The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Dir. Peter Jackson (2012)

An Unexpected Journey might as well describe the arduous process of bringing J.R.R. Tolkien's celebrated novel, The Hobbit, to the silver screen. The adaptation languished in development hell due to legal entanglements and the dire financial straits of MGM, who were co-producing it with New Line Cinema. While Peter Jackson stayed on as producer and co-writer with collaborators Philippa Boyens and Frank Walsh, the directorial reins were handed over to Guillermo Del Toro. However, after two years of pre-production in New Zealand, Del Toro departed and Jackson returned as director. Not to disparage the man's undeniable talents, but a fresh pair of eyes may have done wonders for The Hobbit.

Jackson's remake of King Kong received similar criticisms to his LOTR prequel in that both were lambasted for being self-indulgent and overlong. Things might have turned out differently had The Hobbit been filmed first as originally intended. The novel was a lighthearted adventure aimed at children whereas The Lord of the Rings was an expansive trilogy that weaved a rich and incredibly complex mythology. Jackson and his team somehow took what was necessary and jettisoned the extraneous to craft three pictures that stand as remarkable cinematic achievements. Now that he's given the audience a taste of mammoth spectacle, Jackson may have felt obliged to do the same with The Hobbit. The question remained how Jackson would adapt one book and some extra material into a new trilogy.

Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) lives a simple and quiet life that is interrupted upon the arrival of the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellan). Gandalf practically shanghais Bilbo into a quest with a band of dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage). They seek to take back their kingdom of Erebor from the dragon Smaug that drove them from their land and treasure years ago. Along the way, they are pursued by a bloodthirsty Orc named Azog the Defiler (Manu Bennett), who killed Thorin's father during a battle at the gates of Moria.

It's truly wonderful to return to the world of Middle-Earth as envisioned by Peter Jackson. Once the nostalgia fades, you realize just how laborious the story is. The Hobbit takes its time introducing the protagonists and Bilbo doesn't embark on his adventure until about half an hour. Characters given only a passing reference in the book, such as Azog and Radagast the Brown (Sylvester McCoy), are expanded upon for the movie. The quest itself takes numerous detours including an interminable stop at Rivendell where Gandalf seeks council with Elrond (Hugo Weaving) and Galadriel (Cate Blanchett). The majority of the sequence doesn't advance the plot, but merely serves as a setup for later installments. There's also a scene depicting the elderly Bilbo (Ian Holm) and Frodo (Elijah Wood) set just before the events of Fellowship of the Ring that should have been reserved for the Extended Edition Blu-ray. Jackson threatens an additional twenty minutes of footage for that version.

Freeman's Sherlock co-star Benedict Cumberbatch receives a prominent credit for playing Smaug and the Necromancer. Yet, he doesn't appear at all or speak a single line.

While Jackson may not be the most judicious writer, he does have a remarkable eye for action. There's a scene where two mountains come to life and clash against the backdrop of a torrential thunderstorm with Bilbo and the dwarves helplessly caught in the middle like insects. Another sees the heroes fight their way through an underground goblin den.

Despite the inordinate runtime, the large company of dwarves are hardly flesh out save for Thorin though most get a smidgeon of personality. Owing to a lack of doom and gloom, Gandalf is a less portentous character in the prequel. He's a little looser and more whimsical, allowing McKellan to have some fun with him. The same goes for Hugo Weaving as Elrond. The real star of The Hobbit is Martin Freeman who is perfectly cast as the unlikeliest of heroes. Freeman has great comic timing and the right amount of nervous reluctance. Even with all the amazing set pieces, the highlight of The Hobbit is the sequence where Bilbo and Gollum (Andy Serkis) challenge each other to a game of riddles. These scenes run the gamut of emotions from humorous to frightening. A lot of that is owed to both the performance of Freeman as well as Serkis with an assist from the motion capture artists. Technology has grown to allow Gollum a more expressive and ghoulish visage.

Speaking of technology, The Hobbit is the first feature film shot at 48-frames per second (aka High Frame Rate), which is double the industry standard. Thus, audiences have the choice to see it in plain old 2D, regular 3D, HFR 3D, IMAX 3D, and HFR IMAX 3D. I saw The Hobbit first in 2D in order to avoid any visual distractions. That would be my preferred format. The HFR version features exceptionally clear picture quality and a far more defined depth of field for the 3D. On the other hand, the resolution is so sharp that the movie looks more like a high definition broadcast of a theatrical play. There are times when the characters move as if they are on fast forward. I haven't mentioned the eyestrain it caused me from time to time. Maybe when James Cameron shoots Avatar 2 and 3 at 60FPS the tech will have improved, but for now HFR should be considered a work in progress.

