As it turns out, I saw exactly five new movies that came out this year. Here I am going to rank them.
5. THE THREE STOOGES
"While trying to save their childhood orphanage, Moe, Larry, and Curly
inadvertently stumble into a murder plot and wind up starring in a
reality TV show." - IMDb
While the success of this recreation of the iconic slapstick trio film is somewhat doubtful, I think this was a decent attempt. The Farrelly Brothers took on the impossible when filming this movie. The original charm of the Stooges isn't quite there, but I didn't think the movie was bad. I actually enjoyed it for the most part, and the best thing about it was Chris Diamantopoulos' as Moe. His performance alone makes this movie worth seeing. He pulls off the impossible and does the ringleader justice. Sean Hayes's performance as Larry is good enough, although his look is a little too forced, and Will Sasso's acting as Curly is annoyingly almost good.
4. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
"Peter Parker finds a clue that might help him understand why his parents
disappeared when he was young. His path puts him on a collision course
with Dr. Curt Connors, his father's former partner.
" - IMDb
I wasn't the biggest fan of the original Spider-Man movies starring Toby McGuire, so I was interested to see this one. I still wasn't that impressed with it, but it was a better movie I thought. Andrew Garfield looks much more like the proper age group than McGuire did (seriously, he did not look like a high school student, nor did Kirsten Dunst).
3. LES MISERABLES
"In 19th-century France, Jean Valjean, who for decades has been hunted by
the ruthless policeman Javert after he breaks parole, agrees to care
for factory worker Fantine's daughter, Cosette. The fateful decision
changes their lives forever." - IMDb
I'm not at all big on musicals. The only ones before this that I liked are The Wizard of Oz and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Having not read the novel, nor the musical, but having seen the previous film version, I had an idea of the story. It's one of my Mom's favorite books. The manner in which they approached the filming and recording of this film is amazing. They did not record the singing before the fact, but rather recorded the singing live on set, which allowed for much better performances from the actors. Before this, I did not think much of Anne Hathaway as an actress, but after seeing this movie, she has gone up in my eyes. There were several things I didn't care for in the film, however, and at the top of the list is the Thenardiers. It was a bit of a stretch as my mom put it, because in the book, they were the most evil characters in the story, but the film treats them as comic relief. Indeed, in their introductory scene, it was almost as if the audience is throw head first into a Tim Burton film for at least five minutes... but not a bad movie.
2. THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY
"A younger and more reluctant Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, sets out on a
"unexpected journey" to the Lonely Mountain with a spirited group of
Dwarves to reclaim a their stolen mountain home from a dragon named
Smaug." - IMDb
It really pains me to put this at number two, but for reasons I will explain in the following entry, I decided this as number two. Just know that my top two choices were SOOOOOO close.
I am a huge fan of the Hobbit book and the Lord of the Rings books/movies, so I have eagerly been waiting for years to see this film. It is a bit disappointing that they are splitting this book into three movies, but that does not detract from the awesomeness that is this movie. I already wrote a review of this movie for this blog, so I won't really go into details, but the best thing about the movie is Martin Freeman's performance as Bilbo Baggins.
1. MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS
"Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. brings together a team of super humans to form
The Avengers to help save the Earth from Loki and his army." - IMDb
The reason I picked this as my number one film instead of The Hobbit comes down to one thing: I went into the Hobbit expecting greatness and got greatness. I went into The Avengers fully expecting to be disappointed and came out utterly blown away. When you cross different movies with different movie stars together, the result doesn't always come out good, but this one worked. It combined the title characters from the movies Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), The Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), and Captain America (Chris Evans), as well as some extra characters from the films including Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). The thing I was most impressed with is the character development of the film. Given that most of these characters had their own movies prior to this, I expect it to focus more on the action rather than the heroes. I also expected that Iron Man, easily the most successful character out of the others, would overpower all the others. Thankfully, I was wrong on both counts. I also enjoyed how much they developed the Hulk's character. They did a better job here than they did in the Hulk's stand alone movie! Also I liked Ruffalo better than Edward Norton. Just say'n.
You may notice that The Dark Knight Rises is not on this list. I have not yet seen it, so I didn't want to put it on the list. From what I've heard though, I think it'd be disappointing to me.
This is my top 5 list of movies that have been out for a while, but I just had not yet seen
TOP 5 PRE-2012 MOVIES
5. BATMAN (1989)
The movie series that preceded the now blockbuster "Dark Knight" trilogy. Directed by Tim Burton and starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson, it shows the struggle between Bruce Wayne (who has already become Batman, though I got the idea that he hadn't been Batman for very long) and Jack Napier, who becomes The Joker.
