Review: The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey (dir. Peter Jackson)

Story: 13 dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) set out on a quest to reclaim the mountain under which they lived (and the gold in it) from the dragon Smaug. The wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) insists that the hobbit Bilbo Bagins (Martin Freeman) joins them. Bilbo is not directly that keen for an adventure, but joins the dwarves nonetheless. Meanwhile, dark powers seem to awaken in Middle Earth.

The Hobbit did nothing but confirm to me that, when it concerns everything Tolkien, I am right and the rest of the world is wrong. I’ve made this argument several times, so in this review I will not mention the plodding storytelling, the painfully dull and slow dialogues and the bloated self-importance that characterized the Lord of the Rings movies and also this new franchise outing. Nor will I go on and on about the fetishistic, alsmost fascist escapism these fantasy epics offer to the deluded masses.

So let’s get past all that and discuss elements of The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey in their own light.

First of all, I must say that I disliked it less than I did The Return of the King. Most important is that The Hobbit has a lighter tone. The book on which it is based is a children’s book, and that is clear from the film adaptation as well. Even though this is clearly a 12+ film (don’t bring little children!)  The story is still a bit too serious for my tastes – I do not think that any film featuring dwarves, elves, ‘wargs’ and albino orcs should take itself serious at all – but there is definitely a move in the right direction.

Of course the film looks gorgeous again. This is the one quality of the LOTR films that I recognize as well. Unfortunately, due to the 3D and the 48fps technology (by which the number of still images you see in one second of film is doubled) the sets and even the gorgeous natural backdrops have a slightly artificial shine on them. Also, whenever there are quick movements in the frame or sweeping camera moves it seems as if the film is projected too fast.

Actually, that might have been an idea! For with 2 hours and 45 minutes The Hobbit is much, much too long. Entire sequences could easily have been scrapped. Especially in the painfully dragging first hour-and-a-half. Only in the action-packed last hour the film picks up pace. Crucially, this is also the hour in which the single outstanding scene takes place: the fateful meeting between Bilbo and the creature Gollem (Andy Serkis).

With Bilbo we arrive on a plus for The Hobbit. Martin Freeman is one of my favourite television and film actors, and his Bilbo Bagins is a nice bloke. Much more so than Elijah Wood’s Frodo (who makes an entirely unnecessary cameo appearance together with Ian Holm). I actually like watching Bilbo doing stuff. Whatever that stuff might be.

The dwarves are with too many. Even Gandalf, on several moments in the film, has to count to find out whether or not they are all still there. They could have had slightly more outspoken and specific characters as well. Onle Armitage’s Thorin and Ken Stott’s Balin stand out. The others are nothing but ‘the fat one’ or ‘the young one’.

Finally (BIG SPOILER): it is entirely impossible to put a group of fifteen characters through so many perils and come out on the other hand without a single casualty. What is the point of having thousands of goblins attacking our company if they can simply be pushed from a bridge?

Final verdict: Jackson’s Tolkien movies will never win me over. I’ll just have to get used to the fact that they do enchant most of the global audience nonetheless. The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey does nothing to change that. It has its pluses and its minuses, but in the end it leaves me entirely cold. The only good thing is that it will make a global super star out of Martin Freeman.

Thursday Movie News Flash Update Blog-message

Things we’ve learned this week:

3D makes things go slow…

An umbrella Cannes be useful

The Magnificent Cruise and six other random guys?

A dictator bans The Dictator

and

No Joker, but some jokes in The Dark Knight Rises….

Boom! Aargh! Pow! – the The Avengers review

Boom! Aargh! Pow! Good Joke! Green Monster! Flying Aircraft Carrier! Eye-Scorchingly Bad 3D! Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth &  Chris Evans! Scarlett Johansson, Hot! Gwyneth Paltrow, Not Enough Of! Jeremy Renner, Samuel L. Jackson and Cobie Smulders in Too Small Roles! Boom! Aargh! Pow! Directed by Joss Whedon! He of Buffy! And Cabin in the Woods! Chonk Boom Aargh Pow! Tom Hiddlestone Dressed Up As A Golden Reindeer! Chunk! Crunch!

Trailer:

Judgment: Entertaining, funny, too long, bad 3D, some good acting, annoying kids in the auditorium (it’s a 12 certification stupid parents!), bad beginning, better ending. Bring on Iron Man 3.

