Breaking the Hobbit

We were all so stoked to love this one too, weren’t we? And I went with three people who had never read the books or seen any of the movies. Two of them didn’t even speak English.

Here’s the thing, I don’t think The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) is a bad movie, but The Lord of the Rings trilogy was a tough act to follow. There are a few improvements over Peter Jackson’s earlier Tolkien efforts, but there’s quite a bit that seems to be huge steps backward and I’d venture to say that most of what is wrong with The Hobbit is that it is one book as three movies—and three post-Frighteners Peter Jackson length movies at that.

Let’s take it easy. There are a few things that work really well for The Hobbit so far. One is its levity. Some might see it as a detriment, but that it’s tonally a much lighter tale makes much of the action feel a little fresher. Unfortunately too much buoyancy can make the movie feel somewhat flippant compared to the previous films. The fact of the matter is Tolkien’s first foray into Middle-Earth was written to be a children’s story, but movie audiences are getting a reverse ordered experience…and it doesn’t exactly work that way.

The Lord of the Rings seemed to be structured as a serious story with serious stakes and a few humorous touches and some whimsical comic relief characters—but who could still suffer through terrifying ordeals. There’s a lot of seriousness and foreboding. The Hobbit is much more lighthearted with maybe one sort-of heavy character, Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage). There’s a dumb vendetta an albino Captain Hook orc has against Thorin, but it never comes off as anything more than a tag-on. You can tell Thorin is supposed to be our Aragorn character, but it feels forced. Even Gandalf is a lot more light this time around (which I actually like a bit better than the overly serious Gandalf the White). I like an imperfect mischievous Gandalf.

What’s Better:

Anyway, let’s just be simple about this thing. What do I think is better about The Hobbit? Well, Gandalf’s a lot more fun but I’d say it’s a tie because his function is a little different in this series than in Lord of the Rings. Yeah, Ian McKellan still rocks, but maybe not harder.

The effects to bring Gollum to life look better for sure and he is treated just as he should be in this film: he is not an all important cog in the wheel of destiny yet. He is a chance meeting. That is what makes him so interesting. We don’t know much about him when he is first introduced. The Gollum scene is such a treat for fans of the book and fans of special effects that it might be worth seeing the whole movie just for that. Once again Andy Serkis’s performance is solid through and through.

When it comes to Bilbo (Martin Freeman) you do have to take humor into account. Bilbo is a much more relateable character than Frodo was, I think. I like Elijah Wood but he was a little hard to relate to as Frodo. He was so dour, starry eyed, and spacey that a quirky, stammering unlikely hero such as Freeman’s Bilbo is a very welcome change of pace. He feels more like how hobbits are supposed to be. Hobbit’s are supposed be simple isolationist folks who like the familiar.

I think that about covers the improvements. Bilbo’s levity, Gollum’s deranged game of riddles, and Gandalf ties with himself. That means everything else falls short of The Lord of the Rings.

What’s worse:

Character dynamics are lacking.

The dwarfs are okay, but they are essentially a small army of Merry and Pippins. Thorin is too heavy and stands out to almost comic effect. He’s like Oliver Reed sweatily bellowing lines at Muppets. The rest of the dwarfs are hard to keep straight. There’s so many and all their names rhyme and many are not given more than a syllable to utter onscreen that it’s hard to see them as anything but a band of bearded buffoons. Balin (Ken Stott) stands alone as the most interesting of the dwarfs. He’s old and has seen it all, but he wears his experiences gracefully. He reminded me a little of Takashi Shimura’s character in Seven Samurai.

Then there’s the lean, beardless ‘hot’ dwarf for the ladies. It comes off as a little goofy when the rest of his company is so silly, warped, and grotesque looking.

I miss John Rhys-Davies as Gimli.

The other minor characters aren’t bad, but I feel like we need either more or less of them. Radagast the Brown is a perfect example. Played by ex-Dr. Who, Sylvester McCoy, he’s a lovable, quirky fellow but he comes out of nowhere and just sort of disappears. He’s almost too quirky. I understand he will probably return in the other two movies, but something still feels underdone. Either explain more or give me less and let my imagination fill in the blanks.

Elrond, Galadriel, Saruman, Frodo, and maybe a few others are tossed into the shuffle but the energy is not the same. It feels like fan service more than story, even if they did appear in the book.

The special effects are incredible, but there’s so much of them that many of the battles feel like cartoons, which sucks out a lot of the suspense and the sense of danger you need for this sort of thing.

The conflicts are more isolated and the action is episodic. Halfway through the film it just struck me that we will just be watching these characters run away from different monsters, take a false breath, and then run again. Run-away-from-the-special-effects scenes can work if they develop character, feed the plot, or are not the whole movie. It just gets tedious after awhile and the bottomless bag of Deus ex machinas becomes ridiculous, again sucking suspense out of the excitement.

