'The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug', 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty', and 'American Hustle': review round-up

'The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug' - Dir. Peter Jackson (12A)

This second part of Peter Jackson's 9-hour adaptation of what's quite a slender children's book, 'The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug' has the same problems as its predecessor bar the songs. It's long, baggy, a bit twee, overloaded with un-engaging CGI chase sequences and full of pointless fan service for Jackson's original 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy, with lots of business teasing the origins of things that ultimately happen in those other films. I didn't like the original trilogy - which feels like the sort of derivative, high fantasy trash Tolkien inspired rather than Tolkien itself - and I couldn't stand 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' either, so I won't spend long writing about this one. You're either a fan or not as this point, I would imagine. What I will say is that this second chapter is a marginal improvement on the first, mostly because there's a really terrific CGI dragon involved. True, you have to wait almost two hours (and sit through a lot of Orlando Bloom) to get to that dragon, but it is pretty spectacular when you do eventually get there.

On the subject of the derided high frame rate version (which plays at 48 frames per second as opposed to the usual 24), I was actually pretty impressed by the technology - even if it made this particular film look over-lit and cheap looking, like something you'd see on an HD TV channel rather than a major Hollywood movie. Perhaps the main benefit of watching the film in HFR was that I didn't get any sort of headache or eye-strain from nearly three hours of 3D movie. The other immediately noticeable boon was the fact that HFR seems to completely eradicate the motion blur which you usually get during sequences that involve fast panning shots with lots of action in 3D films. So basically, as it stands, it's a technology primarily aimed at improving the experience of 3D. I think it's also fair to say that the current cheap looking examples of the technology are far from representative of what it could potentially do if a film is lit specifically with the format in mind, as I'm guessing Jackson's films weren't (due to the fact the vast majority will be experiencing them in plain, old 24fps). I'm betting James Cameron will shoot 'Avatar 2' in this format and that's when we'll see it take off, just like 3D did back in 2009.

'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty' - Dir. Ben Stiller (PG)

The longest, glossiest advert I've ever seen. Ben Stiller's adaptation of 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty' treats its audience with contempt, presenting itself as a completely sincere and resolutely anti-cynical movie, about living life to the full and self-improvement (in the most trite and superficial of ways), whilst bombarding the viewer with the most blatant, in your face product placement I've ever witnessed. Live life: Fly Air Greenland! Live life: order a Papa John's! Live life: eat a delicious Cinnabon! Live life: sign up for eHarmony! All movies feature product placement, of course, but 'Mitty' goes the extra mile of dedicating close-up after close-up to prominently branded drink cartons and suspiciously perfect looking airline food and by having the words "Papa John's" be perhaps the most often repeated in the entire movie with the possible exception of the character's name and (urgh) "the quintessence of life".

Most movies feature, say, a Heineken logo in the background (which this does, of course), but leave it at that. However 'Mitty' - which presumably made a high percentage of its money back from the off, entirely from these deals - folds product placement into the narrative directly and at every turn. It features two entire conversations about Papa John's (more specifically about how there's a Papa John's in Iceland, which is depicted as the only place in an otherwise barren land where people come together), a half-dozen phone conversations with an overly-friendly customer service guy from eHarmony (played by Patton Oswalt) which even features a line about how great service they provide is, a trip to Cinnabon (featuring lines like - and I'm paraphrasing - "you need a Cinnabon!" and "that's a plate of delicious, sugary goodness right there, my friend!") and many, many, many others. It's all just shots of Stiller Living Life(TM) (skateboarding, travelling, fighting a shark, looking at a rare species of leopard, playing football with tribesman etc) which marry the aforementioned products to a broadly appealing lifestyle. "Look at Mitty go", the film seems to cry, "be fun like him! Life is far too short! Travel abroad! Meet people! Buy a Papa Johns!"

