The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies has nothing much to say, but it takes an awfully long time to say it.

This, the conclusion of the three Hobbit films, tells us, once again, that a cursed object can turn everyday greed into  megalomania.  It tells us that love triangles are a cheap way to generate dramatic tension.  It tells us that somewhere between The Lord of the Rings: The Returnof the King and today, Peter Jackson forgot how to present massive battles in a way that made geographical, military, character, and thematic sense.

Either that, or I really am getting too old for this stuff.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

I am the target demographic for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.  I still have a 35-year-old copy of the source novel that has followed me from move to move.  I loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I bought the extended editions of all three of those films on DVD.  Heck, I even loved the generally unappreciated first ‘Hobbit’ film, An Unexpected Journey.

Desolation of Smaug is different.  I fell asleep during the climax.

By the time the film got our titular hobbit to the treasure-laden lair of the dragon Smaug, it had taken so many detours that I’d lost interest.  A love triangle featuring two elves and a dwarf?  That idea never should have escaped the world of slash fiction.  A tedious backstory about a heroic ferryman and his family’s legacy of dragonfighting?  Meh.  Gandalf and Radagast investigating the possible appearance of the villain from The Lord of the Rings?  At least it wasn’t trade negotiations. 

And on and on and on and on.  The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug felt so bloated and meandering that it failed to generate any propulsive energy.  I began the film caring about our Hobbit’s quest to find Smaug’s mountain, but by the time the last MacGuffin showed up (some kind of glowing gem that the dwarves want), I’d lost interest and felt the need to rest my eyes.

All this means that The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, failed in its core mission: entertaining its audience.  I didn’t actively hate it, but I grew so bored I don’t even know whether I’ll queue up its final sequel, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.  It’ll take one heck of a critical reception to make me change my mind.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I took my wife and oldest child to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I loved it, which isn't saying much. I'm wedded to the source material, you see. The book was my early-adolescent gateway drug to the world of fantasy, and I loved Peter Jackson's film simply for the opportunity it gave me to spend time in its world.

This is the paragraph where I tease the plot, to help you decide whether it interests you. But this is The Hobbit we're talking about. If you don't know the plot, just go read the book. If you're a reasonably fast reader, you can plow through it in about as much time as it'd take you to get in the car, drive to the theater, see the film, and drive home.

That said, the film is a prequel done right. Yes, it puts pieces in place for the LOTR movies (discussed here, here, and here), but it tells its own story, with its own dangers and its own heroes and villains. I cared about Bilbo qua Bilbo, and not just because of the effect his actions might have on other people in other movies down the storyline. Sherlock's Martin Freeman does great work in the role, giving us the very much settled adult hobbit, as opposed to Elijah Woods's young adult Frodo. James Nesbitt, alternately chilling and charming in BBC's Jekyll, shows a whole different side as a particularly cheerful and resourceful dwarf (whose names I never could keep strait, in print or on film). And it's always nice to see 7th Doctor Sylvester McCoy getting work, this time as nature wizard Radagast the Brown.

When I inevitably purchase this film, I'll be particularly interested in watching the special features about the technical aspects of its creation.  With as much care as Peter Jackson and his team put into creating Middle Earth for The Lord of the Rings, they had to work even harder here. See, Jackson chose to film in 48 fps, the kind of super-high definition you may associate with sporting events on an HDTV. That means that spray paint over styrofoam wasn't going cut it, this time around. This stuff needed to look better that low-def real: it had to look real real. In this, Jackson succeeds perhaps too well. His vision, at 48fps 3-D, is so clear and detailed that we find ourselves moving into the uncanny valley, where our brains shift from willing suspension of disbelief to unwillingly noticing that things are not quite right. While the film's hyperreality works to breathtaking effect in sequences like the battle of the stone giants, I had to consciously suspend my disbelief when it returns to a bunch of actors on a stage who look just like a bunch of actors on a stage.

Nevertheless, I was happy to keep on believing. I cared about Bilbo, I loved the action set-pieces, and I just plain enjoyed spending 2 hours and 45 minutes in Middle Earth. I look forward to going back again.

Wild Target

In Wild Target, Bill Nighy plays an uptight assassin who accepts a contract on manic pixie dream girl (MPDG) Emily Blunt.  But there’s a problem: Emily Blunt is too smart to play a MPDG.  Something about her eyes doesn’t let her do “carefree and irresponsible.”  She looks like she’s faking it.

Nighy never looks like he’s faking anything, and he makes for a fine straight man in this British comedy.  Rupert Grint shows up as a hapless stoner and displays good comic timing, as does Rupert Everett as a very angry villain and Martin Freeman as a competing assassin.  Unfortunately, we never really buy Blunt in the Zooey Deschanel role, and this sucks the air out of the proceedings. 

It’s too bad, really.  I’d buy Ms. Blunt as a detective or a scientist or the Queen of England.  But she just doesn’t have MPDG in her.  Here’s hoping that next time, she chooses a role more in line with her strengths.

Hot Fuzz

HOT FUZZ is better than SHAUN OF THE DEAD. And I liked SHAUN OF THE DEAD.

SHAUN breaks down a bit in the third act, when it transitions from "zombie comedy" to "zombie horror." FUZZ, on the other hand, benefits from the action tradition it gently mocks - there's plenty of room for comedy in an action picture, and this film uses every square inch of it.

Here's the setup: Sergeant Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is such a great London cop that he's superiors (Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan, and Bill Nighy) transfer him to a quiet little village in the country, where he won't make everyone else look so bad. Once he gets there, he finds that someone, presumably the creepily hale proprietor of the local supermarket (Timothy Dalton, finding the scenery delicious), is committing murder that would be most foul if it weren't in retribution for doing things like putting on laughably bad productions of "Romeo and Juliet." From there, as any action-movie aficionado can tell you, it's but a short step to massive explosions, the crackle of automatic gunfire, and a fugitive swan.

It's loads of fun, with wonderful comic turns from a cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Jim Broadbent, Paddy Considine, and even Peter Jackson. It features gags from broad to subtle, as well as surprising performances from Timothy Dalton and Paddy Considine, two actors I don't normally associate with comedy. HOT FUZZ kept me chuckling from beginning to end.

What a delightful film.