The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

**1/2 out of ****

There’s a forgiving fan in me, who is simply happy to see familiar characters and places, when viewing a movie attached to a franchise, which I love. While watching The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies - Peter Jackson’s final entry in the Middle-Earth saga - I enjoyed myself in spite of the cold truth: The final film of the Hobbit trilogy confirms that it wasn’t worth the 8 ½ hours of material spread over three years of our lives to explore Middle Earth before Frodo would go on a quest to save it.

Throughout these three movies, I was faithful that even under the studio pressure to milk this series for every last drop, Jackson and Co. would conceive worthwhile expansions to this short children’s novel. While the conclusion of the main plot is satisfying and doesn’t drag (unlike the conclusion to the other trilogy), it turns out that nearly every subplot, distracting us from the journey of the title character, lacks a satisfying payoff.

The growing love between a young dwarf and a beautiful warrior elf lady; wizards searching for the Necromancer (aka Sauron); Bard’s leadership of the Laketown people and the demonic White Orc’s ill-fated mission to wipe out the dwarves –are all unnecessary additions which lead to boring exposition -and are the source of most of the film’s more tedious action scenes.

A great amount of attention in this film, is given to Bard (Luke Evans) - man of the people, who is fighting for the survival of his refugee townsfolk and his children. In more than one scene, he hilariously jeopardizes their lives in the process of saving them.

In the original book, Bilbo was knocked unconscious for the entire Battle of the Five Armies. Had the movie taken that comical point of view, the audience could have been spared an extended battle of little consequence compared to the stakes set in battles like Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith later on.

The Hobbit Trilogy should have been focused on establishing Middle-Earth as a wonderful, funny and magical place, where explorers may find danger afoot, but not much of the sort that inspires the serious dread that comes about in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

After Return of the King, when Peter Jackson had achieved a powerhouse status comparable to George Lucas, one might have feared that he would go in a similar direction. The responsibilities that come with that kind of success, can inhibit artistic ability. If there's one thing he's been doing wrong ever since, it's trying to make every movie excessive and epic as if he believes it to be the key to his success.

In this movie, whenever Martin Freeman is onscreen as Bilbo Baggins, something is incredibly right. Jackson seems to understand what is important with the story at its core. Casting him as a younger version of a character played by Ian Holm turned out to be worth the risk. Freeman brings all the whimsical anxiety of this reluctant hero summoned to adventure, which is pretty much what the book was all about. When you think about it. These movies seem to have gotten most of the original story right. It’s what’s been added that brings them down.

Seriously, aspiring movie editors of the 21^st century, Get to work on these. There’s a very good single movie buried beneath this trilogy of waste and it must be uncovered. I really want to see it! Get to work on it now!

If there is a vague note to make of this return to Middle-Earth, it is similar to what I have to say about a lot of other unnecessary remakes, sequels and prequels of late: I don’t need this thing like I needed it then. Most of the joy found in re-watching the Lord of the Rings Trilogy now, is the memory of its impact back then. Trying to recapture that kind of thing is an exercise in futility.

It's wise for the makers of any series that ever had an awe-inspiring impact, to consider the stage to be set. If you get distracted and keep making more additions and extensions to that stage, then you're forgetting what the audience is there for.

Exodus: Gods and Kings

** out of ****

Ridley Scott sure knows how to film biblical plagues. In his newest film, the director of Blade Runner and Gladiator shows us the Nile turned red by the feasting on Egyptian sailors by hundreds of Crocodiles, people covered in boils from rampant insect bites and the death of first-borns –all because their leaders believed themselves to be gods.

Most of the computer-generated vistas showing us helicopter shots of this ancient civilization are seamlessly real and Scott directs his cast in this environment with his typical atmospheric strength, but as usual, keeps an impersonal distance from their psychological attributes. Christian Bale portrays Moses with his typical man-under-strain shtick and Joel Edgerton is effective as the arrogant Ramses. 

It is right to point out that the majority of this cast is white. Something about this entertained me, because its similarities to Cecil B. DeMille’s cast for The Ten Commandments gave it a camp value. I can’t begrudge most of these actors for doing a fine job, but the setting is a missed opportunity for diverse leads.