These aren't the only problems with Mitty. It's not funny (an example of a 'funny line' Mitty wishes he'd said, to his boss with a stupid beard: "do you know who looks good in a beard? Dumbledore." Zing!) and all the character's imagined fantasy sequences are so over the top ridiculous that there's no investment in them when they occur. The romance plot, between Mitty and Kristen Wiig's character, is perfunctory and unearned, and in many ways a little creepy - barely knowing her when he buys her a young son a gift and then dropping contact with her entirely because a man answered her door one time. Wiig, who I generally like, has the thankless task having to perform an acoustic guitar version of David Bowie's Space Oddity, with a pained expression on her face as if it's the most profound song of all time and she's just written it. Most symbolic of the film's dramatic deficiencies is the "nasty boss" stock character who shows up to downsize Mitty's workplace (played by Adam Scott) seemingly fresh from the set of a pantomime. He's so over the top mean to his employees - and Mitty in particular - that it doesn't relate to the world outside of the film at all. It's all bombast and sentiment devoid of real feeling or anything meaningful to actually say about the world outside of its relentless barrage of well-worn platitudes.

'American Hustle' - Dir. David O. Russell (15)

It's been trailed like a derivative, Scorsese-influenced crime film, but David O. Russell's 70s-set 'American Hustle' is best viewed as a black comedy. Every brilliant performance, every hackneyed line, every haircut, every sequence is a little warped, a little odd - from Jennifer Lawrence doing the housework whilst miming along to Live and Let Die to Christian Bale's pot-bellied, comb-over sporting conman seducing Amy Adams in the lost property room of his dry cleaning establishment. That doesn't mean to say it isn't a decent and occasionally tense crime film, with its share interesting twists and turns in the plot, but it reminded me more of the Coen Brothers than 'Goodfellas', being about a group of variously flawed, morality bereft shysters who are often as pathetic and incompetent as they are resolutely unlikable. It's saying something that Jeremy Renner's charismatic local mayor is the only one of the bunch with any integrity and he's the victim at the centre of the big con.

Horrible people screwing each other over for the most part, but the film's refreshingly kind to the political class, who it depicts with uncommon humanity - with the mayor, as flawed and corruptible as he is, doing everything he can to help his constituents, who he earnestly strives to serve. It's careerist cops and conniving criminals who are shown to be the baddies here (even as protagonists), when we're usually sold the idea that organised criminals represent some sort of fraternity of direct, honest, old fashioned men with a strict code, as opposed to the lying, scheming cads that run the country. Instead when Bale's middle-rung financial criminal and Cooper's upwardly mobile, increasingly unhinged cop clash, there's no code of conduct or pretense of cool - nobody is in control or charismatically playing all the angles and holding all the cards. There's only a kind of ruthless, self-interested, survival of the fittest capitalism in play - and it's conscientious, civic-spirited people who get hurt in the crossfire.

'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey', 'Alps', 'The Hunt' and 'Seven Psychopaths': review round-up

'The Hobbit: An Expected Journey' - Dir. Peter Jackson (12A)

The first of three(!) instalments of Tolkien's short and sweet prelude to Lord of the Rings, as envisaged by the enemy of brevity Peter Jackson, is as punishingly long as you might expect. Factoring in twenty minutes or so of ads and trailers, this first hit represents over three hours at the movies. You would think that would give ample time to tell the entire story as written, but the money men and Jackson's own inflated ego - which has seemingly survived 'King Kong' and 'The Lovely Bones' unscathed - intervene to instead sell us what feels like a mix of DVD deleted scenes from his previous trilogy along with countless, interminable minutes of battles which feel like you're watching somebody else playing a video game. The various skirmishes that take place between the merry band of Dwarves and assorted ugly (and therefore expendable) sentient lifeforms - such as orcs and goblins - are bland and uninvolving, with no sense of jeopardy at all and even less sense of time and space. As ever it feels less like Tolkien and more like the imitators his imagination inspired, such as Warhammer or World of Warcraft.

