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A battle too big for Bilbo?

» ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’ review

 

Adam Tatelman
Senior Columnist

I? The Hobbit: The Battle
of the Five Armies, Thorin

in which he drowns in a river
of the very gold he sought so
desperately. I can think of

no visual metaphor to better
describe the current state of

the Hobbit film franchise. With : second pedial bullet wound:

all the money he made through the criminal underutilization

director Peter Jackson’s attempt ot Bale san Bln cet eo d
: onscale that it forgets about
that little guy. For a movie

: called The Hobbit, youwon't :
. . : see much of that Bilbo Baggins :
problems than a sprinter with a dude it was supposed to be :

: about. Where Return of the
If each Hobbit film roughly :

the Lord of the Rings trilogy,

to make three more movies
out of a shorter, simpler novel
results in an amorphous, hog-
wild mass with more pacing

heart condition.

corresponds to a first, second,
and third act, then Battle is

Unfortunately, this means the
films don’t stand well on their
own and, as such, the trilogy
as a whole shoots itself right in

the hairy foot.

Case in point: this movie
kicks off with a slam-bang
fight against Smaug the
Dragon and then spends an
entire hour trying to continue
with progressively inflating
CGI action sequences whose
context only disintegrates over
time. Once the thousandth

: identical CGI orc was slain
: and I heard Thorin speak the
: lines, “Goblin mercenaries.

90000

No more than a hundred. I'll

tension had evaporated and
I was left praying for an end.

It’s all visually impressive and
: well-choreographed, but why
Oakenshield has a feverdream : focus ona battle which, in the
book, was only a few pages

: long? Doesn't this fantasy

? warmongering contradict

This leads me to the

King closed the LOTR trilogy

by giving each character a

: sendoff, Battle ends abruptly
essentially a three-hour climax. } and unceremoniously, then
: asks us to be happy witha

: cameo fromJan Holmanda_:
: musical number by Billy Boyd. :
: When the credits rolled I was
: sad and unfulfilled, and that’s

not how Tolkien usually makes :
me feel.

Many of Jackson’s earlier

: films were campy, over-the-

: top cheesefests with a lot

: more heart than brains. In
that respect, LOTR was easily
: his most focussed theatrical

: vision. By comparison, Battle is
poorly structured; the plodding
; tale unfolds at the speed of

: glaucoma, denying closure to
take care of them,” all dramatic :
: stake in the eponymous battle,
: in favour of closing off a bunch
: of superfluous side-stories

: nobody asked for and fewer

: people liked (e.g. the Legolas/
: Tauriel/Kili love triangle,

: the rescue of Gandalf from

: : Angmar).

: Tolkien's anti-war philosophy? :
: shrieking chorus of tremulous
voices decrying me as one

: of those basement-dwelling

: Tolkien purists who probably
speaks fluent Elvish and treats

basically everyone who had a

I can already hear the

The Silmarillion as gospel.

While it’s true I named my pet
: lizard Smaug, my love of the

lore isn’t what kept me from

: enjoying this film. If you want

: to build on the source material,
: I’m game. But when you do this
: at the expense of story beats

: that didn’t need to be cut or

: changed, you achieve nothing

: other than artificially fattening
: a narrative whose very

: brilliance was in its brevity.

While I’m sure many will

: enjoy Battle’s art design and

performances, I would have

: preferred “the final journey to
: Middle-Earth” to be handled

: witha bit more gravitas. Given
: Jackson’s professed love of

: Tolkien’s work, I’m rather
surprised he didn’t feel the

: same way.

 

A crossover of fairy tales

» Into the Woods’ movie review

Jerrison Oracion
Senior Columnist

ased on the hit musical

by composer Stephen
Sondheim (Sweeney Todd)
and playwright James Lapine
(The Moment When), the film
version of Into the Woods
follows the story of a baker
(James Corden) and his wife
(Emily Blunt) who wish to have
a child. Before they can, they
need to find four items fora

: witch (Meryl Streep) who in
: exchange will end the curse on

them.

00000

: ared cape, yellow hair, and a
: gold slipper, they meet familiar :
: fairy tale characters including

: Cinderella (Anna Kendrick),

: Prince Charming (Chris Pine),
: Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla

: Crawford), and Jack (Daniel

: Huttlestone) from Jack and the

Beanstalk.

The film’s first half features !
: other characters’ stories.

As they journey into the
woods in search of a white cow,

: a lot of great songs and classic
: fairy tale moments. Johnny

: Depp’s portrayal of the Wolf is

: fantastic but brief—the movie

: could have shown more of

: him. The film’s stars who aren't
: known for singing all sing well

: in the movie.

However, Into the Woods’

: second half causes the film to

: go downhill when it takes a

: dark turn and reveals that not

: all fairy tale characters get a

: happy ending. While the film is
: interesting, it focusses a lot on

: the baker and his wife when it

: could have shown more of the