I did not see the movie in 48 fps and I hesitate to attempt it. I haven’t heard a single positive report about it yet. If it’s anything like the display TVs at Best Buy where everything looks feathery and the motion blur is gone then I’d rather not. It just looks unnatural and distractingly unreal. They say it’s more real, but it just looks weird and fake to me.

The biggest problem with The Hobbit is the three movie stretch. This story does not have the same high stakes or the same rich emotional core or the same balance of drama and comedy that The Lord of the Rings had. I think this stuff wouldn’t bother me if this movie had been made first instead. In addition, Lord of the Rings is a solidly dense set of three books, while The Hobbit is just one. Each Rings film can end on a cliffhanger and still feel satisfying and complete its own story arc. As a film told in three parts, The Hobbit feels like 1/3 of a single story arc and thus is not so satisfying as it is frustrating.

As with Jackson’s King Kong remake he has once again managed to take a simple, efficient story and stretch it and bloat it to unnaturally long durations. But I wonder whether all the added time has brought us any closer to these characters.

Ultimately:

What is the verdict? The Hobbit ain’t perfect, but it’s not bad. Lord of the Rings ain’t perfect neither, but it was a whole lot closer. I was honestly entertained the whole time. I admired the spectacles. You’d have to have an army of mad geniuses to pull off half the razzle-dazzle tricks this movie goes for. The trouble is sometimes mad geniuses are misguided. Because it’s broken up the way it is it just strikes me as incomplete…because it us. Shoulda been one movie. Maybe two. There just isn’t enough material here for three.

All that being said, I liked the monsters and seeing all the cool scenery. And Bilbo is good too. It’s still Middle-Earth, but it most certainly is not the same bold and rich story we might have hoped for. It’s entertaining (if a bit repetitive), just not as substantive.

Generic Belgian Boy Sleuth and the Quest for the Implausible Rube-Goldbergian Action Set Pieces

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011)When I was a kid I loved The Adventures of Tintin. Hergé’s colorful, mystery-filled world was the perfect amalgam of The Hardy Boys, Johnny Quest, and Emil and the Detectives. I always preferred the boy reporter, Tintin, to Johnny Quest because of the cool time periods and atmosphere. The jury’s still out on whether Snowy is better than Bandit. It was everything a young boy loves: action, adventure, danger, mystery, and rapidly shifting exotic backdrops. Both the comics (published between 1929 and 1976) and the animated series from the early nineties are excellent fun.

Indiana Jones director, Steven Spielberg, it would seem should be the most logical choice to bring the beloved character to the big screen (with aid of one Peter Jackson). Sitting in the theater I can see where people might have some quibbles with the film adaptation. It is jam-packed with wild action sequences and gun play and explosions and very little character development and some of the old-timey flavor and sensibilities might not be what modern audiences are craving. Like most things, there are positive things about Tintin and then there are negative things.

For those uninitiated into the world of Belgian artist Hergé’s Tintin they might not experience that same surge of nostalgia. A film should not be dependent on that surge, especially for a character that might not be as familiar in the United States. Tintin is a flat character. He always was. Even in the comics. One is meant to be experiencing the adventures through Tintin’s eyes. He is a blank cypher so we can more readily assign our own personalities to him. It works in the comics when you’re a kid. This idea may not work so well on the big screen. Despite Tintin’s apparent innocuousness and infernal purity he still looks good on screen. Daniel Craig (Casino Royale, Munich) plays the evil Professor Sakharine but his motivations are silly and he’s not a particularly memorable screen villain. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) are the bumbling identical detective set of Thomson and Thompson and they play the parts very true to the source material but they do not add much new. Fortunately not all of the characters are so bland. Andy Serkis (The Two Towers, Topsy-Turvy) gives an extremely enjoyable and kooky performance as Capt. Archibald Haddock.

The animation is incredible. I don’t generally like motion-capture films (with the exception of Gil Kenan’s Monster House) and I am not a fan of the current 3D trend, but most of my misgivings regarding motion-capture are gone for Tintin. The photo-realistic textures donned upon Hergé-inspired cartoon features actually work well and gone are the glassy-eyed stares that gave everyone the willies in Robert Zemekis’s Polar Express. The colors pop and the world looks sharp and clear. There is a healthy balance between characters who look real and characters who look like cartoons. Visually it all works. With animation the camera is able to go places and do things that would never be achievable in a live-action film. This glorious freedom of the camera unencumbered by logistics of any kind enables the filmmakers to film the action in incredibly new and exciting ways.One big complaint is that there is too much action. It is a smoke screen to disguise the thinness of plot and absence of engaging personalities. The action does become rather exhausting after awhile and towards the end of the movie I was wanting it to wrap up so I could go home. Instead of mood and solid atmosphere we get action. Instead of a clear objective and understandable character motivations we get action. It’s pretty much wall to wall action once it gets going. It reminded me of the first and last 20 minutes or so of Temple of Doom in that regard. I generally see 3D as a gimmick for rides and shows at Universal Studios or Busch Gardens so I treat The Adventures of Tintin as a big, long, exciting ride that features some of my favorite characters from my childhood. I do feel that although they really wanted this ride to be worth the cost of admission the spectacle does go on about ten minutes too long. I wanted a more satisfying and final conclusion.