Whilst Jackson and company had to condense the previous trilogy in order to turn it into films, here the decision to expand upon a much slimmer volume leads to a baggy narrative filled with incidental remembrances and incidents either wholly made up or pulled from obscure references in the appendices of LOTR. This accounts for why we spend fifteen minutes or so watching Sylvester McCoy, as Radagast the Brown, mug his way around a forest, on a rabbit-pulled sled, saving adorable CGI hedgehogs from god knows what. It's all entirely pointless. As is the scene in which Gandalf (Ian McKellen), Galadriel (Cate Blanchet), Elrond (Hugo Weaving) and Saruman (Christopher Lee) meet up to have a conversation that isn't in the book at all - much like half those characters - just so they can hint at the grim future events previously seen in a separate set of films. It's fan service for a film made less than ten years ago and on a huge budget. In fact, it's basically the last ten minutes of 'Revenge of the Sith' all over again - and that's probably the best way to describe this entire film, as it attempts to play off nostalgia rather than doing anything new.

Jackson's 2nd unit again attempt to dazzle us with grand helicopter shots of Great Men walking across New Zealand's mightiest mountains, but it feels like a greatest hits re-run - ironically making it the exact opposite of inspirational. Even the riddle sequence with Gollum (Andy Serkis), which is closely lifted from the book and forms the film's highlight, is stretched out and provides too many opportunities for Serkis to riff and showboat, capitalising on his character's popularity, with straightforward storytelling never the film's primary motor.

The increased length of the piece also means that, this time around, we aren't spared adaptation of Tolkien's song/poems (the bits you traditionally skip over when reading the books). And so the Dwarves sing a jaunty washing up song like something out of a Disney parody and then they hum an ominous hymn with uncomfortable earnestness. Later the Elves gaily prance and play the pan pipes and serve vegetarian food and speak in breathy tones and dare you to smash them in the face with a rusty spade. It's all quite high on it's own imagined cultural significance and emotional power, yet that doesn't stop the filmmakers from filling the screenplay with awful jokes and slapstick comedy that would make 'Attack of the Clones' era C-3P0 die of shame. Literally the gags include: small man on a horse and fat man eating food (and later: fat man climbing tree).

I just posted this on Facebook, but I think it's a decent summation of this review and my feelings for the whole 'Lord of the Rings' movie oeuvre:

The wikipedia entry for The Hobbit (book) sums up the difference between Tolkien and Peter Jackson beautifully: "Beorn never actually shape-shifts between man and bear-form during the narrative of The Hobbit book: he is encountered in both forms, but his actual transformation appears "off-screen", away from the point of view of the main characters. Comments made by [special effects company] Weta Workshop indicate that in the adaptation, Beorn's transformation from man to bear will be a major special effects sequence." And probably one lasting twenty minutes accompanied by soft-focus and pan pipes and Enya set in the idyll of a cheese ad and filmed on top of a mountain, as captured by a 2nd unit helicopter crew.

On the positive front, Martin Freeman makes for an appealing Bilbo Baggins and does a very good (and subtle) impression of Ian Holm - who plays the elder version of the character, in the previous films and at the beginning here. Much like Ewen McGregor in 'The Phantom Menace'.

NOTE: I wasn't able to see the film in the higher frame-rate that's attracted so much negative criticism, so I couldn't possibly comment on that. However, I think the 3D is pretty good, for whatever that's worth. Clearly shot with stereoscopy in mind and never gimmicky.

'Alps' - Dir. Giorgos Lanthimos (15)
Speaking of directors coasting of memories of their previous films, Greek filmmaker Giorgos Lanthimos channels a lot of what made 'Dogtooth' so great into his follow-up, which follows a group of people who impersonate deceased loved ones in order to aid the grieving. The strange, stilted style of dialogue, phrasing and delivery continues here, as does his clinical, cold and detached aesthetic. Yet it doesn't work so well a second (or third, for those who saw the risible copycat that was 'Attenberg') time, perhaps chiefly because the sterility of 'Dogtooth' seemed entirely appropriate in the context of a story about adult-children who had never left the house and consequently had been unable to socialise in a normal way. Watching that film you could imagine that outside the gates of their sheltered family home you'd find a normal, recognisable world. Yet 'Alps' makes that stylistic choice feel like an affectation rather than commentary. So it's a follow-up that not only borrows heavily from a previous work but also diminishes it by association.

