trailer & feature presentation
The prole finally got to see what set the world on fire last week, and sadly it was not The Hobbit, which aside from Martin Freeman's Bilbo and Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield fell way short of The Lord of the Rings' high bar. Which is as patently unfair a comparison as it was inevitable, and Warner Brothers have no one to blame but themselves for forcing what was intended to be a two-part movie to stretch into a third.
At 166 minutes, The Hobbit: An Unexpected(ly Tedious) Journey could have at least dispatched one enemy, but no - after Smaug takes over Erebor at the beginning, the rest of the film is a series of tight scrapes resolved by deus ex machina that don't further the plot. And if the story had to be broken into three parts, for which there just isn't enough plot, they could've focused the first one on Bilbo's change of heart from longing for the Shire to adventurer and becoming an honorary dwarf. Then maybe spend the second one dealing with the very personal aspect of Thorin Oakenshield's quest, because how wonderful was his character development between the book and this film? Those two character-driven pieces would have neatly led up to the actual action of the story.
tl;dr I defer to the NYTimes: "Tolkien’s inventive, episodic tale of a modest homebody on a dangerous journey has been turned into an overscale and plodding spectacle."
So let's focus on the good! Those of us who grudgingly shelled out $44 for IMAX tickets and dragged along a husband who gets headaches from 3D got to see the first nine minutes of Star Trek: Into Darkness, which was categorically AMAZEBALLS.
We open on Mickey from Doctor Who and his beautiful wife having a sad morning. They are visiting their sick daughter in hospital and just received some dire news from a doctor. He walks out of her room into the courtyard, where he is approached by Benedict Cumberbatch, who aside from being a terrorist apparently spends his free time offering to cure terminally ill children. His voice continues to inspire in me an embarrassing urge to tear my shirt open. I resisted this impulse, as it was below 40F outside that night and we had a long walk back to the subway.
Next, we get the red-tinted planet from the theatrical trailer, where Kirk and Bones are running from primitive natives. Meanwhile in a shuttle high above the volcano set to erupt all over their village, Spock makes ready to be lowered into the sputtering magma with a device meant to calm it. There is a lot of awesome flirting with Uhura (those two make me indescribably happy), but then the shuttle malfunctions and Spock is dropped into the volcano, where they're forced to abandon him.
Cut to the Enterprise, sitting on the bottom of the planet's ocean, where Kirk and Bones have made it by cliff diving and underwater rocket boots. They are debating whether to risk the ship and crew in the lava and soot. Spock reminds them of the Prime Directive, which says the natives cannot be allowed to see their ship, and that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Bones confirms to Kirk that if it were Spock's call, he would leave Kirk in the volcano. Kirk doesn't look like that matters.
Cut to Spock on a rock being tossed around by the roiling magma activating the device, which is on a three-minute countdown and while capable of stopping a volcanic eruption won't keep Spock alive if set off in proximity. Dun-dun-DUUUN.
So GOOD. The reboot crew are amazing together; Zachary Quinto remains perfection as Spock, Chris Pine has a ton of fun with Kirk's humor and arrogance, and everyone else holds their own. Can't wait to see more of Benedict as John Harrison, to find out what his angle is. He pointed out in a junket interview that this is a villain who isn't just looking to cause chaos, but to remake the world as he thinks it should be. It'll be exciting to see what his grievance is and what he thinks needs to happen to set it right.
At 166 minutes, The Hobbit: An Unexpected(ly Tedious) Journey could have at least dispatched one enemy, but no - after Smaug takes over Erebor at the beginning, the rest of the film is a series of tight scrapes resolved by deus ex machina that don't further the plot. And if the story had to be broken into three parts, for which there just isn't enough plot, they could've focused the first one on Bilbo's change of heart from longing for the Shire to adventurer and becoming an honorary dwarf. Then maybe spend the second one dealing with the very personal aspect of Thorin Oakenshield's quest, because how wonderful was his character development between the book and this film? Those two character-driven pieces would have neatly led up to the actual action of the story.
tl;dr I defer to the NYTimes: "Tolkien’s inventive, episodic tale of a modest homebody on a dangerous journey has been turned into an overscale and plodding spectacle."
So let's focus on the good! Those of us who grudgingly shelled out $44 for IMAX tickets and dragged along a husband who gets headaches from 3D got to see the first nine minutes of Star Trek: Into Darkness, which was categorically AMAZEBALLS.
We open on Mickey from Doctor Who and his beautiful wife having a sad morning. They are visiting their sick daughter in hospital and just received some dire news from a doctor. He walks out of her room into the courtyard, where he is approached by Benedict Cumberbatch, who aside from being a terrorist apparently spends his free time offering to cure terminally ill children. His voice continues to inspire in me an embarrassing urge to tear my shirt open. I resisted this impulse, as it was below 40F outside that night and we had a long walk back to the subway.
Next, we get the red-tinted planet from the theatrical trailer, where Kirk and Bones are running from primitive natives. Meanwhile in a shuttle high above the volcano set to erupt all over their village, Spock makes ready to be lowered into the sputtering magma with a device meant to calm it. There is a lot of awesome flirting with Uhura (those two make me indescribably happy), but then the shuttle malfunctions and Spock is dropped into the volcano, where they're forced to abandon him.
Cut to the Enterprise, sitting on the bottom of the planet's ocean, where Kirk and Bones have made it by cliff diving and underwater rocket boots. They are debating whether to risk the ship and crew in the lava and soot. Spock reminds them of the Prime Directive, which says the natives cannot be allowed to see their ship, and that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Bones confirms to Kirk that if it were Spock's call, he would leave Kirk in the volcano. Kirk doesn't look like that matters.
Cut to Spock on a rock being tossed around by the roiling magma activating the device, which is on a three-minute countdown and while capable of stopping a volcanic eruption won't keep Spock alive if set off in proximity. Dun-dun-DUUUN.
So GOOD. The reboot crew are amazing together; Zachary Quinto remains perfection as Spock, Chris Pine has a ton of fun with Kirk's humor and arrogance, and everyone else holds their own. Can't wait to see more of Benedict as John Harrison, to find out what his angle is. He pointed out in a junket interview that this is a villain who isn't just looking to cause chaos, but to remake the world as he thinks it should be. It'll be exciting to see what his grievance is and what he thinks needs to happen to set it right.