At Least There’s Titans In It – the Wrath of the Titans review

Admittedly, there are few films that I’ve looked forward to less than Wrath of the Titans. It is the sequel to a film, Clash of the Titans, that I dubbed the worst film of 2010. News that its production was greenlit by the studio, back in december 2010, gave me a nasty rash. But because I also do not want to miss out on the opportunity to see write a brutally scathing review, I decided to go and see it.

I must say, by the way, that the trailer had actually been slightly promising, mostly due to an effective use of Marylin Manson’s Eurythmics cover of Sweet Dreams.

And you know what. Wrath of the Titans is fine (dir. Jonathan Lieberman). It is okay. It is definitely not going to be the worst film of 2012. It did not bother me (apart from some ill-judged ‘appropriations’ of Greek mythology), it did not hurt my eyes or split my eardrums. In short: it did not anger me.

Of course it is still stupid nonsense. The plot synopsis should make that clear: Demi-God Perseus (Sam Worthington), after having saved the world from the Kraken, now lives as a single fisherman dad, trying to forget his past. Yet there is a struggle between the Gods, and Ares and Hades (Ralph Fiennes) plan to set free the terrible Titans, ancient monster Gods who once ruled the Earth. Zeus (Liam Neeson) is captured and then it is up to a reluctant Perseus to save the world once more. He sets out with a small band of warriors and has to fight Cyclops, Minotaurs and Chimeras before he can collect the weapons he needs to beat über-Titan Kronos.

As I said: nonsense. But entertaining enough. Moreover there are three emotional relations between characters that carry the flimsy adventure plot. These relations (between Perseus and his son, between Perseus and Zeus and between Perseus and Ares) are generic, but they are strong enough for the duration of the film.

The 3D is middle-of-the-road, but much, much better than the dreadful conversion job done on Clash. The sequence in the Labyrinth has actually quite effective 3D effects. Sam Worthington’s Australian accent and his lack of dramatic talent are still a problem, but at least he has got a haircut this time that can pass for Ancient Greek. There is a very funny cameo of Bill Nighy, as Hephaestos, and Rosamund Pike, who I always enjoy watching, is a generic but sufficient warrior queen Andromeda.

Most important: Wrath has got Titans in it. That was always something curiously lacking from Clash: that a film with the word Titans in it had not Titans in the film. If you enjoy silly mythology/adventure/battle films, than Wrath of the Titans is a flick as good as they come.

Tharks, Zarks and Barfs – the John Carter review

It might very well be that somewhere in the classic stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs (also the creator of Tarzan, by the way) about John Carter and his exploits there lurks a diamond of a sci-fi adventure movie. But John Carter (previously titled John Carter of Mars) is not it. I feel slightly uncomfortable trashing this film. Arguing that it is not very original is just unfair. Rice Burroughs’ science fiction stories are over a century old, and if this film seems like a cheap Star Wars rip-off, then it is only so because George Lucas was inspired by those stories when making his big break-through film.

But it does feel awfully familiar, and that is probably the reason it took so long before anyone dared to bring John Carter to the screen. Studios must have felt intuitively that a story about a displaced hero, a princess, warring factions, green aliens called Tharks and shape shifting blue baddies would, to modern audiences unacquainted with Rice Burroughs’ work, be a bit daft and at the same time terribly cliched. At best.

Basically, the one thing that Disney’s take on the material has to offer is its director. Andrew Stanton is a legend. He is the guy who wrote the Toy Story trilogy. Who made Wall-E, and Finding Nemo. Not just excellent kids’ or family films. Excellent films. The failure (artistically, financially John Carter will no doubt do as its meant to) of this film is all the more painful considering the CV on which it is a stain.

The story, for whoever cares, is as following: It is 1868 and disgruntled Civil War veteran John Carter (Taylor ‘what’s-in-a-name’ Kitsch) seeks for gold as he is mysteriously transported to the planet of ‘Barsoom’. There he is captured by tall green aliens, but he manages to save a human-like princess of a city that is at war with another city and he gets mixed up in the local affairs. Everyone wants him on their side, because John Carter is incredibly strong and agile on this strange planet with a lower gravity.