Whereas 'Dogtooth' seemed theme-rich and entirely clever, 'Alps' feels aimless and hollow: all style. There are moments where it really works - where the disconnected protagonists with their monotone voices say and do things which are really funny - but it's difficult to care overall. I'm at a loss for what it's about, to be completely frank. It might be saying something about acting as a profession: positing the trite idea that actors are all lost and shallow people without identities, who perform out of a desire to become somebody else and to please people. In this case becoming not only someone other than themselves, but doing it to please another and in doing so live vicariously off that affection.

Or perhaps, with its repeated a theme of dominant male characters (like 'Dogtooth', 'Alps' has a few violent patriarchs), it's saying something about the role of women in society? Pressured into conforming into various roles and so forth. A reading supported by the opening scenes which focus on female characters whilst disembodied male voices bark instruction. But in either case, it isn't effective or particularly thought-provoking, since it's hard to care at all when the characters themselves are so remote and unaffected.

'The Hunt' - Dir. Thomas Vinterberg (15)

Danish Dogme 95 pioneer Thomas Vinterberg directs the stellar talent that is Mads Mikkelsen in a taught and gripping drama about a primary school teacher in a small village who is (wrongly) accused of sexual assault by a child in his care. To make matters worse, the little girl in question is his best friend's daughter, very much leaving him without friends in town where his reputation goes from charming, eligible bachelor to paedo scumbag overnight. It's immensely frustrating to watch as a good man's reputation is disintegrated without reprieve or the hint of redemption, though that unhappy scenario does at least afford Mikkelsen the opportunity to give another stunning performance in a year in which he has also starred in the excellent 'A Royal Affair'.

A hard watch but a timely one, in an age where paedophile moral panic is at its greatest and media witch hunts routinely assassinate the character of public and private individuals. What makes the film so strong is that you believe that this one lie - spoken in anger by a troubled child - is all it would take to turn everyone you know against you and totally ruin your life as you know it. Perhaps the message of 'The Hunt' is that we shouldn't be so quick to pass judgement and join a hate mob based on hearsay and speculation - even if it seems to be coming from a source of authority: here in the guise of the well-meaning head mistress to whom the lie is first told. Though social media doesn't factor here, it is easy to relate this story to the world of Facebook and Twitter where such band-wagon jumping campaigns are able to gather steam like never before and with increasing frequency.

Perhaps this is why we, curiously enough, never see the trial or the justice system in action during 'The Hunt', with that taking place during a rare stretch of the film in which Mikkelsen is absent. This is a film about mob rule, in which guilt is assumed the moment the accusation is made and sustained even when all the facts go against it. In that way it would make a good companion piece to the similarly themed American film 'Doubt', though scenes of the character's day to day life in town following the trial reminded me most of Tilda Swinton's guilt-wracked mother in the aftermath of the events of 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' - incidentally, another film that deals with heinous culturally taboo crime perpetrated against children.

'Seven Psycopaths' - Dir. Martin McDonagh (15)

The most common complaint I've heard directed at 'Seven Psycopaths' is that it isn't as good as writer-director-playwright Martin McDonagh's earlier 'In Bruges' - and it isn't. But then what is? The main thing is that, whilst the film is certainly a little baggy and unfocused, it is still riotously funny. It stars Colin Farrell as probable author insert Martie - a screenwriter struggling to write a film out in LA, joined by Sam Rockwell as his actor best friend Billy and Christopher Walken as Hans, a quiet and philosophical religious man who makes a living from stealing and subsequently returning rich peoples' dogs. However the trio become enemies of a gangland psychopath played by Woody Harrelson when Billy steals his prized Shih Tzu and attempts to ransom the dog back. Things get messy, with tragic consequences as Hans and Martie are pulled into the conflict. All the while Martie is gathering material for his screenplay: 'Seven Psychopaths' - which becomes a sort of film within the film/self-fulfilling prophecy a la 'Adaptation'. And Tom Waits is in it too.