Exodus: Gods and Kings is a gorgeously executed traditional epic with some creativity in its rendition of the story of Moses –but slowly becomes a bore due to the less creative action conventions Scott may have created decades ago, but feel run-of-the-mill today.

The most interesting choice made by Scott and his writers, is for God to appear in the form of an eight-year-old British kid, who appears, along with the burning bush, to Moses after he suffers a near-fatal head injury while climbing a mountain. Perhaps the portrayal of God as a possible hallucination is Scott toying with the audience with ambiguity, forcing the audience to ask a big question: Is Moses a Replicant?

The Babadook

***1/2 out of ****

It’s a real shame that The Babadook didn’t find wider distribution –or a release date last October. The holiday season is a very strange time to see a film about a single mother and child, haunted by a bogeyman lurking in the shadows of their home.

Essie Davis stars in a performance reminiscent of Melinda Dillon’s from Close Encounters of the Third Kind as a widowed parent dealing with a hyperactively troubled child whose imagination regularly inspires unsettling acts of misbehavior. The kid, played by Noah Wiseman is the result of a failsafe rule in making horror movies: If you can’t find a great child actor, find one with freaky-looking expressive eyes.

The mom is trying to hold two jobs and deal with this little hellion who isn’t liked by his school or his aunt when left in their care. It’s clear from the beginning that his destruction isn’t driven by maliciousness, just delusions. To calm him at night, the mother reads stories from his bookshelf. One night a mysterious old children’s book titled, The Babadook is discovered on the shelf. The further she reads it aloud, the more cryptic the verses become. Skipping ahead, she sees the book’s death curse and puts it away. From that point onwards, the supposedly supernatural figure from the illustrations doesn’t leave their minds. Eventually, it’s in their home.

This first feature film from Jennifer Kent isn’t incredibly original, but it deals out the suspense and scares masterfully. The movie utilizes modern filmmaking techniques, including CGI - of course - but uses it sparingly and never manages to break the somewhat Polanski-esque atmosphere.

This is the kind of dreadful mystery that puts you on a mysterious path and may divide audiences when its revelations seem to point toward interpretive allegory, rather than a concrete explanation. I’m hopeful that it will inspire long discussions, but I’m more impressed by how much the movie scared the hell out of me.

The Theory of Everything

*1/2 out of ****

Focus Features and Working Title have made a pathetic plea for end-of-the-year prestige through The Theory of Everything (aka: A Brief Waste of Time). The film’s rising star, Eddie Redmayne, may give one of the year’s best performances as Dr. Stephen Hawking, but that does not save the movie from its by-the-numbers banality and self-conscious stylistic choices -typically found in TV movies. This is a movie about a subject who deserves our fascination. Too bad it feels phony and boring.

Redmayne can't carry this movie alone. Felicity Jones as his wife, Jane Hawking (the author of the book on which this movie is based), is a beautiful face to be sure, but I still have trouble taking her seriously. Her range is limited and I often have trouble reading the emotions she's attempting to convey.

I recall Roger Ebert's review for the Hawking-based documentary A Brief History of Time, by Errol Morris to be disappointed in its lack of involvement in Hawking's ideas. If that was his problem then, I can't imagine him liking this one if he'd lived to see it -even though he would have sympathized deeply with its portrayal of a great mind without a body or voice to use. Actually, I got way more out of the Ebert-based documentary, Life Itself earlier this year, in its balance between a life of productive film criticism and his marriage. 

The Theory of Everthing's director, James Marsh, is a very good documentarian, but this movie is no indication that he's suited for drama. The screenplay by Anthony McCarten is an embarrassing collection of generic exchanges that don't indicate much familiarity with Academia or relationships, as much as having seen movies about them.

It's the mind of Hawking that is treated like scenery and not the subject of the story. This movie can't wrap its head around the big ideas with which it dabbles. I went in thinking it seemed like a bad idea and left, astonished at what little intelligence went into its making.