So what do I really think about The Adventures of Tintin? I liked it. Thank God it’s not a pop-culture onslaught reboot like The Smurfs and such. It stays extremely true to its source material and would be a good escape for children young and old. Although it’s not nearly as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), in many ways it is everything Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) was supposed to be but just outright refused to deliver. Perhaps Tintin is Spielberg’s apology and way of saying the whole Crystal Skull business was all George Lucas. For all its faults and limitations The Adventures of Tintin is a fun adventure that hearkens back to classic action-mystery stories of childhood yore. I don’t think Hergé would have had many objections to the film. I hope kids will like it. It’s about time American kids got a little bit more exposure to culture.

Hail to the King, Baby

Yeah. The title is a line from “Army of Darkness.” So what?

One of the most iconic, important, groundbreaking, and memorable movie monsters continues to be King Kong. Any way you slice it Kong is king. Unlike the more prolific Godzilla, Kong starred in only one movie. There was only one sequel (the aptly titled Son of Kong which starred his son and wasn’t as good). Many people have tried to remake King Kong from John Guillermin to Ishiro Honda to Peter Jackson. While Jackson may come closest to the original, none have been able to capture the cinematic magic and horror of Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s extravagant original vision from 1933.

Fay Wray: babe of the 30s.

Merian C. Cooper, a bold adventurous man, was inspired to deviate from his wild documentaries—shot in the remotest locations and most dangerous jungles—in favor of this landmark fantasy adventure when told a story by his good friend, Edgar Wallace. Wallace was already a prolific novelist and screenwriter and his tale of a mysterious island fraught with peril and giant monsters sounded exactly like what Cooper had been looking for in his documentaries. Capturing unexplored natural dangers untethered was irresistible and teaming up with friend and producer Ernest B. Schoedsack to make this grand fictional epic was just the icing on the cake. It may come as no surprise that the main character of the wildly ambitious and peril-provoking movie director, Carl Denham (played by Robert Armstrong), was greatly modeled after Cooper himself. . . which is also another reason I was disappointed Jack Black’s snaky performance for the 2005 version (although it is miles better than Charles Grodin’s in 1976).

Look at that gorgeous matte painting.

With actress Fay Wray as the lovely damsel in distress, Ann Darrow, and Max Steiner’s grand score—that very effectively mirrored the onscreen action in addition to providing a very tone-setting overture—and actors like Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot, Frank Reicher, and Noble Johnson, there was just one thing missing: Kong. In the thirties many special effects were still in their pioneering stages, and Willis O’Brien (who would later teach the great Ray Harryhausen his trade) was a no-brainer for the job. O’Brien’s magnificent special effects which brought to life the prehistoric leviathan’s of Harry O. Hoyt’s The Lost World (1925) caught much attention. The finale of The Lost World, in which a brontosaurus terrorizes downtown London, would be the basis for Kong’s rampage through New York City. O’Brien, who had been having trouble and was forced to scrap several pet projects, was hired by Cooper and Schoedsack and to work they did set.

In watching Schoedsack’s earlier film, The Most Dangerous Game (1932), you’ll notice not only the recurrence of Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, and Noble Johnson, but also many of the same sets used later in King Kong.

Do you think they’ve spotted us?

The story is simple enough. An “enthusiastic” movie director, Carl Denham (Armstrong), wants to make the greatest wildlife documentary the world has ever seen. He wants to dazzle audiences with corners of the world never before seen by civilized men. His producers demand he get an attractive woman to throw into the picture to give it some sex appeal. Denham then takes to the Depression-era New York City streets in hopes of finding a desperate young lady who might agree to go along on their crazy expedition. He finds Ann Darrow (Wray) and they set sail for Skull Island. Let me repeat that. SKULL ISLAND. During their long sea voyage, Ann begins to fall in love with the stoic first mate, John Driscoll (Bruce Cabot). Soon the mysterious island is spotted and they disembark to investigate. A primitive tribal ceremony is disrupted by their presence and the film crew manages to get away, but that night the tribesmen board the ship and kidnap Ann to sacrifice to their mysterious and legendary jungle god known as Kong.

