Since his death in 1999, Stanley Kubrick's legend has only grown, especially with some once-verboten looks into his filmmaking methodology, which was largely shrouded in secrecy during his lifetime. Such projects include the documentary STANLEY KUBRICK: A LIFE IN PICTURES, by his producer and brother-in-law Jan Harlan, the archival making-of doc by Kubrick's daughter Vivian that's on the SHINING Blu-ray, and Matthew Modine's essential Full Metal Jacket Diary, a coffee table book compiling the actor's bluntly candid journal entries and behind-the-scenes photos he took from the audition process through the completion of 1987's FULL METAL JACKET. Kubrick's dual nature--a genius artist with a demonstrable capacity for warmth and humor and the mercurial, 100-plus-take perfectionist who thought nothing of mercilessly haranguing actors and colleagues to the point of tears and even nervous breakdowns in the pursuit of his art--is on display in all of these. But Tony Zierra's documentary FILMWORKER gets inside the head of a man who walked away from his acting career just as it was taking off to essentially serve at Kubrick's beck-and-call to this day, even though the director has been gone for nearly 20 years. Born in 1947, Leon Vitali was a jobbing young British actor in the late '60s and early '70s, landing gigs on stage, TV, and in a few movies, never really breaking out but never out of work. His big break came when he landed the pivotal supporting role of Lord Bullington in Kubrick's 1975 film BARRY LYNDON and immediately bonded with the director, who wrote additional scenes for Vitali, expanding his role to keep him on the production. Vitali was fascinated by Kubrick's attention to detail and intensive, obsessive management of every aspect of the gargantuan production and expressed an interest in working behind the scenes. After finishing BARRY LYNDON, Vitali had the title role in the 1977 Swedish/Irish co-production VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN and asked director Calvin Floyd if he could stick around after filming wrapped and observe him putting the movie together in the editing room. He reconnected with Kubrick, who gave him an assignment to read Stephen King's The Shining and before long, Vitali was pressed into service as the director's chief assistant and trusted confidante, abandoning his promising acting career and heading to America to both oversee auditions for the crucial role of Danny Torrance in THE SHINING as well as taking extensive photographs of lodges and hotel interiors across America in order to help Kubrick design the perfect Overlook Hotel interior to be constructed on sets at Elstree Studios in London.
BARRY LYNDON stars Ryan O'Neal and
Leon Vitali, reunited over 40 years later.
With his dark glasses, long hair, and hoarse voice ravaged by decades of chain smoking, the present-day Vitali looks like the kind of aging rocker that Bill Nighy played in STILL CRAZY. It was Vitali who discovered Danny Lloyd for THE SHINING and functioned as his guardian and protector through the shoot. It was Vitali who worked closely with R. Lee Ermey on FULL METAL JACKET and had to break the news to an already-cast Tim Colceri that Kubrick decided to replace him with Ermey in the key role of the merciless drill instructor. Colceri, who was given a consolation prize of playing a crazed door gunner ("Get some!") is interviewed, and still seems haunted by losing the role, and though he was kept in the movie, he remains resentful that Kubrick demoted him via a typewritten letter (Colceri still has the letter) and tasked Vitali with delivering it to him. Numerous talking heads appear with memories of Kubrick and the heavy workload dumped on Vitali: Modine, Colceri, the late Ermey, a grown-up Lloyd, BARRY LYNDON star Ryan O'Neal (Zierra arranges an affectionate reunion for Vitali and O'Neal), EYES WIDE SHUT's Marie Richardson, past Warner Bros. execs, film historian Nick Redman, and Vitali's adult children. In addition to his duties on Kubrick's films, Vitali was also responsible for cataloging negatives, color timing, lab and restoration work, cutting trailers for countries all over the world, overseeing and approving DVD and Blu-ray transfers according to Kubrick's strict specifications, and even, as shown by one handwritten note ("Leon, billiard room!"), tidying up rooms and offices at Kubrick's estate.
