The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

I'll continue in the same "short style" as the last two times, at least for two reasons: primo - I still have problems with my right hand, secundo - I don't really have a subject = "The Hobbit" confirmed my expectancies of a bloated story thrown away on Christmas time to get $, not that there aren't also some good parts ...

But not sufficient enough unfortunately. It's imposible to compare "The Hobbit" with something from the LotR trilogy. I've read "The Hobbit" when I was 13-14 years old. And from that age it looked to me like a children's book by definition. I've started "Lord of the Rings" when I was around 18 and until I finished it the movies were released. Even if it doesn't lose completely the "for kids" tag (I still cannot get out of my mind the Tom Bombadil episode - thank God left outside in the movies), the subject is uncomparable much more dense. I won't start making parallels and building alegories here, since there are already enough on the net. Getting back to "The Hobbit" we have a small tale where Bilbo Baggins (the uncle of the much more known Frodo) leaves together with a group of gnomes in a dragon slaying quest. The reason: long ago, the dragon found a place to live exactly in the midle of the piles of gold gathered by the gnomes. The story has two parts, the way I see it, which are connected somehow to the original title: "There and Back Again" = translated freely: what happens before and after the dragon. In total is quite short as length (the number of pages doesn't even reach the one in "The Two Towers" - the shortest volume in the ring trilogy). Somehow though, the cinematic version seems to be lengthened enough to spane over three movies ...

From which in the first we don't get up to the dragon yet. And to fill the space we have at least 30-40 minutes (exclusively = nothing more) of crossed swords, orc and goblin screams, and other violent effects generated by the Middle-Earth inter-racial conflicts. A good part is that the story was a bit extended (well, three parts needed this), I don't know if using original Tolkien material or not, but I'm afraid that not sufficient enough anyway to think on getting on par with LotR (also for the next part not only this one). To stick to what's good in the movie, getting over the superficial, the predictable and the cliche in the script, what we have is quite ok for this genre. At least considering that in the fantasy area it's rare when I get to see something decent.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Life of Pi (2012)

Since one of my hands is not currently fully functional, I hope it will be forgiven if I'll shorten today's entry as much as the former one. As an extra argument, the difference from last time is that "Life of Pi" is actually a good movie, but with a relatively simple story that maybe shouldn't be spoiled in detail (despite the fact that the movie probably needs more views to catch every bit of it).

In brief, Pi is the son of zoo owner from India, who decided to emigrate in Canada along his whole family .. and also with the animals as "start-up funds" (higher price on the American continent). As it can be seen in the trailer, the trip is not the most pleasant journey, Pi ending up stranded in the middle of the ocean. As I was saying, I'll stop with the story details at this point.

Tehnically, the production is superb. Especially in the visual register. Actually, I think that's the first movie on which I can actually speak about well-done cinematography in 3D (to be read: not CGI labeled as cinematography). Another nice surprise was the directing style. I've been used with too slow movies from Ang Lee ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"). We don't have something extremely fast-paced here, but in any case it does not have unnecessary lengths that can be felt.

Maybe, there is more to be said about "Life of Pi" as story and/or script analysis. But I'm afraid that anything said might become too subjective to be relevant. I could enumerate for instance a list of "maybe's" :) : maybe .. sometimes in life you should give a choice to pick a story or the truth ; maybe .. you should accept more "definitions" of life than only one, or build one from many ; maybe .. you should fight even with yourself for your hopes, and not just wait them to die last ( because that's guaranteed to happen anyway by default ;) )

Rating: 4 out of 5 and .. Merry Christmas ! :)

Lockout (2012)

I'm tired enough to start unwrapping (extremely uncoherent) thoughts about a movie. So, I've decided for a short and "fast-writable" subject: "Lockout".

The story is something quite close to Carpenter's "Escape from N.Y." or "Escape from L.A.". A guy (Guy Pearce) named Snow (I wonder if there is an intention for a similarity with Snake played by Kurt Russell in the above "Escapes"), gets sort of framed for the failure of a mission. The context is not very clear but what's essential is that the mission was coordinated by the U.S. secret services. The result of all this = he gets sent to the highest security prison on the planet. Or more exactly on the orbit (the action takes place in space). The problem = at the same time the daughter of the U.S. president visits that location, and the convicts take over the facility. The consequence = Snow gets an option to escape the jail if he manages to do this along the mentioned girl. The offer is accepted, especially since the answer to his trouble is held by another convict he could look for in the process. So, that's the subject of the movie .. or the intro ;) to be exact.

The movie is part of the bunch of "Luc Besson presents ..." - to be read: produced by the guy's studio - Europa (like "Taken", "Taxi", "Transporter", etc). Although in general you don't see too much spent in these productions, the result is still decent in terms of an action movie. In this case though, we clearly have a B-series movie. You can spot this from the first scenes where you have some pretty lame FX. The movie isn't a really bad one, but you have to remember the range where it fits when you watch it. The script is quite predictable and a bit stupid unfortunately, so the range is somewhere close to action movies to see before going to sleep (= B series, light, 0 level of mind provoking). There is though a sort of good part in the script, which starts with what you can see below and continues with other lines of the main character that try to sound witty. Sometimes they succeed. But in the rest of times ...

Rating: 3 out of 5 (at the limit)

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

I'm not in a very good writing mood. But I promised last time that I'll return with a good movie. And since there are already around three weeks since I've seen "Moonrise Kingdom", maybe it's the case to make an entry about it until my memory loses it completely.