I watched the movies in this series completely out of sequence, and this was actually the last one that I watched (because the library didn't have this one on shelf). This has got to be the least Tim Burton-esque film I've ever seen, there wasn't a whole lot of the usual things you'd see in his movies. It was a bit of an unusual film, but I kinda liked that it was different. Burton's good at that. What did kinda surprise me a lot was that Wayne/Batman is seemingly absent from most of the movie, and that was what intrigued me the most. The story was mostly told through other people's POV.
4. THOR (2011)
Super hero movies are all the rage nowadays, and to be honest, I only watched this at first because I knew Thor would be in The Avengers. It's the typical story of a young heir-to-the-throne god-like prince who is too arrogant, gets himself banished and must learn his place in the place he doesn't belong: Earth.
I did enjoy the movie, however, and was amused by how Natalie Portman's acting actually didn't suck as bad as I was expecting. Then again, she wasn't being a lame character *cough cough* Padme *cough cough*. Also, Patrick Doyle did the music for it, and I love Patrick Doyle's music.
3. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER
Captain America: The First Avenger is ironically the last Avenger movie released before The Avengers movie came out. Steve Rogers is chosen for a World War II military experiment that turns him into the only successful super soldier, who goes head to head against a failed super soldier test subject who leads the Nazi cult Hydra.
At first I wasn't sure if I liked it or not, because it looked too modern to be set in the 1940s, but eventually I was able to separate it out and just enjoy it for what it was worth. The ending was not a Hollywood Ending, and I actually like it when movies don't end like most movies.
2. TITANIC (1997)
I actually remember when this movie came out. I was six, so I obviously didn't see it then. It has been on my mental to-watch list for a while, and I finally got round to seeing it. It's the three hour long fictional story of a true story that follows a wealthy young lady whose world is shaken up (literally) when she meets a lower class wanna-be artist... and of course by the whole shipwreck thing.
Even though I had to watch it over a period of three days, I still enjoyed the movie very much. I did not expect it to be three hours long... guess I didn't read up on it enough. This is the first Leonardo DiCaprio movie that I saw, but as you'll see, I saw another Leo movie too.
1. INCEPTION (2010)
I have been hearing about this movie, and hearing about this movie, and hearing about this movie for two whole years. I finally decided to watch it after my friend Brandon and I were talking about it. He had seen it and liked it, and when I went to the library the next day, there it was on the shelf. So naturally I picked it up. Christopher Nolan, the genius behind The Prestige and The Dark Knight movies helms this original story (Nolan mostly does adaptations of books/comic books), brings you the engaging and driving story of how dreams become reality in the mind of the dreamer.... it's kinda hard to explain.
The first Nolan movie I ever saw was The Prestige, and I loved the way he approached the mystery, and Inception is a lot like that. It follows a more linear storyline than Prestige, which jumped around POVs and timelines, but I would say the intrigue level is just as high. I still kinda like The Prestige better, but Inception is more than worth seeing. Twice.
Growing up having my Mom read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings to me, I was a fan of the books from an early age. The LOTR movies were just coming out right after Mom read me those books, but (obviously) there was a longer gap in between when she read me The Hobbit and when Peter Jackson made his movie versions. As I previously stated in my "prereview" earlier this week, I had lots of doubts going into the fist movie, but if you haven't read it, go here.
NOW. Onto the movie itself. I'm going to include the whole experience, I'm gonna start from the beginning, and for once, I'm gonna go more in depth. I'm still not gonna give TOO much info so as not to spoil the story though. My mom heard a review on the radio that said that the movie should be seen in 3D, and that's just what we did. It was the first movie I've ever seen in 3D, and it was pretty amazing. There was one point at the end where I literally flinched because I thought a pine cone was coming right at me. At first the 3D gave me a annoying headache, but I got used to it pretty quick. It made the backgrounds stand out, and since New Zealand is a beautiful country, this was awesome.
After sitting through like twenty minutes of previews (all of which seemed to be about a destroyed post-apocalypse Earth being taken over and reclaimed or fought against...) the movie finally began. I was thrown off at first because it began with the Warner Brothers logo. Even though I somewhat obsessively followed the making-of process, I was unaware the Warner Brothers were involved. Then came the MGM logo. I was also unaware of MGM being involved. THEN came the New Line Cinemas logo, and by that time I had realized it was playing LOTR music and that the film must be starting. The movie starts with Old Bilbo talking to himself (although he's addressing Frodo, he's not actually speaking to anyone) about telling Frodo about the truth of his adventures. After a short prologue about the lonely mountain and the dragon taking over (all filled with information I felt a bit odd that Bilbo would be so well-versed in) Frodo came into the movie. It was quite a bit nostalgic to see Elijah Wood come back as Frodo,and he didn't look a day older (quite a feat, since over ten years have passed since LOTR first came out). After Frodo goes away to wait for Gandalf (which would lead directly into his introduction into Fellowship of the Ring), the story begins. It was a good opening, but the only thing that I disliked about it was the fact that while narrating the beginning of the story, Bilbo's lines are direct from the book EXCEPT that they changed it. That ticked me off and my Mom leaned over and said "You couldn't just keep the wording?" The actual line is this: "In a hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing to sit down on or to eat: it was a Hobbit hole, and that means comfort." They butchered that line, and it was a bit aggravating.