Vitali at the far left, with Joe Turkel, Stanley Kubrick,
and Jack Nicholson on the set of THE SHINING
Vitali with Kubrick on the set of FULL METAL JACKET
A look back at Vitali's childhood reveals his stern, domineering father died when he was eight years old, and it's more or less inferred by three of his siblings that his need give over everything to Kubrick was a way of filling a paternal void that's existed since Vitali was a child (one Modine diary entry in his book reads "I feel sorry for Leon, but he's chosen this life," and in FILMWORKER, he calls Vitali's servile sacrifice "a crucifixion of himself for Kubrick"). Over old home movie footage of Vitali's young children playing around stacks of film cans in a cluttered office while Vitali slaves away at a desk, his now-grown son describes his dad's 24/7 work schedule for Kubrick as "Kafka-esque," recalling a childhood memory of Vitali working late one Christmas Eve, long after everyone else left the office. Kubrick gave him some gifts and wished him a Merry Christmas, but then, "Sure enough, around 1:00 in the afternoon on Christmas Day, the phone started ringing. It was Stanley." When Kubrick died just after finishing EYES WIDE SHUT, Vitali took it upon himself to act as the keeper of all things Kubrick, nearly wrecking his health with countless sleepless nights at the Warner offices in L.A. supervising a frame by frame restoration of all of the director's films, approaching it with his mentor's same obsessive quest for perfection, so much so that he proceeded to alienate the execs overseeing the project (this is the only point in the film where an upset Vitali cuts off Zierra and says "I don't want to talk about this anymore"). Vitali recognizes the dysfunction that existed in his relationship with Kubrick (he says his tirades were similar to those by chef Gordon Ramsey), but accepts it as his calling, has no regrets, and misses him dearly. FILMWORKER is a fascinating glimpse into one of the most enigmatic and unsung figures in the Kubrick universe, a man whose selfless devotion to the filmmaker and preserving the integrity of the presentation of his work almost seems to take precedence over every other aspect of his own life. (Unrated, 94 mins)
GHOST STORIES (UK - 2018)
An earnest British horror film that plays like an old-school Amicus portmanteau for the BLACK MIRROR crowd, GHOST STORIES was written and directed by Jeremy Dyson and star Andy Nyman, based on their popular play that debuted in 2010. The change in medium doesn't always work in the film adaptation's favor in terms of telegraphing its plot turns on its way to a reveal that isn't as clever or as original as it thinks it is, but there's some nicely atmospheric chills along the way. Nyman stars as professional skeptic and paranormal debunker Prof. Philip Goodman, the host of a reality TV show called PSYCHIC CHEATS. He's contacted by Charles Cameron (Leonard Byrne), another celebrity debunker who went off the grid in the late '70s. An embittered Cameron is aged and sickly, and confesses that he feels like an arrogant fraud and excoriates Goodman likewise. Cameron now believes the supernatural is real, and with one directive ("Tell me I'm wrong...I need to know") hands Goodman a file with three cases that he's been unable to debunk. "Case 1" is Tony Matthews (Paul Whitehouse), a widower who encountered something evil as a nightwatchman at an abandoned asylum. "Case 2" is Simon Rifkind (Alex Lawther of Netflix's THE END OF THE F***ING WORLD and the great "Shut Up and Dance" episode of BLACK MIRROR), a teenager with cold, impossible-to-please parents who had an up-close-and-personal encounter with a goat-like creature that believes is the Devil when he hit it with his dad's car on a dark and lonely road. "Case 3" is Mike Priddle (Martin Freeman), a self-absorbed, asshole businessman who believes he was being targeted by a poltergeist while his wife was in the hospital about to deliver a baby that may or may not be human.