It's frequently hilariously funny, with Rockwell and Walken both particularly brilliant and Farrell clearly relishing working under McDonagh again, not least of all because this is a rare American film in which he is allowed to retain his Irish accent. A sequence in which Rockwell gives his account of how the shoot-out at the end of the film should play out is particularly inspired and brilliant and McDonagh's screenplay is every bit as uncompromisingly darkly funny as 'In Bruges', even if it misses the smaller scale two-men on the road setting. It's perhaps too big and there are too many characters, with the connections between some of them fairly tenuous, but you can't fault the writer for ambition. And if that sounds like a contradiction of my above review of 'The Hobbit', then chalk that up to 'Seven Psychopaths' being half as long and infinitely more fun to watch.

June's 'Flick's Flicks', Dennis Hopper passes away and Del Torro quits 'The Hobbit'...

First things first, Guillermo Del Torro has quit as the director of the upcoming adaptation of 'The Hobbit'. Reaction to this has been split between people who feel glad that Del Torro can now pursue his own projects and those who were eagerly anticipating his take on Tolkien's "Middle Earth" (there is presumably a third group who don't care either way and a fourth group who haven't heard for Guillermo Del Torro in the first place).

I am undecided as to what to make of it: part of me thinks that even though I didn't like Peter Jackson's version of 'Lord of the Rings', I was excited to see what Del Torro would do with 'The Hobbit'. Although a bigger part of me would rather see the Mexican make one of his own, more personal films instead. It is yet unknown who is replacing him as the director for the two planned movies which will tell the story of how Bilbo Baggins meets Gandalf the wizard, comes into possession of "the one ring" and defeats an evil dragon.

Next up, I said a while back that I would soon be hosting some episodes of 'Flick's Flicks', Picturehouse's monthly film preview show usually hosted by Felicity "Flick" Beckett. However, Felicity's imminent maternity leave means that I am taking over hosting duties for the next three shows (July, August, September). To prepare you for those upcoming episodes, here is the most recent installment as Flick prepares us for June:



On a seperate note, I have been busy recently writing reviews for an upcoming volume from Intellect Books which looks at British cinema. So far I have submitted reviews for Mike Leigh's 'Happy-Go-Lucky' (which I love), Mike Newell's 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' (which I don't really care for) and the Ealing comedy 'Passport to Pimlico' (which is really brilliant). I am currently (as in as soon as I stop this blog entry) writing my review for 'Trainspotting', which will be submitted tonight!

I also recently become attached to another upcoming book from Intellect, this time on American Independant cinema. I have been given some really great titles to review and I am really enthusiastic to be a part of it.

Finally, I can't end this post without mentioning the sad passing of Dennis Hopper, who died on Saturday after a battle with cancer, a mere two months after recieving a star on the 'Walk of Fame' in LA. In a long and varied screen career Hopper was seen in such classics as 'Apocalypse Now', 'Rebel Without a Cause', 'Blue Velvet' and 'Hoosiers', working with many great directors along the way (among them Francis Ford Coppola, Nicholas Ray, George Stevens, Sam Peckinpah, George A. Romero and David Lynch). In the 90's, after some time in the wilderness, he became something of an iconic movie villain in the big budget actioners 'Speed' and 'Waterworld'.

But he will rightly be most fondly remembered as the co-writer, director and star of 'Easy Rider' in 1969, a film which helped to establish the so-called New Hollywood of the late-60's/early-70's (along with other films like 'Bonnie and Clyde' and 'The Graduate') and became a key and lasting document of the counterculture of that era. Whilst Hopper's own politics would change significantly in later life (he appeared in the "conservative comedy" 'An American Carol' in 2008), that film still partially defines an era of massive social change and keeps that spirit alive on celluloid fourty years on.

The film, which also starred Peter Fonda, helped to launch the acting career of Jack Nicholson and popularised the Steppenwolf track 'Born to Be Wild' (which would be used in adverts for years, always along with a visual referance to the opening shots of 'Easy Rider'). Not many filmmaker's can really claim to have changed cinema, nor can many films be considered truly "iconic": indelibly becoming part of the popular culture. With 'Easy Rider' Dennis Hopper achieved both and his memory will live on forever with that film.

Dennis Hopper (1936-1910) - a true Hollywood great.