Martin Freeman's performance as young Bilbo Baggins was really, really good. He has a lot of the same figgity mannerisms that Ian Holm had as old Bilbo in LOTR, while adding his own characteristics to the character. Ian McKellen's performance of Gandalf at first seemed a bit different to me, but I couldn't quite put my hand on why it seemed that way... but it soon felt just like it did before long. The dwarves were pretty good, too. They created a (quite different) back story for Thorin, who I think they tried to give him some distinct Aragorn characteristics, not the least bit noticeable is his scruffily good looks. Seriously. He's a dwarf. That's a thought I also had about the two youngest dwarves Fili and Kili. Kili just plain looks like a young man, and not a dwarf. Ori was a bit weird looking, and I was worried that his looks would detract from my opinion of him in the movie, but I eventually just accepted him. Balin was really good in my opinion. Apart from Thorin, Balin was probably the dwarf that Tolkien developed as a character the most. Oin, Gloin, Dori, Nori, Bifur, Bombur, and Dwalin didn't get very much screen time, but I was surprised that Bofur got as much screen time as he did. I was reading the book right before the film came out, and I was paying attention to how many lines each dwarf got, and Bofur definitely wasn't one of the top-runners.
The story of The Hobbit was written as a children's story. This effect doesn't quite transfer over to the movie, which creates a lot more action and suspense than was in the whole book. There were SO many goblins, and they've made them more terrifying than they were in FOTR. There's also one thing that really seemed just plain wrong, and that was The Great Goblin. His voice was just plain too normal, and it really made him less scary. In the book, Thorin mentions a goblin by the name of Azog, who was only MENTIONED and was never in the book himself (that I remember). The movie brings him in a much more prominent role, as a hunter Orc out for revenge against Thorin. This automatically created new sequences for the movie that weren't in the book, including a prolonged chase sequence before the company reaches Rivendell. It was like the castle raid scene in Prince Caspian, which was created for the movie based on one sentence in the book.
Given that they are taking one book and making it into three movies, they have got to be filling it in with some new material. They explore Gandalf's absences in the book, since he does leave the company periodically. I won't go into detail, but Gandalf and the brown Wizard Radigast discover that an ancient evil has found its way back into the world. If you can't already guess what that is alluding to, I'm not gonna say it. But they found a way to work Galadriel and Saruman back into the movie, even though neither were in the book (neither was Radigast for that matter). Radigast was a little bit overdone in my opinion, but I can see what they were doing.
The scene I was most looking forward to was the Riddles in the Dark scene. By far my favorite chapter in the book, this scene is a pivotal hinge for the whole LOTR series, not just The Hobbit. It was really cool seeing Gollum again, and the riddle game was done really well. Andy Serkis recreated his Gollum mannerisms and voice perfectly.
The ending was a bit drawn out. Obviously, since it's being made into three movies, they did not even get to the lonely mountain. For non-spoiling reasons I won't say what this drawn-out ending is, but rest assured it's nowhere near as drawn-out as the ending of Return of the King.
As always, one of my favorite parts of the entire movie was the music. Those who know me know I am a sucker for a good movie score, and I am especially partial to Howard Shore's music for The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Like I said in my pre-review, I was overjoyed when I learned that Howard Shore would return to write the music for the Hobbit films. The music is simply amazing, as amazing as I could have even expected. The only things that I didn't like about the score were just four things: Three music ques from LOTR were brought back, but used in completely wrong contexts. The Lothlorien theme was used in a Rivendell setting (and I'm not talking about when Galadirel was there, that moment was justified.) In another scene, they used the Ring Wraith theme for dramatic effect when Thorin stands up to fight against an Orc (again completely out of context for the theme), and finally a theme for the race of men that was used at the very end. Since there were no men in this film (they were all Hobbits, Dwarves, Elves, Trolls, Orcs, Goblins, and Wizards), this was a bad move. The only other thing that I thought could have been better (though I still loved it the way it was) was the fact that the main theme of the film gets a bit repetitive. All this being said, these are things that detracted a tiny bit for me personally, and doesn't by any means mean that I thought it was anything less than amazing. I loved it a lot.