After shooting Star Wars in 1977, George Lucas didn't return to the director's chair until he filmed The Phantom Menace over twenty years later. Fans immediately decried the prequels as drivel that emphasized special effects over genuine emotion. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey certainly isn't as awful as any of the Star Wars prequels, but it hardly holds a glowing blue sword to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Hobbit simply didn't need to be told on such a grand scale.

Rating: *** (*****)

Hanna

Hanna - Dir. Joe Wright (2011)

Joe Wright established himself immediately as a director to be reckoned with following his first two films Pride & Prejudice and Atonement. Wright brought a visual flair that isn’t generally found in historical romantic dramas and became known for his trademark uncut tracking shots. Cinephiles knew the moment Wright turned his hand to the action genre, the results would be something special.

Inspired by fairy tale folklore, Hanna takes elements from the stories of Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood (among others) and transplants them into a globe-trotting Jason Bourne-style actioner. The Grimm Brothers by way of Luc Besson.

Saoirse Ronan (who was nominated for an Oscar at the age of 13 for her role in Atonement) stars as Hanna, a young girl raised in the snowy wilderness of Finland by her father Erik Heller (Eric Bana), a rogue assassin. Heller trained her in survival skills, hand-to-hand combat, foreign languages, and firearms. Hanna’s bedtime stories are readings from what sounds like a discount encyclopedia. Father-daughter bonding sessions consist of Heller sneaking up and trying to kill her. Baby bird can’t stay in the nest forever and Hanna embarks on her journey into womanhood…by murdering her father’s enemies.

Hanna’s primary target is Cate Blanchett as CIA official Marissa Viegler, the evil stepmother of the story. The Wicked Witch of the Neo-Cons, Viegler sports a bob of dark red hair, classy pant suits, and designer high heels. Yes, the devil truly does wear Prada. Heller flips a switch and alerts Viegler of their whereabouts. Heller flees while Hanna allows herself to be captured. Hanna escapes from custody and hitches a ride with a hippie family putting from Morocco to Spain in a beat-up Volkswagen van. Forced to take extreme measures in killing the Hellers, Viegler hires a loony Euro-trash hitman named Isaacs (Tom Hollander) to capture the girl.

As expected, Hanna is an exceptionally stylish film utilizing techniques such as varying camera angles and jump cuts. Hanna’s escape from a CIA holding facility is the film’s most exciting sequence and Wright dips heavily into the Run Lola Run playbook. The set piece becomes a music video unto its own, punctuated by the throbbing electronic score by the Chemical Brothers (likely to be one of the best scores of 2011). The editing is fast-paced and the camera spins around and around. Sometimes it feels like Wright is showing off, but he thankfully stays away from the overused shaky handheld shots. Of course, he doesn’t forget the long take as the camera follows Heller into a subway stop where he battles a group of armed henchmen. The action is crisp and superbly staged by veteran fight coordinator Jeff Imada, who employs a similar style to the one he used in the Bourne pictures.

The movie isn’t always about kinetic action scenes, there’s a sense of tragedy and sweetness beneath the brutality of Hanna’s story. She has never encountered modern technology before. A short stay in a hotel room becomes a nightmare of sensory overload due to nothing more than a television and an electric kettle. Less frightening is the subplot involving Hanna’s friendship with the family’s daughter, Sophie (Jessica Barden), the first person her own age she’s ever met. Sophie is the stereotypical gum-chewing teenager and becomes fast friends with this oddball stray. This leads to Hanna’s first awkward (and surprisingly funny) encounter with an amorous Spanish boy.

Hanna isn’t bereft of problems. A gaping plot hole emerges when Hanna learns nearly everything about her background, her father, and top secret government projects in an internet café. This is in spite of the fact that she had an earlier freak out over a TV. The movie is also lacking a physically imposing villain, who might stand a chance against the superior fighting skills of the protagonists. The effete Isaacs isn’t going to cut it. He’s got a bad tan and wears eyeliner and velour tracksuits. Ludicrous fashion sense aside, once you see the stubby way in which he runs, you will be incapable of taking Hollander seriously as a bad guy. With her thick Texas drawl, Cate Blanchett comes off a little cartoonish as well. Most of the film’s over-the-top elements might be excused as a means to craft a modernized fairy tale. However, the point is driven in far too bluntly with a finale set in a run-down storybook amusement park.