Dyson and Nyman utilize the anthology element as each case is shown as a flashback as they tell Goodman their tales, but it's Goodman's wraparound story that ultimately becomes the central focus. There's references throughout to his own miserable upbringing with a psychologically abusive, devoutly religious father and a mother who remained quiet and looked the other way. He was also bulled by other kids for being Jewish, and as Cameron suggests, his present career as a sarcastic debunker is his way of getting back at the world. Where GHOST STORIES--both the ghosts in the cases and the ghosts of Goodman's past--eventually goes won't really be surprising by the end, but it's an enjoyable ride for the most part. The filmmakers stage numerous shots where it looks like an ominous figure might be lurking in the background, the dysfunction in young Simon's house is suffocatingly uncomfortable (he has multiple locks on his bedroom door to keep his parents out, telling Goodman "They don't like me"), and Matthews wandering the long, underground corridors of of the abandoned asylum and encountering a roomful of mannequins is an unnerving enough image that it'll take you a few moments to question exactly why mannequins are being stored in an asylum. The inconsistencies (if Cameron is off-the-grid, how are people still sending him cases?) are such that it becomes clear that there's at least one unreliable narrator among these characters, the directors can't resist going for one hackneyed, INSIDIOUS-style jump scare (no doubt a necessary concession in the transition from stage to screen) and the payoff isn't quite worthy of the elaborate buildup (it's ripped off from a certain acclaimed TV drama from the 1980s), but GHOST STORIES has its heart in the right place. Not essential viewing, but worth a stream for sure. (Unrated, 98 mins)
DISTORTED
(Canada/US - 2018)
Right on the heels of his HUMANITY BUREAU triumph, Canadian director Rob King is back with the equally dismal techno-paranoia thriller DISTORTED. Lauren (Christina Ricci) and Russell (Brendan Fletcher of Uwe Boll's RAMPAGE trilogy) are a financially well-off but emotionally troubled couple who move into The Pinnacle, a high-tech, state-of-the-art "smart" building with around-the-clock security and surveillance. Prior to the move, Lauren is plagued by disturbing dreams and visions of a figure in their apartment, and despite The Pinnacle's sense of security, the nightmares increase in frequency and intensity. Lauren starts seeing subliminal words and images flash across their TV, is constantly being stared at by neighbors scratching the left side of their neck and humming "Beautiful Dreamer," and even watches one Pinnacle resident take a dive off the top of the building. After a cursory browse through a chat room and a conversation with a neighbor (Vicellous Shannon) whose father just so happens to be a pioneer in the world of subliminal advertising, Lauren becomes convinced that the building's owners are conducting secret experiments involving binaural sound waves and message transmissions on a higher-frequency level than the conscious brain--or Rob King--can process. She learns a lot of this from underground journalist and dark web hacker Vernon Sarsfield (John Cusack), who informs her of covert government projects to brainwash the public via subliminal transmissions in "smart" buildings.
One of the dumbest thrillers of 2018, DISTORTED could've been fun in a batshit way, but its story is so muddled and its twist ending so confusing that nothing in it makes much sense. Ricci freaks out a lot, but never really sells you on what Lauren is going through, and a past trauma from which the couple still hasn't recovered is so obviously and repetitively telegraphed from the get-go that when it's finally revealed, it's not even a surprise. The exterior shots of The Pinnacle are laughable--the building is a completely computer-generated visual effect, looking like something out of a shitty Pixar knockoff, and a typically sweaty, disheveled-looking Cusack turns up midway through for a few scenes and disappears from the movie during the climax. He's wearing his usual black ball cap (as seen in RECLAIM and DRIVE HARD) with an added hoodie, a cleverly-deployed accoutrement that frequently obscures Cusack's face and allows him to further embrace Cusackalypse Now by fully committing to the groundbreaking methods pioneered by Dr. Bruce Willis and Prof. Steven Seagal, whose collaborative tutorial "Fake Shemping in the Age of Redbox" takes what was once an unfortunate necessity in the event of an actor's unexpected death and has co-opted it to vigorously prepare any once-relevant and now-visibly inconvenienced actor in the fine art of just sticking around long enough for the close-ups and a quick raid of the craft services table before letting a stand-in handle the rest. (R, 86 mins)