I have listed all these differences from the book in a somewhat negative light, but that does not at all mean that I thought the movie was bad. On the contrary, I liked the film very much. It is such an iconic story, and with Peter Jackson and all the same people who made Lord of the Rings the success of a film as it was, there isn't much you can do to make a bad movie (and why would you want to make a bad movie?) I recommend watching it in 3D like I did. I have heard that the new 48 fps technology makes some people sick, but the effect is better in 3D. Plus, you get an awesome pair of 3D glasses with The Hobbit logo on them.
I am a HUGE fan of J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" novels, and that of course includes the book that preceded it, "The Hobbit". I don't know exactly why, but I feel more attached to the "Hobbit" book than I did with LOTR. Maybe it was the fact that my mom read "Hobbit" to me when I was younger, and then when she read LOTR to me, the movies were just about to come out, so I guess I've just had more time to get attached to my vision of the book.
While I am very excited for this upcoming film adaptation of "The Hobbit", and I a big fan of Peter Jackson and the way he did LOTR, I am facing a bit of apprehension about it, too. The biggest reason I am uncertain about it is the fact that they are splitting the book into THREE movies. Seriously, I think the book is shorter than half the size of one of the LOTR books (don't quote me on that, I don't know for a fact). Harry Potter created a trend of splitting books into multiple movies, because Twilight copied it and now The Hobbit. I do think that they were justified in doing the split for Harry Potter, but I just don't get why Peter Jackson would do this to The Hobbit. The only way they could fit Hobbit into three movies is if they are adding stuff to it, and that's just not right. I also bet New Line Cinema's in it for the money since the LOTR movies were so popular.
The other thing I'm really somewhat unsure about are the thirteen dwarves. That had to be a daunting task going into the filming process, trying to make them all look different and distinguishable... but I'm not exactly digging the looks for some of the dwarves in this film. I've gotten used to some of them, but some just don't look dwarfish enough for me. I'm going to list them below and rate them 1-13.
GLOIN - #1
As the father of Gimli, the dwarf we all know and love from LOTR, Gloin is probably the best looking dwarf out of all of them in my own opinion. I also like the way they have Gloin carrying the same axe as Gimli did in LOTR.
DWALIN - #2
It's a different look, but I kinda like it.I can see him being a dwarf. A tough dwarf. I don't really remember if Dwalin was written as being a tough guy, but whatever. Still looks cool.
OIN - #3
Again, different, but still pretty dwarfish.
BALIN - #4
A bit cartoonish maybe, but I'm digging that coat. That's some nice threads.
DORI - #5
Decent. B-.
THORIN - #6
As the leader of the company of dwarves, Thorin has to look very distinctive from the rest. They went the Aragorn route for him, making him more handsome than you'd think a dwarf would be or the book described him.
BOMBUR - #7
I don't really like the braided beard (?), but they did make him fat, and that was his big character trait.
BIFUR - #8
A little wild, but still, what's with the hatchet wound?
BOFUR - #9
I don't know whether to compare his look to a hunter or a pirate. Does not scream "dwarf" though.
NORI - #10
Do I even need to comment?
FILI - #11
NOT. DWARFISH. ENOUGH.
KILI - #12
NOT. DWARFISH. AT ALL.
ORI - #13
Uh.................................... ?
I've been ranting on the things I don't like about what I think could be bad. However, to be fair, I don't know that it will be bad. In fact, since the movie has already premiered in New Zealand, there are already reviews for the movie up on IMDB.com. I didn't really read all of them, but five out of eight reviews gave the film 10/10 stars. That's not a common occurrence, by any means. Apart from that, there are several things I'm excitedly looking forward to about this movie. At the top of the list is seeing Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins.
I've really only seen Martin Freeman in the British television series "Sherlock", and I watched one episode of the British "The Office", where he plays the Jim Halpert character equivalent. From what I have seen of him, I think he is going to be a brilliant Bilbo. There are other cast members I'm excited for, such as the returning cast of Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Hugo Weaving as Elrond, Andy Serkis as Gollum, and even Elijah Wood as Frodo (for nostalgic reasons). The other thing that I'm looking forward to is... yep. The soundtrack.
Howard Shore's music scores for "Lord of the Rings" are what I think to be the all-time greatest soundtracks in existence. He really sells the history and the legends and the magic that were the backbone of the films, and I was overjoyed when I learned that Shore would be returning to score The Hobbit. I have listened to samples of the soundtrack and it's just like going back into the original films. It made me very happy.
Another thing I'm looking forward to (although maybe not necessarily excited for) is this new "48-frames-per-second" deal. I'm told it's pretty close to how the human eye perceives normal movement, making the film appear more realistic. I've also heard of people becoming sick while watching the movie. I guess that's the risk of doing new technology. I'll reserve my own judgement until after I've seen it.
Well, this is where I will leave off for this blog post. I will come back and write another review after I've seen the movie. Until then, we are going there and back again to Middle Earth in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit".
