The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies - 2014

"The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" - 2014
Dir. by Peter Jackson - 2 hrs. 24 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

Yeah, it's kind of lame that I'm only now getting around to seeing the third Hobbit movie in the theatre.  But sometimes things get in the way, even of things you want to see.  Besides, past the first week of release, it's pretty much the same when you see something.  Some dork on TV will have already spoiled the movie, if one of your friends haven't already.  Anyhow, I read "The Hobbit" a couple of years ago, so I knew what was going to happen.  And all things considered, you probably ought to as well, so don't get your hackles up if one or two things get talked about without a precious "spoiler" tag, okay?

"The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" is the final of three Hobbit movies, and as the title might suggest, is largely the huge battle at the end of the book.  Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) sets his sights on burning down Lake-town near his lair, which is one of those win/lose situations.  Yes, there is ample opportunity to roast s'mores on the smoldering ashes of what was once a town, but Smaug also receives a most-uncomfortable piercing (right in the heart!) from Bard the Bowman (Luke Evans) that snuffs out Smaug's fire forever.  The rest of the movie is mostly concerned with the battle of the five armies, over the immense fortune Smaug had hoarded over the years, that the crew of dwarves, led by Thorin II Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), have taken possession of.  Because everyone loves gold.

Of the three Hobbit films, this is the one that's probably least qualified to stand on it's own as a film.  There's a lot of things that have happened over the roughly five hours of screen time that precede this installment, and some of it is compelling!  We have gotten to know some of the players who are going to populate the giant final battle, and without that, you might as well just punch in a cheat code and go around killing things in a video game.  If all you want is action, "Five Armies" doesn't even match up to the second installment, which had a bonafide must-see action sequence (the one that starts with the river escape in wine barrels).  Yes, there are armies fighting, and one-on-one battles of great importance, but none of it is particularly memorable.  Enjoyable, yes, most definitely, but nothing here ever kicks into that extra gear that truly great action sequences have.  The action is like a solid B, bordering on a B+, except that when you take into account all the resources that were used to create these adaptations, it's definitely a B.

This isn't really an "acting" movie, either.  Director Peter Jackson basically spent five hours trying to get you to care what happens to these characters, and spends these two and a half hours answering those questions one-by-one.  The only character that really gets to do anything beyond fight and grimace is Alfrid (Ryan Gage), who is delightfully cowardly, and a welcome chance to catch your breath during what would otherwise just be wall-to-wall sword swinging.  I have a hard time judging the plot here, since I have read the book recently enough that there weren't going to be any surprises.  I very much wanted to be blown away by this film, and there were moments here and there that were spectacular (the New Zealand scenery, as always, and also the War Moose thing that Thranduil (Lee Pace) rode in on - I couldn't stop staring at the giant rack of horns it wielded), but my biggest problem with the series is that it only occasionally topped what was in my head when I read the novel (and in a couple of instances, fell way, way short).

So this third installment was more about delivering what had been promised, and Peter Jackson did that.  There weren't going to be any big surprises, and I had hoped for a little more, but I can't complain about what's here.  It's a solid work, and it'll probably be a very long time before anyone else tackles the same material, so we're all just going to have to get used to the idea that these films are the definitive film versions of "The Hobbit."  I'm largely okay with that.  I could definitely imagine blowing through the trilogy again, it was that good.  If "The Battle of the Five Armies" was the least of the three, that's because it's two hours of resolution without really presenting new questions to be resolved.  But I'm a bad example - not quite a super-fan, but I'm familiar enough with the material that I can't be surprised.  These movies are probably blowing some kid's mind somewhere, and that's good enough for me.

3 / 5 - Theatre

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - 2013

"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" - 2013
Dir. by Peter Jackson - 2 hrs. 41 min.

Trailer #3

by Clayton Hollifield

Going into the second movie of a trilogy, you have to know that you're in for the bummer installment.  In a three-act story, the end of the second act should set in motion whatever needs to be resolved in the third act.  Usually, movies aren't sprawling trilogies, and this all plays out over the course of a couple of hours (instead of seven or eight, when we're all done and before the extended versions hit home video).  If you want to see the template for this, you can consult the original Star Wars trilogy, where "The Empire Strikes Back" is the bummer movie.  So, entering "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" (and much of a downer title is that?), you should expect that things are not going to end up well for Gandalf, Bilbo, and the thirteen dwarves.  So no complaining!

On the heels of the first film, we find Gandalf (Ian McKellan), Bilbo (Martin Freeman), Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), and the rest of the dirty dozen on the precipice of a giant forest that must be traversed due to time constraints.  Gandalf abandons the crew when something more pressing pops up, and the dwarves end up imprisoned in Elvish prisons, but still make friends.  When they escape, thanks to Bilbo's ingenuity, they continue their quest to reach the Lonely Mountain, and the dwarves can reclaim their ancestral land from a giant, possibly slumbering dragon named Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch).

If you're familiar with the book, you'll know that this is the segment that contains both the giant evil spiders, and the escape down a river in wine barrels.  And, since Smaug is in the title of the movie, it's not really a spoiler to say that you'll also finally get a good look at the dragon (and all the riches he's hoarding).  Gandalf also has a solitary battle at a castle, which is separate from the rest of the dwarves and Bilbo's quest.  In terms of the overall tone, the first installment was more light-hearted than this one, but then again, number two out of three has to be the bummer movie.  What hasn't changed is the flair for exotic, vast settings, but a lot of them take place in vast, yet confining places (there was a lot of open space in the first installment).  In terms of the big pieces, I found the giant spider material a little underwhelming, not quite up to what comes across in the book.  On the other hand, the wine-barrel escape was spectacular, one of those action sequences that starts out well, tops itself, and then tops itself again after you think there's nowhere further to go.

