First Trailer for THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES

At this point, is anyone besides those either deep in Tolkien lore or who have seen the other five films interested in Peter Jackson's last journey through Middle-Earth? It is hard to tell as even the trailer for the final chapter in The Hobbit trilogy feels somewhat exhausted. The newly minted Battle of the Five Armies will surely run almost three hours and feature plenty of giant battle sequences, but the whole thing just feels rather tired at this point. I was never a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings trilogy though I certainly found appreciation in each of the films and while I feel like I'm in the minority who enjoyed An Unexpected Journey more than The Desolation of Smaug I don't know that I'm exactly looking forward to what the final installment has to offer. They are visual wonders, to be sure, but I certainly feel the overwhelming sense of CGI and extension of the story has turned this second trilogy into more of a financial than artistic endeavor. Don't get me wrong, I hope Jackson has something up his sleeve and proves my pessimism wrong, but if the trailer is any indication they may go out with more of a whisper than a bang. The first full-length trailer for the film is the same that premiered at Comic-Con over the weekend and is slow-paced, again featuring “The Steward of Gondor”, which was also used in The Return of the King. The film is being touted as the defining chapter of the Middle-Earth saga and so we will have to wait and see if the final product lives up to this claim or if the marketing simply hopes to cash in on the finale. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies stars Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Luke Evans, Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephen Fry, Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Ken Stott, James Nesbitt, Orlando Bloom and opens in theaters on December 17th.

THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG Review

Usually, I'm rather fond of middle chapters in these serialized movies that seem to come in more than threes these days, but there is something distinctly offensive about this second installment of Peter Jackson's return to middle earth. First off, and I stated this in my review of last years An Unexpected Journey, we knew at some point that the fact a trilogy of movies, at three hours a piece no less and drawn from a 300-page book and its appendices as well as further Tolkien notes was going to begin to feel a bit drawn out and if anything re-enforces that fact better it is the last half hour of this film. It literally felt like the first two hours flew by; it had my attention, my appreciation and even my interest (for the most part), but when our heroes finally reach the mountain and encounter the dragon whose name plagues the subtitle it goes on, and then it goes on a little more, and then it continues. It is over-indulgence at it's finest and seems to exist solely for the fact that Jackson and his team of writers might feel they've placed a large enough action sequence near the end of the film to serve as the big climactic set piece when in reality all it does is feel like they're really trying to make you feel that two hour and forty minute runtime. If they'd only just teased the entrance into the kingdom under the mountain and been fine with a just over two hour movie all would have been better off, though the cliffhanger even more ridiculous, I admit. Which brings us back around to the point that there was no need for more than two films based off this book in question. It is what it is and we can't change the greedy minds in Hollywood now that they will have plagued the credibility and artistic achievements of Jackson's Lord of the Rings films with these sub-par prequels. It is simply spreading the butter too thin and though I assume many of the fans of Tolkien's work might find it enthralling to be wrapped up in not only what was on the original page in The Hobbit novel, but to see that world fleshed out with his later writings that built a further and more dense mythology for middle earth might be ecstatic and find these to be on the same level as Jackson's previous trilogy, but as pieces of individual cinema this second installment fails on the most basic of levels.

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY Review

It is important to state that I have never been overly fond of the fantasy world. The ideas of dwarfs, goblins, wizards, and elves has always been one of great mystery in their appeal. They are stock ideas put into thousands upon thousands of different stories and adventures by a multitude of writers over a long period of time. What makes one different than the other? There is probably many people, many an avid fan of J.R.R. Tolkien or George R.R. Martin that would be glad to write an essay on why this all works so well and reaches such a wide fan base, but despite the mountain of proof they could likely provide, the insight they would divulge, I would likely still not understand the inherent ability to love such strange, silly stories. In the end, that is what The Hobbit feels like; just all a bit silly. I loved the Harry Potter books, don't get me wrong, but that was a series I grew up with and that grew up with me. I have never read any of Tolkien's work and wasn't even familiar with the titles until the first Peter Jackson motion picture trilogy became such a grand deal eleven years ago. I went, I watched all three of those films and I enjoyed them well enough even if I did feel slightly outside the loop in doing so. I never felt as if I "got" what "it" was all about or why the story was so special despite the films being greatly entertaining and beautiful to look at. As the years have passed, as I have become better acquainted with film in general, I can see the merit the original trilogy has and how skillfully they were crafted. This, in itself, is reason enough to be excited for Jackson's return to middle earth. Unfortunately, this return is so far marked by stretching things a little too thin. There seems no need for this to be the first part of a trilogy, but instead a fitting start to a more easily resolved adventure than we encountered with The Lord of the Rings. Too bad, Jackson seems to have decided the fatter the better rather than the slimmer the winner.