CARGO (Australia/UK - 2018) Directed by Yolanda Ramke and Ben Howling. Written by Yolanda Ramke. Cast: Martin Freeman, Anthony Hayes, Susie Porter, Caren Pistorius, Kris McQuade, David Gulpilil, Simone Landers, Bruce R. Carter, Natasha Wanganeen, Andy Rodoreda, Marlee Jane McPherson-Dobbins, Lily Anne McPherson-Dobbins, Finlay Sjoberg, Nova Sjoberg. (Unrated, 104 mins) With its setting in the desolate Outback and the presence of veteran Australian cult hero David Gulpilil in a supporting role, it would be easy to snarkily dismiss the zombie apocalypse saga CARGO as THE WALKABOUT DEAD. It would seem that the last thing the horror genre needs is yet another zombie movie, but some recent offerings--like TRAIN TO BUSAN, THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS, and now this--seem cognizant of that and do things to stand out from the crowd. CARGO, a Netflix pickup, begins in a standard fashion but as it goes on, it stays focused on character and atmosphere, with the zombie sightings and flesh-chomping kept to a minimum. A feature-length expansion of a seven-minute 2013 short film by directors Yolanda Ramke (who also scripted) and Ben Howling, CARGO opens on a boat found and commandeered by Andy (SHERLOCK's Martin Freeman) and his wife Kay (Susie Porter). It's the aftermath of a viral pandemic, and every day is a struggle to find safe food for themselves and their one-year-old daughter Rosie (played by two different sets of twins) and avoid attracting the attention of the undead, here called "diggers." We soon learn, when Kay is attacked, that a bite from a digger usually gives the victim 48 hours before turning. Her wound, however, is so deep that the time is accelerated and as she turns sooner than expected, with an odd, mummified webbing forming over her eyes and face, she attacks and bites an exhausted Andy, who fell asleep while keeping watch on her. After mercy-killing what was once his wife, Andy, carrying Rosie on his back, ventures on foot to find some viable safe haven for his daughter before the inevitable happens.
They meet others along the way, most notably Thoomi (Simone Landers), a teenage aboriginal girl who regularly cuts herself and smears the blood on a tree to keep her turned-to-a-digger father distracted and not interested in attacking her. When Andy later encounters the seemingly affable Vic (Anthony Hayes), he's horrified to find that he rounds up aboriginal locals--including Thoomi and her grandfather (Gulpilil)--and keeps them as caged bait to attract diggers for him to kill in the hopes that they still have cash and jewelry on them that could come in handy in the post-pandemic Bartertown that the Outback has become. It doesn't take long for Vic to become the clear antagonist here, though he does disappear for a long stretch once Andy helps Thoomi escape and the trio moves on. As the clock ticks down and constant obstacles get in their way, a genuine sense of family develops between Thoomi, Andy, and little Rosie (I'm not sure which of the four Rosies are doing what, but in some scenes--and there's probably a lot of outtakes--this little girl's expressions, natural responses, and on-camera discipline are quite remarkable, and it's obvious Freeman spent some time bonding with at least one of them). With Thoomi desperate to get back to the family from which she and her father were separated during the outbreak, Andy's purpose in his dwindling hours becomes clear: to get Thoomi and Rosie--the "cargo" of the title--to safety.
CARGO would've looked great on a big screen. It's filled with breathtaking aerial cinematography that shows off the vast sense of forever that is the Outback. But its heart is on a smaller scale, and it's one of the most character-driven zombie apocalypse films you'll see. Freeman and young Landers are terrific, and while it feels familiar in the early going (especially for fans of 28 DAYS/WEEKS LATER), it gradually finds its own voice and establishes its own zombie mythos, whether it's the specific time or the webbing over the eyes as the victim's turn to digger reaches completion, an unsettling touch that may owe a debt to INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. The inherent racism of Vic--who's revealed to be a really despicable bastard--allows for the kind of social commentary that's reminiscent of the best work of George A. Romero. That's not to imply CARGO is anywhere near the caliber of Romero's original DEAD trilogy, but it's a film that's worth a look even if you're suffering from zombie fatigue. It has to use the tropes and the template (you might also be reminded of THE ROAD and maybe even SHOGUN ASSASSIN), but it very much becomes its own beast the more it goes on, leading to some serious drama and a surprisingly moving, heartbreaking finale.
THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES (US/New Zealand - 2014) Directed by Peter Jackson. Written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro. Cast: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lilly, Luke Evans, Lee Pace, Benedict Cumberbatch, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Ian Holm, Ken Stott, Graham McTavish, Aidan Turner, Stephen Fry, Billy Connolly, Sylvester McCoy, James Nesbitt, Jed Brophy, Stephen Hunter, Ryan Gage, Manu Bennett, John Tui, Mikael Persbrandt. (PG-13, 143 mins)
"One Last Time" seems to be the resounding theme throughout this final chapter in the HOBBIT trilogy as well as in its advertising. The films in Peter Jackson's original 2001-2003 LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy stand--especially in their extended editions--among the most monumental achievements in all of cinema. But by splitting J.R.R. Tolkien's relatively light and quick-reading Hobbit into another colossal, epic trilogy and insisting on shooting them in the absurd 48 fps "high frame rate," a format that makes everything look like a live TV broadcast, really only works for expansive exterior shots and is preferred by no one with a name other than "Peter Jackson," Jackson seems guided more by hubris and self-indulgence than anything. The Hobbit isn't meant to be as huge as The Lord of the Rings. It's a smaller, more brisk story and by importing elements of Tolkien's The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, bringing Orlando Bloom back to play Legolas, a character not even present in Tolkien's novel, and even going so far as to invent his own entirely new character--the elf Tauriel, played by Evangeline Lilly--and granting her as much, if not more plot and screen time than the key principals, Jackson is only demonstrating that he doesn't know when or where to stop. It's great that Jackson loves Tolkien so much, but where his LOTR trilogy ranks with the original 1977-1983 STAR WARS trilogy, his bloated, three-part HOBBIT, while well-acted and enjoyable on its own terms, is his STAR WARS: EPISODE I-III, and like George Lucas, he's surrounded by yes-men and basically at the point where he's too rich and powerful for anyone to tell him "no." When Jackson made the original LOTR trilogy, he had an insane ambition and something to prove. Remove that and the HOBBIT trilogy feels like little more than an extended victory lap.
At least the third part of the HOBBIT trilogy, THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES, is the shortest at a mere 143 minutes. Roughly half of the running time is devoted to the epic battle at Erebor, where Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) has reclaimed the Dwarven birthright following the dragon Smaug's (motion captured by Benedict Cumberbatch) rampage on Laketown and its subsequent death courtesy of the black arrow fired by Bard (Luke Evans). Thorin has been driven mad with power and is obsessively hunting for the Arkenstone, which has been stolen by Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), who knows that it's dangerous for Thorin to possess. Meanwhile, Bard has led a large band of Laketown refugees to Dale, where he's formed a tentative alliance with elf king Thanduil (Lee Pace), who wants elven jewels being kept in Smaug's former stronghold. Legolas and Tauriel also turn up, with Tauriel still dealing with her forbidden love for the dwarf Kili (Aidan Turner) as Orcs launch an offensive and Gandalf (Ian McKellen) dispenses sage advice.