If that does not sound daft enough for you, the locals are called names such as Tars Tarkas, Dejah Soris, Tardors Mors and Sab Than. And there aren’t just Tharks, there are also Warhoons, Zodangans and (you won’t believe this) Heliumites. The latter, by the way, do not speak with an inexplicably high pitched voice, unfortunately. All these strange and uninteresting people are at war with themselves and each other, on a planet that for an unapparent reason is apparently dying. And the bad guys have a weapon that is based on the mysterious blue ‘ninth ray’ of something.

If that does not sound problematic enough for you than please do also consider that the film is a mess. The plotting is all over the place, the dialogue is heavy in tone yet meaningless in, well, meaning, and the action scenes are outright boring. Compared to this, Avatar was a text-book example of disciplined and swift storytelling.

But the most terrible thing is that the film is so ugly. The art director must have been on some nasty drugs when designing the world of Barsoom, and the color scheme is all over the place. I had to physically look away (!) from the screen regularly to protect my eyes. I am not even interested in criticizing the worst 3D I’ve seen as of yet, because however bad the 3D is, there is nothing there for it to ruin.

I feel sorry for the actors who, some way or another, found themselves in this train-wreck of a film. Ciaran Hinds at least shows that he knows he is in a drunken panto farce. But It is painful to see Dominic West, Mark Strong, Lynn Collins and the actually quite charismatic Taylor Kitsch trying so hard.

Spielberg, Tintin and the proper use of 3D?

Well, this is something I did not see coming: I was watching The Adventures of Tintin, on my television, in 2D, and I missed the 3^rd dimension. This does not mean that 3D is perfectly fine after all, or that it is the future of cinema, but it does suggest to me something different, that I had not realized before. I argued previously for a specific cinematic use of 3D that was narratologically justified.

When I saw Tintin in 3D in the cinema I did not have the feeling that it employed such a use of 3D, even though I did think that the film was visually arresting and innovative. But especially those elements that were innovative – all those reflections, transformations and cuts-without-cutting – were considerably less effective in 2D. Spielberg may have been onto something!

Of course the pointing of swords and other long-shaped things in the direction of the audience did not work either, but these effects are just standard and boring anyway.

Has Spielberg figured out how to use 3D in a narratologically useful way? I think he has at least made a start with developing a proper 3D style. What do you think? Don’t hesitate to let me now!

Oscar’s logic: things to consider…

Tonight are the Oscars awarded, in a big ceremony in the Kodak theatre in Los Angeles. So over the last week(s) many people have tried to predict who is going to win. But what do we need to consider? Three types of Oscar logic work kinda against each other this year:

Oscar logic number 1: there is almost always one big favourite. This year that favourite is Michel Hazanavicius’  almost-silent black-and-white film The Artist. Last year it was The King’s Speech. Crucially, this big favourite will win awards, in the wake of winning best picture, almost automatically. Best Director and Best Original (or adapted, depending on the film) Screenplay for instance. Or some technical awards that other films might be more deserving of. So there is a chance that The Artist, apart from winning Best Film, will also win Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Music, Best Art Direction, Best Costumes, Best Editing and best Cinematography. And of course Best Actor for Jean Dujardin and Best Supporting Actress for Berenice Bejo.

Oscar logic number 2: The industry has certain demands. You wouldn’t believe it, but Hollywood thinks it is in crisis. Because of the economical crisis everwhere else of course, and because of piracy. So box office success and industrial demands do influence the votes. If a film has hardly been seen by anyone, then kiss your chances goodbye. Sorry Glenn Close (nominated for Albert Nobbs), but that is the deal. As to industrial demands: In 2009-10, Avatar broke all kinds of box office records. So it won awards. Technical ones, mostly, but still. In a strange, counter-sentimental move against Avatar and 3D the important prizes of 2010 were won by the little-seen The Hurt Locker. But this year 3D must be proven a viable option for the future, now that legendary directors Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese have adopted the format. Since Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin was criminally neglected by the Academy, Scorsese’s Hugo may have a shot at some prizes, especially Editing and Cinematography.

Oscar logic number 3: On the wave of The Artist Dujardin and Bejo may win awards for their performances, but there are other factors to consider: Best Actor is a career prize. It usually goes to actors who have a long-standing reputation in Hollywood. To win, it has to be your time. Cue Jeff Bridges in 2010, Colin Firth in 2011 and now George Clooney in 2012. Or, very perhaps, Gary Oldman. In the supporting categories the Academy tends to reward eccentric, extravagant performances in socially ‘relevant’  films. So Mo’nique in 2010, for Precious, and Melissa Leo last year for The Fighter. And this year Octavia Spencer for The Help.

