The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

I don’t know why I didn't learn from last year. Especially when I've watched The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey again only recently. Not having read the book since last year (and therefore having forgotten most of the detail) I expected to enjoy the first film a good deal more on a second viewing. Unfortunately though, DVDs come without a massive cinema screen, 3D, and surround sound, and it lost a lot of depth without those. There just seemed to be an awful lot of slapstick humour and unlikely survival after falling down cliffs and getting smashed against rocks.

They’re both wonderful films, don’t get me wrong, but my main overriding feeling after watching both of them has been one of annoyance. Why take a book, turn it into a film, and spend half the film telling a story that is not that book? I know, I know, the Necromancer is definitely there in the book, be it only mentioned briefly, and it’s important to include it to flesh out the story and explain why Gandalf buggers off for a film and a half. I don’t really have a problem with that and it adds necessary complexity. It also gets Sauron involved too – come join the party Sauron – why not? Stick to the plot though! We don’t need new stuff. We don’t need a love story. We don’t need Kíli getting hit with a Morgul arrow. I’m thoroughly convinced that the only reason that little plot twist was added was to a) justify the continuing presence of elfs in the film, and b) so that everyone can be pleased that they knew they had to use Kingsfoil/Athelas (“I remember that because they did that in LOTR – yay”). Of course this means that half the dwarfs stay in Laketown and don’t get to go to the Lonely Mountain as per the entire point of the quest. Silly.

Also I’m a bit hazy on the detail in the book but I’m pretty sure that restarting the ancient dwarven smelters with irritation-induced dragon fire wasn’t how they originally fought Smaug. Good job they started alright though eh!? And does Smaug really need to be hit with a special kind of arrow? And do we really care that much that some dude’s grandfather missed him during the last battle – it’s not exactly his fault. It’s all just creating characters for the sake of giving people a bigger part than they would do otherwise. They’ll be bringing Gollum back next.

I do approve of a kick-ass female elf though. No harm in adding her at all – if they had just stuck to the plot and written her out when they all escaped from the elfs hidden in the barrels. We didn't need either the stupid love triangle (oh there’s a female character – she absolutely has to fall in love) or the battle in the barrels with the orcs by the river. That was gratuitous use of 3D effects in my book.

I think the invention of 3D is very bad for films. In the same way that the diamond slippers in The Wizard of Oz were turned into ruby slippers to make full use of the technicolour technology, films these days are written around exciting 3D scenes. They’re crow-barred in where they’re unnecessary and unwelcome. It’s the equivalent of the running away from the goblins in the mountain scene in the first film.

It’s my fault for having Lord of the Rings up on a pedestal. It’s so amazing though – and every time I re-watch it I think it’s amazing. Even Orlando bloody Bloom. God he’s a muppet in this film. He doesn’t look like Legolas did in LOTR (Bloom is ten years older though I suppose so that’s not really fair, although his hair also isn’t right somehow) and he’s even more poncey than ever. A mixture of the Legolas elfiness and the doe-eyed soppiness he exhibited so humourously badly in Pirate’s of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (“Elizabeth… sigh”). What a wally. Gandalf doesn't look the same either. His nose is different and his hat is too cartoony. It should be less structured and less felty. Am I really asking too much? These films are for some of the biggest geeks out there and they of all people are going to notice inconsistency.

I shouldn't compare it to LOTR. That will get us nowhere. I also need to stop comparing it to the book or, more importantly, my memory of the book. Let us begin.

It’s a really good film. Visually it’s really impressive and the animation is near flawless, particularly with the treasure in Erebor when it all slides down like a little avalanche. Superb! Each individual character is awesome and I was genuinely worried when Gandalf was losing his fight against the Necromancer. Smaug is a wonderful dragon, and the next film is going to be great with more of him in it.

I just need to learn how to enjoy it. 

Life of Pi (2012)

As with many other films, I find it hard to judge Life of Pi due to having read the book before watching the film. I find it a certainty that, for the large majority of cases, one will all but destroy the other, and it seems silly to favour the adaptation over the original.

Some films for me have been completely ruined by a far superior book - Memoires of a Geisha and We Need to Talk about Kevin being prime examples. While so many film adaptations will get me angry because people seem to insist on changing the plot, these two along with so many others simply failed to bring across on film what was so well communicated by word. They weren’t bad films necessarily but they just weren’t anywhere near as good as the book.

That said, it’s not a given that reading a book beforehand will spoil your viewing experience; some films are just so good that they stand up for themselves. Atonement is the best example I can give here – I love the book, and I love the film. They’re both amazing and compliment each other well. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, also (the Swedish version obviously) was fantastic, and in no way made me angry because the book was better. So many others too – Remains of the Day, Lord of the Rings – it’s definitely possible. So what about Life of Pi?