With FIVE ARMIES, Jackson attempts to send the trilogy off with multiple extended battle sequences that play like a bunch of Helm's Deeps strung together. There's some occasionally inspired bits of action and some dazzling visuals that look fine in standard, 24 fps 3D (though the waxy sheen and gauzy Barbara Walters soft focus on some of the actors, particularly Bloom, can be distracting), but after a while, it's hard for it not to become an exhausting, eye-glazing CGI blur, quite often looking more like a video game than a movie. FIVE ARMIES works best in its few small-scale and quieter moments, be it a smiling nod from Gandalf (again, McKellen has little to do here aside from "show up and be Ian McKellen," but he owns this role so thoroughly that even watching him phone it in is a pleasure) or Thorin coming to his senses and realizing that he's been treating his friends horribly. There's so many characters and intertwining subplots that Freeman's Bilbo more or less disappears into the ensemble until it's time for him to say goodbye to the dwarves and head back to his home at Bag End. Despite some good performances by Evans and Armitage, there's too little of the sense of emotional connection that worked so brilliantly in the LOTR trilogy, where its many scenes of friendship and camaraderie never fail to get the waterworks going for fans. It's not like the magic is gone, but the freshness definitely is, even with brief, shoehorned-in appearances by other LOTR alumni like Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, Christopher Lee as Saruman, and Hugo Weaving as Elrond (their bits were intended for THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG but cut from it and edited into this film instead), and in using more CGI than ever in this closing installment (the shot of Legolas running along a bridge as it collapses is dreadful), there's a very diminished sense of humanity compared to before.
In his LOTR trilogy, Jackson paid loving tribute to Tolkien and captured the writer's voice and spirit with nothing less than absolute perfection. But by stretching THE HOBBIT from a 300-page breeze of a read to three films totaling around eight hours--even longer once you factor in the DVD/Blu-ray extended editions--Jackson is only paying tribute to Peter Jackson, capturing the voice and spirit of a gifted visionary who can no longer do anything without completely overdoing it, like a three-hour-plus KING KONG. I probably sound like I hate the three HOBBIT films, but I don't. They're entertaining and demonstrate flashes of past LOTR greatness (Cumberbatch's Smaug in the second film is probably the highlight), but the overall feeling is one of shrugging ambivalence. The LOTR trilogy is one that vividly entertains and still richly rewards. The nice-enough-while-you're-watching-it but forgettable HOBBIT trilogy is just there. People still talk about LOTR in reverent tones, but do you know anyone who really loves the HOBBIT movies and speaks of them as highly as the LOTR films? Everybody's gone to see the HOBBIT movies but it seems like we've approached this new trilogy more out of a feeling of obligation than out of the feverish excitement we collectively had a decade ago. I'm actually sort-of glad that it's done.
THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG (US/New Zealand - 2013)
Directed by Peter Jackson. Written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, Guillermo del Toro. Cast: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Orlando Bloom, Benedict Cumberbatch, Luke Evans, Evangeline Lilly, Cate Blanchett, Lee Pace, Stephen Fry, Ken Stott, James Nesbitt, Aidan Turner, Sylvester McCoy, Graham McTavish, Jed Brophy, Mikael Persbrandt, Ryan Gage, Manu Bennett, Lawrence Makoare. (PG-13, 161 mins)
The second installment of Peter Jackson's HOBBIT trilogy is a no-expense-spared visual stunner, but again suffers from the bloat of Jackson and his writing team padding a 300-page book into what will amount to somewhere around nine hours of cinema. I'm not saying there's an etched-in-stone rule for film adaptations of books, but if you can read the book in less time than it takes to watch the movie, you might be overdoing it. Jackson was able to convey the entire epic LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy in three films, but the recurring--and justified--criticism of this latest venture is that The Hobbit is a comparatively smaller-scale, less grandiose novel, but it's still taking him three overlong films to tell the story thanks to the addition of material from Tolkien's The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. There's simply no reason other than the greed of getting fans to pay for three movies that this couldn't have been one three-hour film. This frequently becomes a problem when a visionary filmmaker unveils a game-changer and is then granted carte blanche to do whatever they want. He may not be the insufferable asshole that James Cameron is, but that doesn't make Jackson's self-indulgence any less problematic and off-putting.