”I just missed your heart…”

There’s something prophetic about that piece of dialogue used as the opening and closing lines of Hanna. She misses the mark from time to time, but still forcefully hits the target.

Rating: *** (*****)

Robin Hood

Robin Hood - Dir. Ridley Scott (2010)


”Rise and rise again until lambs become lions.”

Was there a dire need for yet another Robin Hood film? There have been dozens and dozens of iterations about the famed archer on film and television. One of the most well-regarded versions is The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn in a light-hearted, Technicolor adventure film. The garish color palette of the 1938 picture is in stark contrast to Robin and Marian with Sean Connery as an aging, world weary Robin Hood returning to England and his love Marian (Audrey Hepburn in her first film after a 9 year absence) who has since become a nun. A grimier and grounded approach was taken with Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves starring Kevin Costner as the blandest version of the title character. Despite Costner’s vanilla performance and sad attempt at a British accent, Prince of Thieves was buoyed by the mere presence of Morgan Freeman and a deliciously over-the-top Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Notthingham. You can also toss Disney’s animated Robin Hood and Mel Brooks’ parody Robin Hood: Men in Tights into the mix.

So where does Ridley Scott’s vision of Robin Hood stack up against the competition? Even with a $200 million budget, this Robin Hood sinks to the bottom of the barrel.

Russell Crowe teams with Ridley Scott for the fifth time. They originally paired up in the historical epic Gladiator and surprisingly followed that up with the romantic comedy, A Good Year. Their collaboration continued with the gritty crime film, American Gangster, and the spy thriller, Body of Lies. Robin Hood is closest in spirit to Gladiator and acts as a pseudo-companion piece to Scott’s Crusades picture, Kingdom of Heaven. This is a down and dirty rendition with nary a buckle swashed.

The film kicks off during the tail end of the 12th century with Richard the Lionheart (Danny Huston) attempting to make his way back to England following the folly of the Third Crusade. King Richard is killed by an arrow through the neck while ransacking a French castle. Among the king’s army is a skilled bowman by the name of Robin Longstride (Crowe) who quickly deserts the battlefield with his friends Little John (Kevin Durand), Will Scarlet (Scott Grimes), and Alan A’Dayle (Alan Doyle). Meanwhile, Richard’s right hand man, Sir Robert of Loxley (Douglas Hodge) leads a small band of knights to return the king’s crown to England. They are ambushed by the evil Sir Godfrey (Mark Strong) who conspires with King Philip of France (Jonathan Zaccai) to weaken England with civil war.

Robin and his Merry Men (though they are never called as such) come across the aftermath. Donning the knight’s chain mail, Robin poses as Loxley upon his return to England. He arrives at Loxley’s estate where Robert’s father, Sir Walter (Max von Sydow), requests that he continue the masquerade much to the chagrin of Robert’s widow, the Lady Marian (Cate Blanchett). While Robin undertakes the charade, Godfrey brutally and relentlessly gathers taxes from the people under the orders of Richard’s brother, the petulant King John (Oscar Isaac), a near-copycat of Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus.

The main cast also includes: William Hurt as the royal regent William Marshal, Mark Addy as Friar Tuck, and Matthew Macfadyen as an utterly inept Sheriff of Nottingham.

If that sounds like a lot to digest, it’s only the appetizer. There is a helluva lot more to come during the film’s daunting two and a half hour runtime. Robin Hood’s biggest strength lies in the spectacular production values. Scott and cinematographer John Mathieson (who also first collaborated on Gladiator) have created a gorgeous looking film that captures the majesty of the English landscape belonging to royalty and the squalidness of the world of the lower classes. CGI is effectively used to lend an added layer of authenticity. The acting isn’t particularly noteworthy, but the actors are fine in their roles. Honestly, the majority of them are capable of performing these parts in their sleep.

The weak link of the movie lies solely in the story. The screenplay was originally written by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris who also wrote Kung Fu Panda and…ugh…Bulletproof Monk. Working under the title of Nottingham, the project was intended to portray Robin Hood as the villain while his arch-enemy, the Sheriff, would be shown in a more sympathetic light. Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential) was brought on board to rewrite the script. Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love) was hired later on to perform script polishing while on-set. The filmmakers settled on telling the origin story of a character who has no definitive origin story. Thus, Scott has stripped Robin Hood of nearly everything that makes him Robin Hood.