It fails. The problem with choosing this book to translate into a film is that very little actually happens. There’s a lot of description and thought, and the way to get around that is first person voice-over, which was used liberally throughout the film. Even so, I feel that an audiobook would do the job better.

Now, I didn’t see the 3D. The visuals were really very very good and it was beautifully done in that regard. I can see that with a large screen and the benefit of 3D would make them gasp-worthy, in the same way that The Hobbit’s scenery and high frame rate were. That’s only half the point though and what I want is my emotions pulled here there and everywhere as they were by the book.

Without wanting to spoil the ending, when I finished the book I was shocked and appalled and in complete floods of tears. Maybe it just can’t have that same impact twice, or maybe you just can’t convey that as well with cinema, but I found the ending to the film comparatively underwhelming. If it’s for the former reason, I fear that for an increasing number of films we shall have to make a choice between enjoying the film, and getting the most from the book. It’s one of those competitions that, for me, a book will always win.

I don’t mean by this that it was a bad film. I really did enjoy it. It’s just going to be added to the list of films where the book is just so much better.

Here’s wishing The Great Gatsby good luck – I read it just before Christmas.

Mirror Mirror (2012)

2012 was apparently the year for Snow White. Four different versions were released in various forms including Snow White and the Huntsman with the ridiculous Kristen Stewart. I was shocked to see that it was nominated for two Oscars when so many fantastic films seem to have been overlooked, but apparently they’re for costume and visual effects so that’s ok.

Mirror Mirror’s cast is not quite as star-studded as Snow White and the Huntsman’s, but still features some pretty high profile names. Julia Roberts is the evil Queen and Sean Bean the King. Armie Hammer (The Social Network) plays the prince and is horribly saccharine throughout, and the Queen’s aid is Nathan Lane who, for all his many film at TV appearances is still probably best known as the voice of Timon from The Lion King. As far as I’m concerned anyway. Lily Collins, who plays Snow White, has been in absolutely nothing of note except The Blind Side (The Priest and Abduction don’t really count as films of note as far as I’m concerned). She is ridiculously annoying although pretty enough in exactly the right fairy-tale way so she’s reasonably suited for the role. Especially in such an annoying film.

Because oh my God it was annoying! Notwithstanding a perfectly acceptable train-her-to-be-a-fighter montage in the middle (who doesn’t love a good montage?) the whole film is ridiculous. Not ridiculous in a good quality B-film kind of way – no, no – that was what I was hoping to find, but in a way that made me that close to giving up on it after about half an hour. Being mostly about The Queen rather than completely concentrating on Snow White, I imagine it was designed as some kind of final ego boost for Julia Roberts before everyone completely forgets about her and moves on.

Oh yeah, and Snow White starts singing some kind of Bollywood number at the end. That was unnecessary! Maybe kids will like it.

My lasting impression: Oh Sean Bean! What have you become?

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

I am not one of the many people in the world that have been waiting for The Hobbit film since God only knows when. Nor was I even particularly interested in it during most of the build-up. That is, until I saw the trailer for the first time and realised quite what the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey meant – more Lord of the Rings! It includes the same actors as the LOTR, reprising their roles from the trilogy, and the music’s the same. It was the music that got me – it contains the same themes and is in the same style and suddenly I was eagerly anticipating the release of this film. Because I love Lord of the Rings. Completely, stupidly love it. I’ve seen all three God knows how many times, I’ve done the thing of watching all the extended versions back to back, know most of the actors’ names, and memorised a decent quantity of the script.

So obviously I read the books, or rather book. Once will do – I can hold my head up high and say I’ve read it but never need to worry about it again. I didn’t go on to read The Hobbit though. That is something I’ve rectified, I’m currently reading it and I made sure I’d read at least enough to cover the first film before I went. But possibly that’s what ruined the film for me.

It looks phenomenal – there’s no two ways about that. I felt compelled (unlike with most films) to splash out and watch it in 3D, and in the high frame rate that everyone keeps banging on about. The end result is gob-smacking. The hills and the mountains look ridiculously good and the depth given by the 3D made me completely forget I was watching a film. In a good way.

The problem with 3D is when there’s action; or close-ups. My eyes can’t keep up and it goes a bit too blurry for me to remain in my disbelief-suspended film-watching mode. Which is mostly why I don’t normally watch non-animated films in 3D. I don’t know if there’s technology that needs improving there, or just that my eyes are crap, but it spoils it. If it wasn’t for that then I would call the visuals pretty near perfect. 

Incidentally the HFR didn’t bother me at all. Maybe it needed a little getting used to but probably no more than normal 3D would have done.