The movie is a comedy. A pretty particular one as style. I guess it's something specific for Wes Anderson (the director) although I've only seen "Fantastic Mr. Fox" as another title on which he worked on. Actually .. if I remember well I've also seen "The Life Aquatic", but it was too long ago to remember more than it didn't impress me at all. Coming back to the current movie, and leaving the style analysis for later, the subject is set somewhere on a 3-digits number population island, close to the NE U.S. coast, and the time is somewhere in the '60s. As main characters we have two children, a boy and a girl around 12 years old. He is an orphan sent by the foster family in scouts camp (where his colleagues do not accept him very well), she is a bit out of her age's normality (sufficiently to be "cast out" of the "normality" of her family). What results from all this context is a sort of infantile "love story" manifested through a run of the two kids "far from the surrounding mean world". Where "far" = in the island woods, in a moment when a hurricane is coming and it's about to sweep everything in its pathway. All this situation alarms the parents of the girl (Bill Murray & Frances McDormand), the local sheriff (Bruce Willis) and the scout camp's chief master scout (Edward Norton). I'll leave the viewer to discover what happens next + the rest of the details and I'll get back to the style ..

If you've seen "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" and you liked it, you'll probably like also "Moonrise Kingdom". In my opinion is a bit lower as level. But is the same combination of dry but styled context and situation humor, which is somehow also warm - at least if you're watching the whole ensemble. It is something totally different from a normal comedy (like "Ted" or "Horrible Bosses" which come into my mind now, and on which I laughed sufficiently enough, but also which are in a completely different subgenre). In a way Wes Anderson looks to me quite close to Alexander Payne ("Sideways", "The Descendants") but with less drama. And also maybe a bit .. weird in some parts. For instance, in the current case, there are a couple of scenes which may seem taken a bit too far given the exact precised young age of the characters. This may have been avoided (and result in something as good as a final product and a larger appreciation from the public, especially if you give a look at the IMDb boards ..). But, if you have some brain to get, eyes to see and ears to hear the rest of the 95% of the film .. you realize that the small pieces don't matter that much ...

Talking about eyes and ears, let me close with the cinematography + the soundtrack. You have an opening scene that tells you clearly that what follows is not average stuff. And I actually can say that's the best technically worked movie that I've seen this year. It doesn't make sense to describe in words how the visual frames are composed. If you have some leaning at least towards photography, than what's being served to you visually really deserves to keep your eyes wide open. Is not about the effects, nor the location setting. Is just a demonstration of how nice a movie taking place in a normal setting can be done. The cinematographer (Robert Yeoman) is totally unknown for me, but I have to remember him for the future. The soundtrack managed to change my opinion on Alexandre Desplat as an overrated composer. I'll resume only at saying that it's probably his best soundtrack I've heard up to this moment, and I'll pass to clips that should be more eloquent than my blah-blah.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Part 2 of Winter-Spring 2012-2013 Movie Preview

I'll start the second part of the preview entry with "Oz: The Great and Powerful", scheduled for release next March. It's a prequel to the classic story, and despite looking like a Tim Burton movie from what you can see in the trailer, it isn't one (fortunately, if we look at "Alice" as an example, a pretty uninspired choice mentioned as reference by the producers). The directing belongs to Sam Raimi (the "Spiderman" trilogy, the "Evil Dead" trilogy, etc), thing that gives some hopes.

I liked the first "G.I. Joe" despite the reviews at the time. At least it had a story slightly more complex than the usual superhero movie (in the end it's not a superhero movie .. but you could still apply the comparison). The sequel, delayed by one year, seems though to be a potential disaster if we take a look at the director's CV ... "Step Up 2", "Step Up 3D", "League of Extraordinary Dancers" ... I'd better stop here, although there's more ... But we have Bruce Willis. And Adrianne Palicki in the red dress ;)

I'm closing March with "The Host". The only reason for adding this title to the list is the directing by Andrew Niccol who pleasantly surprised me not that long ago with "In Time" (although "Gattaca", considered a classic, for me was just plain boring). It probably matter more though that the movie is adapted from another "successful" novel by Stephenie Meyer ("Twilight" in case it doesn't ring a bell, and it's enough said).

There aren't many trailers released for the next April. So I'll come with an anti-recommendation ("backed-up" anyway further below also by the trailer - rated R). I was mentioning somewhere before "Evil Dead" by Sam Raimi. For who likes horrors is impossible not to know about it. Well, the remake is going to be released next year ... What's new in it ? No Ash, apparently. Again, who knows what I'm talking about, I guess agrees with me that "Evil Dead" without Bruce Campbell as Ash is hard to conceive .. but without Ash as main character is already a blasphemy. Even worse is that Bruce Campbell promoted this, being also a producer ($, $ .. and again $). The only thing left to hope for, is that what you can see below is 0 compared to the final version - in terms of subject, feeling, etc. Unfortunately the only horror I know that managed to change the impression of the trailer in the last years was "The Cabin in the Woods". And I don't know why but my feeling is this one does not intend at all to do something similar.

Unfortunately we don't have yet a trailer for the following "Star Trek" which is top of the list from what I expect to come out next year, so I'll wrap up more quickly the today preview with "Iron Man 3". Release date in May. I assume that's known (at least by who looks from time to time at my posts), what opinion I have on super-hero movies. It doesn't differ in this particular case. It looks like "yet another one" following the classic story. However, again for the today entry, I have to refer to directing, which is different from the first two parts. This time is by a screenwriter - Shane Black (who of course is also the author of the script). Maybe the name doesn't say much, so I should give some reference - "Lethal Weapon" entire series, "The Long Kiss Goodnight", "The Last Boy Scout", "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", "Last Action Hero". If it's not clear yet, check the titles on IMDb ;)

Back next week with a really good movie ;)