The names and places may be the same, but the romance between Robin and Marian is only just blossoming. Robin doesn’t live in Sherwood Forest yet and he only robs from the rich and gives to the poor once. The film does postulate an interesting premise in making Robin, who has always been portrayed as a nobleman, a humble peasant and conning his way into the higher classes. However, that subplot is dropped soon after. See, Robin never knew his real father, but Sir Walter conveniently knew Daddy Longstride and reveals all to him. Oh, and Robin’s father apparently came up with the Magna Carta.

Therein lays another weak point in the script, the uneven hodgepodge of historical fact and fiction. Real-life figures and events feel shoehorned into the legends and myths of Robin Hood. The movie maintains a self-serious tone which is completely undone during the climactic battle when the transport ships from Saving Private Ryan arrive. It only gets more ludicrous when Marian arrives in battle armor with an army of wild boys who look like they wandered off the set of Lord of the Flies.

Imagine going to see Batman Begins only to discover Bruce Wayne doesn’t don the Bat-costume until the final minute of the film. Robin Hood makes us sit through a 140 minute prologue that ends at the exact moment when it should have begun.

Rating: * ½

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Dir. David Fincher (2008)


Benjamin Button will stand for years to come as a monumental achievement in technical wizardry. However, the film isn’t there to service the special effects; the effects are there to service the film. Director David Fincher, known for darker fare (Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac), has created a vivid storybook tale of love and mortality.

Brad Pitt plays the title character for much of the film, usually hidden behind a layer of make-up and CGI effects. He is born at the end of World War I in New Orleans, except he is born with all the ailments of an 80 year-old man. His skin is wrinkled, his limbs are arthritic, and his eyes are stricken with cataracts. The baby’s mother dies giving birth and the father, Thomas Button (Jason Flemyng), leaves the baby at the doorstep of a nursing home. There, he’s taken in by Queenie (Taraji P. Hanson), the caretaker who names the baby, Benjamin. He begins life as a lame-legged old man, fitting right in with other inhabitants. Soon, he meets the red-haired Daisy (Elle Fanning as a child, Cate Blanchett as an adult), the granddaughter of another tenant. For Benjamin, it’s love at first sight while Daisy senses a kindred soul underneath his elderly exterior.

Benjamin devours life with a youthful exuberance. He explores New Orleans with a newly-arrived pygmy and gets a job on a tugboat with Captain Mike (Jared Harris). At sea, Benjamin sees more of the world and visits his first brothel. He travels to Russia where he has an affair with Elizabeth Abbot (Tilda Swinton), the wife of a British diplomat. Returning to the States, his relationship with Daisy goes through its ups and downs. It isn’t until the two reunite in their middle age that their love affair can finally begin. But, love is fleeting when Benjamin realizes he’ll grow younger and younger.

The script was co-written by Robin Swicord and Eric Roth who took inspiration from a 24 page short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald to create a near three hour masterpiece. Roth previously won an Oscar for his adaptation of Forrest Gump and you can clearly see echoes of that in Benjamin Button. Both films star a passive protagonist moving through the 20th century and a love that is doomed by circumstances worldly and physical. However, Button manages to avoid distilling almost an entire century of history into a series of contrivances and empty Hallmark platitudes. While this works great, there are two glaring omissions. Though Benjamin is raised by an adoptive black mother, the issue of segregation in the south is never mentioned. Sprinkled throughout the film are scenes with an aged Daisy on her deathbed as her daughter (Julia Ormond) reads from Benjamin’s diary just before Hurricane Katrina strikes. It feels like a superfluous addition when the tragedy isn’t truly addressed.

Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett give fine performances though not as strong as some of their other films. The romance between Benjamin and Daisy is at its strongest when they’re at their most miserable. It’s not nearly as interesting when they’re happy, frolicking in their sparsely furnished apartment as the Beatles play on The Ed Sullivan Show. The best performance belongs to Taraji P. Henson for her portrayal of Benjamin’s Butterfly McQueen-esque adoptive mother.

Rating: *** ½

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom...

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Dir. Steven Spielberg (2008)

Harrison Ford dusts off the old fedora and whip as he plunks Indy right into the middle of a 1950's B-movie.

Descends into one long, CGI-fueled carnival ride with plenty of missed potential. Yet, still a fun popcorn film.

Don't go in with high expectations.

Babel

Babel - Dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (2006)

Everything I loved about Crash I detested in Babel.

Characters so mind-boggingly moronic they lack single, solitary sympathetic quality.

Rinko Kikuchi is the sole positive to this trite, preachy, and overrated Oscar bait.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Elizabeth: The Golden Age - Dir. Shekhar Kapur (2007)

Obnoxiously, overproduced costume drama.

Cate Blanchett is loud and bombastic which is perfect for this loud and bombastic picture.