I had a slight worry about Martin Freeman being Bilbo. He didn’t seem right for it at first but I will hold my hand up and confess I was completely wrong – he did a very good job and it worked really well. It is, of course, always nice to see Ian McKellen and again, Andy Serkis produced a crazy-good Gollum. What I wasn’t expecting was to recognise so many other faces. LOTR didn’t contain that many well-known actors and although it was natural that a few more would jump on the Tolkien band-wagon faces such as those belonging to James Nesbitt (Cold Feet, Bloody Sunday), and Aiden Turner (Being Human, Desperate Romantics) were a surprise.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but my number one pet hate with adapted screenplays is when they change the book. Obviously you have to change the book a little – miss bits out, possibly re-order some stuff so it makes sense for the screen, but don’t just make things up. Especially for absolutely no reason. The slightly altered ending of the American version of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo springs to mind as a pointless, completely unnecessary change. I won’t mention anything specific about The Hobbit because someone geekier than me will point me straight to the part of the Silmarillion, or the precise LOTR appendix from which it was taken but suffice it to say, enough was different to the book to make me really quite annoyed by the end. And not in a slightly rolling the eyes kind of way. Properly annoyed.

But I’m ignoring that. It’s more Lord of the Rings and I’m determined to love it in the end. I’ll watch it differently next time, and not just because I won’t have the fancy-pants technology.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011)

My initial assessment: the animation scares the crap out of me. It’s too good – as much as you kind of get used to it, it’s very strange to see the voice actors’ facial expressions appear on an animated character; all very impressive but highly unsettling.

I feel like I should come to review The Secret of the Unicorn with a thorough knowledge of all of the Tintin stories. I certainly read them growing up and also watched the animated series. I really love Tintin yet here I sit and I’m not actually sure I can fully remember any of the mysteries all the way through. Possibly a sizeable portion of my Tintin-reading has been attempting to battle through the various French copies we had lying around the house; lots of beginnings, but many many failures to get further than just a few pages in.

It turns out then, that me and my family are just Tintin groupies – complete with t-shirts, artwork, and various other bits of ‘merch’. I shall rectify this by reading all of the Tintin books by the time the next film comes out (or at least start them).

There’s no point in talking about the plot. It is what it is – apparently a mish-mash of a few stories together. There’re so many that there’s no worry about wasting them so why not take the best bits of several? It’s a nice little mystery and sets everything up neatly – we meet Captain Haddock for the first time and learn that he’s a little bit of a drunk. We hear ‘thundering typhoons!’ and ‘blistering barnacles!’ a suitable number of times and we see just enough of Thompson and Thompson. I have no problem with any of that. What I do have a problem with is the 3D.

Now, I didn’t watch The Secret of the Unicorn in 3D. It’s a year since it was out in the cinema so I, naturally, watched it at home on my TV. So a lot of effort has gone into making this film look amazing in 3D with the swooping camera angles and zippy market scenes but all of that was lost on me, and will be on everyone for ever unless you’re very posh and own a 3D TV. What remained were very glaring attempts at wowing a cinema audience and that, along with the high quality animation, made the whole thing feel a lot like a video game - specifically like Unchartered 2. You could actually split the film up into different levels on the game as you’re watching it – flying the plane, driving the car down the very busy road, being Snowy in the bit with the cows. That reminds me, Snowy is horribly under-utilised.

So if the 3D let the film down a bit (ironic really), it was completely raised up again by the voices. Maybe it’s a nice contrast given that I’d saw Skyfall for the second time the night before but I think Daniel Craig makes a very good bad-guy. He should really do that more often! Simon Pegg and Nick Frost do Thompson and Thompson very well (although you can’t really tell it’s them) and the king of crazy-good animation Andy Serkis was always going to be fantastic as Captain Haddock. I thought Jamie Bell as Tintin was only OK though, which is a shame given that he hasn’t done much of note since Billy Elliot (I must remember to watch The Eagle).

With possibly the most shameless and blatant sequel set-up I’ve ever seen (and that includes the second Pirates film) there’s a confidence with The Secret of the Unicorn that only someone with Spielberg’s ego could manage. Being of such a different style to the original comics they couldn’t really rely on hardcore Tintin fans to love it, and if it had fallen on its face and no sequel happened they would have looked frankly ridiculous. As it is, Peter Jackson is directing Tintin 2 so they’re ok, and I think it has a fighting chance of being a good film in its own right. There’ll need to be a lot of reminders of the plot though or it’ll be one of those franchises where you really need to watch the first film before embarking on any of the others. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or not.

I hope the title will be less misleading in the second film. I was terribly disappointed by the dearth of unicorns in this one.