It’s not racist if it’s film history 🙂

Kong shows up (in what is was of the best screen entrances of all time), but rather than kill Ann he takes her deep into the jungle. Perhaps it was merely her screams that sparked his curiosity or perhaps it was her beauty that stayed his hand. Driscoll, Denham, and the crew race into the jungle to save Ann—without any idea as to what awaits them. Inside the jungle, many men are killed by territorial and bloodthirsty monsters, dinosaurs, and Kong himself. It seems the ferocious Kong just wants some time alone to perv out with Ann, but with all the little men, dinosaurs, and giant snakes attacking, he can’t seem to get any peace with his screaming nonconsensual bride.

Kong uses some awesome boxing and wrestling moves to fight a nasty Tyrannosaurus-rex. It’s pretty cool stuff. Giant ape socking T-rex in the jaw and flipping him over? This is why fantasy was invented.

Just look at how gorgeous this picture is.

There’s a lot of build-up leading to the main action, but it is all well paced and ominous. The music doesn’t even start until they get to Skull Island. Once the intrepid (and ill-fated) crew passes the ancient wall and pursues the gargantuan primate into the jungle the action is pretty quick. Stegosaurs, Brontosaurs, Ptersaurs, Tyrannosaurs, and imagined prehistoric horrors abound in the dense foliage, so there is plenty of violence. Life of Skull Island must be a nightmare.

Eventually Driscoll rescues Ann and Kong is captured (but not before he destroys the native village). Denham brings him back to New York City to show the public something they’ve never seen: Kong, the eighth wonder of the world. Long story short; Kong breaks free of his fetters in the opera house and runs murderously amok in the strange new environment, searching for Ann. Instead of giant snakes, Kong battles subway trains. Instead of vicious pterodactyls, Kong must battle biplanes. When Kong does find Ann he takes her to where he can be alone with her: the top of the Empire State Building (and in 1933 it was the tallest building in the world. How romantic). The planes come and Kong must let Ann go as he plummets to his death.

Come at me, bra.

The special effects (although nearly a century old) still have amazing power and wonderful charm. The titanic monster battles are some of the best and most impressive ever filmed. O’Brien and his team had to invent most of the special effects shots for this film as they went along. There are scenes that feature live action people in the foreground and background, while stop-motion monsters battle in between. Plumes of steam from geysers steadily rise, stop-motion birds fly overhead, and the environments are sometimes  miniature sets that extend several feet behind the main action with painted landscape beyond that. The violence is still shocking (as when Kong chomps people in his jaws or mercilessly pummels a passenger train into dead silence), but for some reason we still love Kong. We fall in love with this big, hairy, murderous beast. Even though his performance is only the painstaking animations of a puppet, we still feel he is alive. Unlike other monster movies where we take our point of view from one of the frightened onlookers of the grisly carnage, King Kong makes the monster the central character. Kong is all alone and against the world and the movie audience, for some reason, readily embraces him.

*Samuel Jackson’s monologue from Pulp Fiction*

Subsequent remakes have all tried to cast Kong as a softer, more sanitized, and sympathetic character; a misunderstood animal who the human protagonists eventually come to respect. . . and Kong only justifiably kills bad people. Remakes have cast him as a definite gorilla, but the original Kong’s species is somewhat more ambiguous.

In the original, Kong is a violent force of nature who murders indescriminately: cowering innocents; fleeing pedestrians; even the tribesmen who worshipped him. He doesn’t have a beautiful magical connection with Ann. He’s actually a bit more like a rapist. He is more lost ancient god than biological freak. Ann never warms up to Kong. None of the characters like Kong, in fact. Denham only wants to exhibit him to show the world something they’ve never seen. There is no awkward environmentalist or anti-capitalist message. To the contrary, the film is riddled with cultural ignorance, racism, sexism, and unsentimental depictions of animal cruelty (like the old Tarzan movies). It is very much an escapist product of its time, but for some reason I can forgive it all its faults just as I can forgive Kong for his incorrigible carnage. If it is unapologetic it is because it is a part of our history, and what an entertaining historical document it is.

Acrophobic yet?

King Kong is easily one of the cinema’s most dazzling adventure stories. The colossal group effort of these daring men in the pioneering days of film, during a time when there was still a lot left of this earth that was unexplored, make King Kong something very special. In setting out to make an adventure movie to end all adventure movies—or maybe a monster movie to end all monster movies—I personally feel that the winning team behind King Kong succeeded with gusto. If you’ve only ever heard of King Kong as legend, myth, or saw him in any of the lesser remakes, I encourage you to revisit this fantastic classic. For my money King Kong (1933) is one of the best American movies ever made and not to be missed.

I am not an animal!

Originally published for “The Alternative Chronicle” September 25, 2009