I do not know what will happen in Los Angeles tonight. But whatever the outcome, the three types of Oscar logic described above will play their parts.

Oscar logic number 4. Pixar wins Best Animated Film. Oh, wait, they are not nominated this year. ..

Misjudged Eulogy of Early Cinema – the Hugo review

The two most Oscar-nominated flms this year are the fantastic The Artist, the big favourite that has received ten nominations, and Hugo, Martin Scorsese’s first 3D and first family film. It has received eleven nominations, mostly in technical categories, although Best Film and Best Director are also on the list. Curiously, both films are about the past of cinema. But whereas The Artist is a wonderful birthday party, Hugo is a bittersweet eulogy. At its better moments at least.

Because for the longest part of its running time, it is boring, standard fare. My list of things that I dislike about Hugo kicks off with its infuriatingly romanticized, stereotypical representation of 1930s Paris, a quality which the film curiously shares with another overhyped nominee, Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. But at least Midnight in Paris admitted that this representation was a fantasy. This is literally a film in which the Eiffel tower can be seen from every window in the city.

The second problem is the story, which is strangely two-sided. There is a bit about a young boy – the titular Hugo Cabret – living in the walls of a train station, operating the clocks and trying to rebuild the automaton his late father left him. And when this story is more or less told and done with (after a little more than an hour, a proper running time for a mediocre kids’ flick) another story begins, about an old and bitter shopkeeper and his mysterious past. Needless to say, that story is much more interesting, and I would have loved to see it as a proper drama on itself.

The third problem lies very close to the second problem. It is the actors’ performances. As the depiction of Paris, they are so stereotypical that it hurts. Starting with the young Asa Butterfield (Hugo), who for the sake of his youth will be spared harsh criticism. And continuing with the also-very-young Chloe Moretz, who we have seen in such better form in Kick-Ass and Let Me In. Far more problematic is the supporting role of Sacha Baron Cohen as the station chief, who is a stumbling cliche of a man, and a painfully underused Jude Law as Hugo’s father. The only major cats member who fare better are Sir Christopher Lee as a bookshop owner, also much too little in the picture, and Sir Ben Kingsley, as the ill-fated shopkeeper. Also, what is it with the thick English accents in a film set in Paris? What is the point of that?

The good things then. First of all there is the 3D, which is actually justified in some moments; for instance when showing the inner mechanics of the station clocks, or in flashbacks to the first years of the twentieth century. It isn’t perfect, but it shows at least a bit of potential for the technology. Unfortunately an inferior variety of the technology is used – the one with the heavy glasses that give me headaches – instead of the more common and superior RealD.

The second good thing are those flashbacks, which are the crown jewels of the film and which belong to the second, more interesting, part of the story. Without giving away too much, these are the scenes that won Hugo its Oscar nominations, the technical ones as well as the ‘ major’ ones. They are the ones that won over the hearts of film ‘connaisseurs’ (rather than fans or the regular audience) and members of the Academy. There may be some rewriting of history going on in the process, when the First world War substitutes for copyright struggles and financial misadventures, but that fits the drama and is pardonable.

Director Martin Scorsese is a film connaisseur. A lover of the history of the medium and the art, as his many documentaries on the subject clearly show. In interviews he says that he wanted, for once, to make a film that his children could enjoy, who are too young for Taxi Driver or The Departed. But it was a mistake to make his first 3D film, and an ode to early cinema at the same time. The three objectives fit crudely together, much unlike the perfect mechanisms of the clocks and the automaton.

The Top Ten Best Films of 2011

Disclaimer: due to the usually late release dates of film in The Netherlands I have not yet seen some films that have already had their US/UK releases (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hugo, The Muppets). For the same reason some films are for me part of 2011 despite their first release in 2010 (True Grit, Black Swan). Finally there is one film I really wanted to see but did not get around to: Nicholas Winding Refn’s Drive. I will pick it up on DVD or Bluray and get back in touch about it.

10 Tree of Life

Who would have though that a Terence Malick film, besides ethereal whispers and meditations on the meaning of (a) life, could feature dinosaurs? Brilliant!