Harsh words, perhaps, but I didn't dislike THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG. It looks terrific (I saw this in regular 3-D instead of the stagy-looking High Frame Rate 3-D, which is Jackson's preferred vision), the performances are excellent, and there's some inspired set pieces, most notably the barrel escape from the castle of Elvenking Thranduil (Lee Pace). That's just one stop on the journey of Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), who's accompanying a group of dwarves led by the heroic Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) to obtain the Arkenstone from the dragon Smaug, who long ago took control of Lonely Mountain from Oakenshied's ancestors. SMAUG really consists of a handful of set pieces stretched out to extreme lengths. Whatever spectacle is achieved--the giant spiders, the barrel escape, and eventually, the showdown with Smaug (wonderfully voiced and the face motion-captured by Benedict Cumberbatch)--each goes on forever. Before the heroes end up imprisoned in Thranduil's castle, they cross paths with elves Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly). Legolas, a fan favorite of the LOTR books and films, is the son of Thranduil but was not in Tolkien's The Hobbit, and is only here to make Bloom part of this trilogy as well (he's also been given that distracting, waxy CGI sheen that the original trilogy's returning actors got in AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY to make him look younger, though considering Legolas is already several hundred years old, it hardly seems necessary). Tauriel is a character completely invented by Jackson, and much time is devoted to her mutual crush on dwarf Kili (Aidan Turner), a subplot that the audience will find almost as irritating as Legolas does. So, it's not enough that he's bloating the novel into three films by incorporating material from other Tolkien works, but now he's creating additional characters and plotlines? Just adapt the book, Mr. Jackson. I'm no Tolkien purist and it's been years since I've read it, but you're fixing something that isn't broken.
Amidst the endless and eventually exhausting action sequences--yes, Jackson resorts to that zoomy, circling video-game look with characters pinballing around the frame--there's a lot to appreciate in the performances. Freeman is spot-on as Bilbo and Armitage is again a strong Oakenshield. The camaraderie among the dwarves is nicely-handled, Luke Evans does some good work as Bard, a widowed, down-on-his-luck boatman who helps smuggle the crew into Esgaroth, and Stephen Fry is amusingly hammy as the callous Master of Lake-town, a sort-of Middle-Earth one-percenter prone to bitching that the commoners want food, shelter, and work. Jackson made some late-in-the-game editing decisions and bumped some scenes to next year's THERE AND BACK AGAIN, resulting in Hugo Weaving (Elrond), Andy Serkis (Gollum), and Christopher Lee (Saruman) getting cut from SMAUG, and Cate Blanchett (Galadriel) reduced to one shot. Presumably, these changes affected Ian McKellen's Gandalf as well. McKellen gets top-billing here but only has a few scenes. After leaving Bilbo and the dwarves to attend to other business, he runs into Radagast (Sylvester McCoy) and has a confrontation with the Necromancer (also Cumberbatch), and...that's it. Absent for long stretches of time, McKellen's got maybe 10-12 minutes of screen time here, and it's one of the film's major letdowns. He owns this character and it's an absolute joy watching him relish playing it. But hey, at least we've got a budding romance between Kili and Tauriel to look forward to in the next film.
THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (US/New Zealand - 2012)
Directed by Peter Jackson. Written by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Guillermo del Toro. Cast: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Elijah Wood, Andy Serkis, James Nesbitt, Ken Stott, Sylvester McCoy, Graham McTavish, Barry Humphries, Manu Bennett, Lee Pace, William Kircher, Stephen Hunter, Dean O'Gorman, Aidan Turner, John Callen, Peter Hambleton, Jed Brophy, Mark Hadlow, Adam Brown. (PG-13, 170 mins)
Other than greed, hubris, and self-indulgence, is there really any need for J.R.R. Tolkien's 300-page book to take three three-hour movies to play out? After a long pre-production delayed by lawsuits and MGM financial issues, and a change in director from Guillermo del Toro to Peter Jackson, the eagerly-awaited prequel to Jackson's landmark LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy is finally here, and not without controversy. Jackson initially planned THE HOBBIT as a two-part film, but it was expanded into a trilogy of its own. If this first installment is any indication, there's definitely a sense of bloat and overkill, especially in the way Jackson brings in elements that weren't in Tolkien's book (incorporating some material from The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, including most of the backstory for the eccentrically disheveled wizard Radagast the Brown, played by former DOCTOR WHO Sylvester McCoy) as a way of giving what was a smaller-scaled, significantly less epic-feeling tale the same heft and spectacle of the original trilogy. The 1977 animated, Rankin-Bass produced TV-movie of THE HOBBIT managed to get the story across in about 80 minutes. AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY has assorted detours, asides, and completely new elements that aren't entirely necessary (and it's in higher-priced 3D) and really only seem to be there as a way to get as much money out of moviegoers as possible.
