This movie sucks, rocks or is merely adequate depending on your point of view.
It rocks because it has Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of Smaug, and the personification as dragon comes into play very well in what he does. The visuals are stunning; particularly Under the Mountain and Lake Town make me feel like I'm in Middle Earth. The musical score, costuming, casting, and cinematography are spot on. I am *IN* Middle Earth. All those immersive elements from the first movie remain in play. When he gets screen time, the actor playing Bilbo is particularly good, and the 'side plot' of Gandalf actually is welcome and makes sense...seeing where he goes rather than constantly vanishing for prolonged periods of times makes for a much better movie.
Now...as for the rest of it, it depends on the mindset you go into in this movie...
If you're viewing this movie as the book, "The Hobbit"...it's frankly just awful. The first movie was dissonant, and you knew, instinctively, that it should be two movies....not three, and wondered what they'd have to throw in to justify it as such; which we get. A romance. Super mario brothers dwarf barrel edition. Lake Town Board Walk Empire. Homeland Orc Interogation. What If? - The Dwarves had actually tried to fight Smaug instead of cower like the little worms they were?
Oh and a bit of spiders where Bilbo only does a tiny bit. And a werebear in there.
The worst thing is that the SPIRIT of the book just isn't there. The Lord of the Rings was awesome, albiet not perfect, because it captured the spirit you felt (at least that the vast majority of us felt) while reading the books. It varied from the plot a little, but where it did made things much better; filling in holes for Gandalf, caring who Aragorn marries at the end of Return of the King...things like that.
BUT if you view this movie as a prequel to Lord of the Rings the Movies...
It is merely adequate. And it makes a lot more sense that way, because it sure FEELS like Lord of the Rings. Sauron is showing up way earlier than he should. Everyone knows about him and is waiting for him and it feels like he's been hiding for a hundred years, not millenia. It is also essentially a retread in many ways of the Two Towers including anti heroes (Wyrm Tounge the Lake Town Master's counselor, Faramir/Beorn human politics, Gandalf in a swinging open air cage, Legolas the Ninja Elf) etc. It's a copy of an original and a SHARP copy, more importantly it sets up the third movie to be AWESOME and something we haven't seen before. If I were to give letter grades using this format, rather than emulating the Hobbit, I'd give 1rst: B 2nd: C and likely 3rd: A.
Oh....one more thing...Orcs. Everywhere. And I mean...EVERYWHERE. In Laketown. In the woods. In the mountains. Near the werebear. In the river. Near the mountain. The Orcs are magical. The orcs can teleport. The orcs can clone themselves. No matter how many you kill, there are more...always. Also, they now come equipped with magical Sauron Cloaking spell.
Right.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Monday, December 30, 2013
[Movie] The Wolf of Wall Street
The first paragraph of this review will be spoiler free. I like this movie, a lot, and highly recommend it for anyone who isn't forbidden from seeing R rated movies. It shows, better than any movie I have ever seen, the true behavior and mentality of those who run our economy and who play tiddlywinks with the life savings of Timmy the Muggle. There is nudity, drugs, swearing and some violence but it is in the context of those who so arrogantly call themselves "The Masters of The Universe."
If you are familiar with Jordan Belfort, there are no spoilers. If you are not, you should be, and this movie will educate you. But I will give you the crib notes version. The most important line of the movie is when the tiny tiny little FBI man who thinks he is doing justice goes after the admittedly semi sociopathic Belfort, and Belfort tries to bribe him by saying he knows where the bodies are on wall street and talks about unregulated commoditized real estate...and he is ignored. Belfort is not a hero. He is barely an anti hero. You see the good things he does, Capone-like, in changing the lives of the people he helps. At first, nothing he does is illegal, just immoral. He shows the ethos of con men from Nigera to Colorado Spring, who take "suckers" who want to get rich with no effort, and then views his efforts around government rules like IPO's as justified.
Is he wrong? The government in this movie is set to let Belfort go if he goes through a few theatrical motions of stepping down from power at his firm. As Belfort himself complains, his crime as prosecuted is not that he cheated Timmy the Muggle, but that he went after Draco Malfoy the trust fund brat...and got him. Tiny FBI Guy isn't getting anywhere until Belfort lets go of the deal offered by the SEC and is told,"he's back in the ocean, Happy Fishing."
The real lesson, well hidden but still there so even Timmy the Muggle can understand it, is not that this is some morality tale like Greed or most other movies that portray Wall Street, but a slice of life documentary drama that just happens to focus on the most hilarious aspect of our culture. Some folks went to jail, but Belfort does only 18 months in a minimum security facility and ends the movie performing sales seminars to rooms full of Muggles. Muggles who all want to be like Befort.
Belfort's entire crew were Muggles taught by a master. The fancy guys who dress up in suits and play tiddlywinks with Timmy's 401K call Timmy's money dumb money. Why dumb? Because Timmy thinks Tiny FBI Guy is going to protect Timmy's money. But at the end of the movie Tiny FBI Guy is just riding the subway home with the rest of the muggles. Tiny FBI Guy never GETS near the real Masters of the Universe because he is leashed and muzzled.
If you are familiar with Jordan Belfort, there are no spoilers. If you are not, you should be, and this movie will educate you. But I will give you the crib notes version. The most important line of the movie is when the tiny tiny little FBI man who thinks he is doing justice goes after the admittedly semi sociopathic Belfort, and Belfort tries to bribe him by saying he knows where the bodies are on wall street and talks about unregulated commoditized real estate...and he is ignored. Belfort is not a hero. He is barely an anti hero. You see the good things he does, Capone-like, in changing the lives of the people he helps. At first, nothing he does is illegal, just immoral. He shows the ethos of con men from Nigera to Colorado Spring, who take "suckers" who want to get rich with no effort, and then views his efforts around government rules like IPO's as justified.
Is he wrong? The government in this movie is set to let Belfort go if he goes through a few theatrical motions of stepping down from power at his firm. As Belfort himself complains, his crime as prosecuted is not that he cheated Timmy the Muggle, but that he went after Draco Malfoy the trust fund brat...and got him. Tiny FBI Guy isn't getting anywhere until Belfort lets go of the deal offered by the SEC and is told,"he's back in the ocean, Happy Fishing."
The real lesson, well hidden but still there so even Timmy the Muggle can understand it, is not that this is some morality tale like Greed or most other movies that portray Wall Street, but a slice of life documentary drama that just happens to focus on the most hilarious aspect of our culture. Some folks went to jail, but Belfort does only 18 months in a minimum security facility and ends the movie performing sales seminars to rooms full of Muggles. Muggles who all want to be like Befort.
Belfort's entire crew were Muggles taught by a master. The fancy guys who dress up in suits and play tiddlywinks with Timmy's 401K call Timmy's money dumb money. Why dumb? Because Timmy thinks Tiny FBI Guy is going to protect Timmy's money. But at the end of the movie Tiny FBI Guy is just riding the subway home with the rest of the muggles. Tiny FBI Guy never GETS near the real Masters of the Universe because he is leashed and muzzled.
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