Part of the joy of these films is seeing places that you've read about, and getting to nose around in them a bit.  The forest is appropriately awful and maddening, the wood elves' land is as interesting as any of the kingdoms shown in the first film.  The Harbor town, Esgaroth, is a foggy and grim place, ruled by a corrupt king played by Stephen Fry.  And finally, inside the Lonely Mountain lays untold riches and a foul-tempered dragon, and it's as awesome as if Uncle Scrooge's Money Pit had come to life.  Heck, even the bar that the film opens in, with a meeting between Thorin and Gandalf, is exactly the kind of bar I'd love to kill a few drinks in.  The entire world is appealing, and unique, and detailed, and widely varied.  This is the kind of movie you need to see on the biggest screen possible, so that you can wallow in the details and be overwhelmed by it all.

On the other hand, there isn't a ton of character development.  Gandalf is Gandalf, and he's got his own thing going on.  And by this point in the story, it's not really Bilbo's story, more a series of battles (as spectacular as they are) than a strengthening of character.  Only Thorin really develops, cracks appearing in his facade, with the very real possibility of power and riches within his grasp.  It's hard to complain about that; it's difficult to say that this film really stands on its own.  It relies on the emotional depth created in the first film to give resonance to the action here, which is fair enough.  Truthfully, we're having a very, very long film meted out a chunk at a time, and the final judgment of merit will come next December, when the entire thing is available.  Until then, it's enough that this one, for the most part, lived up to what I hoped to see on the big screen, and in a couple of instances exceeded it, and that I had a good time watching "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug."  And, more important, that I'll definitely be at the theatre when part three is ready, anxiously waiting to see Smaug get his.

3.5 / 5 - Theatre (3D)

Star Trek Into Darkness - 2013

"Star Trek Into Darkness" - 2013
Dir. by JJ Abrams - 2 hrs. 12 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

By Sunday afternoon standards (which is when I saw this), "Star Trek Into Darkness" is perfect entertainment.  I grew up on weekday afternoon repeats of the original TV series, and then weekend episodes of "Star Trek: the Next Generation," and the newest movie fits right into that sort of slot.  It's funny, the characters play well off of each other, and the visuals are pretty stunning.  But if I'm being 100% honest about things, I'm not exactly sure how the content of this movie justifies it being a film that took four years to deliver to theatres, rather than the end-piece of a season of a kick-ass TV series.

ST2 opens up with Kirk (Chris Pine) and Bones (Karl Urban) having stolen a sacred scroll on an alien planet, luring the aliens away from their village that will be destroyed by an impending volcano explosion, which will basically exterminate that particular species of life.  Kirk, Bones, and Spock (Zachary Quinto) sort of succeed at this task, but not seamlessly, and it didn't really fall under their orders anyways, which leads to some demotions from Starfleet.  Meanwhile, another Starfleet officer, John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch), organizes what you'd have to call a terrorist attack against Starfleet headquarters itself, which leaves him on the run, many dead, and the Enterprise on his trail to a very dangerous locale.

One of the things that ST2 does really well is the brief, sharp exchanges between characters.  There aren't really soliloquies here, so much as commas punctuating the action sequences.  Kirk is a man of action, and although he's not an unthinking character, that's about all the self-examination you can realistically expect from him.  And since he's in charge, the other characters largely follow suit, albeit in ways that work with their own personalities.  There are also a number of stunning visuals, the best of which is probably in the opening scene, which has a planet with a red and white forest.  It's hard to explain how exotic it looks, but one of the film posters uses a picture from that scene:

Beyond that, there's plenty of space porn: nebulas, moonscapes, alien planets, ruins, enormous space stations.  And in at least a couple of scenes, director JJ Abrams really gets across a solid sense of the scale of these ships, something that's easily lost in space scenes with no normal points of reference.  In terms of the story, I felt like it worked (although one of the third act twists was so apparent from a very early point that there appeared to be a giant shoe hovering over the screen for the duration of the run-time, waiting patiently to drop).  Long-time Trekkies won't be entirely surprised by some of the things that happen, but I didn't find it to be a detriment to my enjoyment of the film.

But to get back to my early point, I'm just not sure that what was here was worth a trip to the theatre and waiting four years for a second installment.  That's not to say that I didn't enjoy ST2 quite a bit, and it's also not to say that you wouldn't, either.  I liked this one a lot better than the first one.  I will grant that some of the scenes of calamity aren't anything that you couldn't accomplish on a tight schedule, and that this movie had a couple of fairly intense moments.  But I'd argue that it wasn't any better than ST:TNG's Borg storyline, merely a bit prettier.  Part of the burden of doing franchise movies is that you have to realize that the characters' histories are loping behind you, and having watched years of Star Trek TV series, I feel like that's a more ideal environment for stories involving these characters.  You can't do big, action-filled stuff every week (and that's not really what the shows were all about), but more than half of the appeal of the earlier TV series is that you can see characters you like engaged in everything from drudgery to excitement.

I'd love to see these characters bored out of their minds and getting on each other's nerves (space is big and empty, it can't possibly be all explosions), but as long as there's one movie every so often, that'll never happen.  There's an obligation to deliver something specific if you're going to build up a story as an event, lest you derail the franchise and kill off any future sequels.  That totally didn't happen here: "Star Trek Into Darkness" is a lot of fun, and it's good popcorn entertainment.  But I was a little bummed out that there's not going to be another, tonally different story with these same characters next week.

3 / 5 - Theatre