has to be Thorin (Richard Armitage). He does a good job of balancing the stubbornness with the wisdom of a kingdomless prince. He does have a kingly air about him. The other honorable mentions are Balin (Ken Scott), Fili (Dean O’gorman) and Kili (Aidan Turner). The rest of the dwarves kind of blend together. I felt like Gandalf trying to keep track of them in a fight or while they moved or any time they were together really.

Peter Jackson made a few changes to the format of 3D and using 48 Frames per second. This gave the movie a more lifelike feel. In some of the better crafted scenes this was great it was like watching a play, but the down side was that at times it was very apparent that this was a mixture of CGI and real life. When the screen is more lifelike it’s harder to blend the two and it was a bit distracting at times.

With the additional elements in the story they broke the arch off at a great point. I think this is set itself apart for the previous versions of the Hobbit; Peter Jackson makes the story his own. I weighed the length against the quality and say it’s a good trade off and look forward to the other installments.

Warring Spoilers!!!! You have to have signed the dwarves contract to see them!!!!!

Ok, I have a problem with Radagast (Sylvester McCoy). He was a very long walk for at least this point in the story, very little payoff. I know he is the one who warns us of the evil that is rising but he was incredibly distracting, I could not take my eyes off the cackling of bird crap that was on his face. Every scene he was in I could not pay attention to what was going because of the facial decoration.

There is a lot of walking in this movie, at every turn the dwarves and hobbit are running there stubby legs across the New Zealand country side. Don’t get me wrong it’s beautiful countryside but there could have been some cuts made there. The journey does not take Gandalf as long actually he is taller…I mean a wizard, he moves magically.

Azog (Manu Bennett) the albino orc is a bit of a stretch to include in this picture. I can see where you would add him but not as a requirement for this film. It was again something that could have been removed and not harmed the story any.

My parting thought is what do you think the motivation for breaking it into three films was? Money grab? Overly long story telling? Or has Peter Jackson become so powerful that no one tells him no