The bigger story, at least in the select theaters that are presenting it this particular way, is Jackson's decision to shoot the film in the High Frame Rate of 48 fps (frames per second) instead of the industry-standard 24 fps. The HFR 3D version is playing on less than 500 screens in the US, but it does represent Jackson's preferred vision of the film. While you get used to it as the film progresses, it's initially very jarring and disorienting. AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY looks traditionally "cinematic" maybe 15% of the time, usually in close-ups of certain cast members (Ian McKellen as Gandalf seems to have the least CGI enhancement of the cast). The rest of the film has an overwhelmingly artificial look to its ultra-HD appearance. The high frame rate brings out every minute detail (you can clearly see the line of the prosthetic footgear worn by the actors playing Hobbits), and it gives most of the epic action and battle scenes an annoyingly video-gamey look that's nothing less than a total distraction. Elsewhere, many scenes look almost entirely CGI animated. The interiors fare the worst of all, with the film having a completely stage-bound, soap-opera look that resembles a remastered version of a shot-on-video PBS or BBC TV production from the 1980s. Walk in on a scene of people talking indoors and it could pass for a filmed version of a HOBBIT stage performance. And in these interior scenes the high frame rate gives the actors a jerky, sped-up movement that frequently resembles something being slightly fast-forwarded. When it comes to anything LORD OF THE RINGS, Jackson wields enough power that he can do anything he wants, and like George Lucas, is likely surrounded by yes-men who are happy to indulge him as long as the money keeps rolling in. I imagine the traditional 24 fps version (also in 3D and regular screenings) plays better, or at least more "cinematically," but Jackson's 48 fps experiment really only works in the shots of the stunning natural terrain of New Zealand's hills and mountains. In these all-too-brief scenes, the film takes on an almost PLANET EARTH quality that's a beautiful sight to behold.
Having said all that...I did find AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY generally enjoyable, at least from the standpoint of the story and the performances. Martin Freeman makes a likably fussy young Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm again plays the aged Bilbo in a framing sequence with Elijah Wood as Frodo), it's great to see McKellen play Gandalf once again, and a mere decade in technological advancements have made Andy Serkis' motion-capture Gollum even more expressive and lifelike. The film's strongest performance comes from Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield, leader of a band of Dwarf warriors who adopt a reluctant Bilbo to help them reclaim their home on Lonely Mountain, lost 60 years earlier when the dragon Smaug took it as his own, forcing them to live as marauding outcasts. The camaraderie of Thorin and his cohorts with Gandalf and Bilbo, and the ways Bilbo proves his worth and earns their respect are the kinds of things that are hard to bungle, and, as in the original trilogy, it's in these rousing and emotional scenes that AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY finds its true strengths.
Christopher Lee (as Saruman), Cate Blanchett (as Galadriel), and Hugo Weaving (as Elrond) briefly reappear from the original trilogy. The elderly cast members, like 90-year-old Lee and 81-year-old Holm, have some very noticeable CGI retouching done to their faces, as they're a decade older but playing younger, and they have a waxy, glossy, artificial appearance that looks a lot like extensive noise reduction on a Blu-ray. This is likely due more to the use of 48 fps, which just represents another issue with the format. AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY might visually play better on Blu-ray, but I think I've seen enough of Jackson's love of the high frame rate to go with the standard 24 fps version when THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG hits theaters in December 2013.