9 The Adventures of Tintin

Another film in which the plot did not matter ebcause the visuals were so beautiful. Spielberg explored the possibilities of animation, motion capture and 3D and comes up with some of the most captivating action sequences and original transitions of the year.

8 Contagion

A film that literally gives you the creeps. I was scared to sneeze, to touch my face, to touch objects in public places. Well, for an hour or so at least. Soderbergh manages again, after Traffic, to mix topicality with suspense and entertainment.

7 Bridesmaids

I called it the best comedy of the year, and Bridesmaids is the ultimate proof that, despite the inevitable toilet humor, American comedy is still very much alive. Also: despite the involvement of non-funny-man Judd Apatow.

6 Source Code

The 2011 heir of Inception. A smart intelligent action sci-fi flick that only revealed its plot priblems upon retrospection, never during the movie itself. And upon finally seeing Duncan Jones’ previous film Moon (2009) one could argue that Inception is the heir of Moon…

5 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Based on the Jasper’s Take Award winning trailer my expectations were perhaps set too high, and my disappointment inevitable. But Thomas Alfredson delivers a moody, beautifully designed and shot thriller with outstanding performances accross the board.

4 True Grit

The best thing about True Grit is that it is not a typical Coen brothers film. It is first and foremost a gripping western and a great adaptation of the Charles Portis novel. The directorial peculiarities are restricted to the details, which is nice after the essential Coen film that was A Serious Man.

3 Carnage

I called it the best comedy of the year. Polanski does Sartre, but with laughs. And the old master is getting a bit sentimental in his old days, considering the last shot. Furthermore Carnage had the best ensemble performance of the year.

2 Black Swan

A film that touched me, literally, physically. I could not get up at first when the ending credits started to roll. Aronofsky may not be for everyone, but for me he is the most consistently overwhelming filmmaker of the last two decades

1 The Artist

It’s not original to think this is the film of the year, but it is. Especially for me, as I am closely studying both silent film and its musical accompaniment, and the aesthetic changes brought about by the introduction of sound. A film that forms a perfect tripple bill with Singing in the Rain and Sunset Boulevard. A feelgood film, a romantic adventure and a modern classic of the postmodern age, but without an ironic tone. The best film of 2011 was without a single doubt Michel Hazanavicus’ The Artist.

The Top Ten Worst Films of 2011

10 Tree of Life

That a Terrence Malick film comes with mumbling voice-overs and a hard-to-follow plot we all knew. That it could come with added dinosaurs was something we didn’t see coming. And Sean Penn had every right to be pissed off…

9 The Three Musketeers

You also don’t expect much from any Paul W. Anderson film. But that it would be so outrageous and stupid even I could not predict. Orlando Bloom’s hair is the only reason that it is slightly better than:

8 Conan the Barbarian

You don’t expect much going into Conan the Barbarian. But that it would be so vile and stupid even I could not predict.

7 Nova Zembla

Everyone who was paid to see it liked it. Everyone who had paid to see it hated it. Overhyped and overmarketed stinker with terrible 3D effects.

6 Paul

Shockingly non-funny for a film with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Plus it insults Ellen Ripley rather than that it pays hommage to her. Must have to do with the direction of non-talent Greg Mottola.

5 Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides

A terrible let down of the fans of the original three films. Lazy writing, directing and acting infuriated me. It says quite a few things about the terrible blockbuster year that was 2011 that this pile of crap is only the fifth worst film of the year.

4 Sucker Punch

Ouch. Proof that Zack Snyder should stick with putting a glamorous veneer over the smarter writings of more talented people. Directing the Nolan-penned Man of Steel will be the Litmus test for the rest of his career. Awesome soundtrack though, thanks to Emily Browning’s “Sweet Dreams…” cover.

3 The Change Up

Morally bankrupt. Together with The Hangover 2 and every single Kevin James film of this year the ultimate proof that American comedy is stone dead. Everyone involved should be banned for ever from any movie set.

2 Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Morally bankrupt. The worst thing about the Transformers movies is that they now spawn a whole new generation of toy based stupid battle movies, like the upcoming Battleship and the GI Joe films.

1 Green Lantern

If films were food than everything else in this list would come from McDonalds, but I described Green Lantern as “a cold hash of unidentifiable meat still dripping with the fat of an unclean frying pan.” Subsequently I suggested that it should be dumped in the deepest depths of the Mariana Trench. We shall never ever mention it again.