THE WAY Review

Movies are no longer about the basic story they are telling but instead marveled at because of how they convey them. What tools, characters, and instincts writers use to manipulate an age old story you have seen many times into something new and fresh. It has been taught that all stories can derive from a certain number of plots. I've heard many different numbers that can fill in that blank, but the fact of the matter is is that it doesn't matter. Because no matter how much the plot matters your audience will not be interested if you do not relate it to them in an appealing manner. It is about the journey and so in making a film about an actual journey it is likely hard to figure out how to make it fresh and interesting. This is certainly a challenge director Emilio Estevez was aware of when he began work on "The Way", a film that chronicles a fathers journey of traveling the "El camino de Santiago" from France to Spain. The story is rooted in more than just a man making a trek though, there is obviously the reasons why he is doing this and while in terms of storytelling this is of course used as a means to make us feel for the character, to relate to him, it is also the reason we want him to take a journey and ultimately why we don't mind tagging along with him. Estevez does a fine job of navigating our protagonists story while providing enough entertaining company and genuine incidents along the way to recommend this heartfelt, if not sometimes slow moving diary of a weary traveler.

Tom Avery (Martin Sheen) gets more than he bargained for
when retrieving his son's remains in France.

Estevez enlists his real-life father Martin Sheen in the lead role of Tom Avery, a California optometrist who upon learning about the death of his son Daniel (played by Estevez in flashbacks) travels to France to collect his sons remains. Daniel was a free spirit type who dropped out of Berkley to see the world and in doing so he began the journey of the "El camino de Santiago" himself but was killed in an accident on his first day out. When Tom reaches France and in a all-around great performance by Sheen we see the reality of his sons death begin to sink in, Tom realizes he has to finish the journey for his son. It feels the only proper thing to do and the most respectable form of honoring his son. What ensues on his journey is not something just for his son who he never seemed to fully understand, but of course a kind of self-discovery that allows Tom to see and appreciate the time he's spent on earth in a different light. This is like I said, a story so ingrained in our cultural DNA but is fortunately not the most important thing about the film. No, despite "The Way" being standard fare, it is elevated by the performances and the bonds that Avery makes during his journey that allow him to come to terms with who he has become.

Tom and his new found friends each have their own
reasons for traveling the "El camino de Santiago". 

This may all sound a tad melodramatic and "Eat Pray Love"-ish but unlike that film our protagonists quest for something more is not rooted in their own selfishness. In fact, Tom has no desire to leave his safe and secure world of being a doctor with golf games in the afternoon. He enjoys his life, he is content, but his son has always been a kind of challenge in his life, the unconventional part of it, yearning to break out of the California bubble. Tom at first doesn't even intend to finish the walk for Daniel. This pilgrimage is the first thing in a long while to give Tom something to achieve, but the problem this enlists for the film is it lets the audience know where the film will end. So the meat of what is interesting will happen en route and while Tom collects a diverse group of traveling buddies that while having their own personal crisis on their hands, they pale in comparison to the reason Tom has chosen to take this trip. The two main problems I had with the film were the too often occurring montages set to what felt like out of place popular songs and the slight episodic feel the film began to pick up.

Tom, Sarah (Deborah Kara Unger), and
Daniel (Emilio Estevez) reach the end of their trip together. 

Tom's new found friends and their personal stories as well as their loyalty and determination to make Tom feel a part of something rather than a loner is the saving grace of the long pilgrimage and the level of acting elevates these characters to people we want to see resolve their issues. As the lone woman on the trek, Sarah (Deborah Kara Unger) says she is trying to give up smoking by the end of the trip while seeming eternally pessimistic. It is clear there is more under the hood here than smoking though and her quest for a kind of self assurance compliments Tom's the best. There is the instinctively kind Joost (Yorick van Wageningen) who is walking the path to try and lose weight in order to once again feel attractive to his wife. Finally, we have the wonderful James Nesbitt who shows up about halfway through the film as Jack, an author with writer's block who finds in Tom a story worthy of his novel. The interaction between each of them and the bonds they form is clearly the strongest aspect of the film. And while at times the movie could do with better pacing and even shave a few minutes here and there; ultimately Estevez documents the natural progression of these relationships well and produces a heartfelt if not slightly modest effort.

THE WAY Review

Movies are no longer about the basic story they are telling but instead marveled at because of how they convey them. What tools, characters, and instincts writers use to manipulate an age old story you have seen many times into something new and fresh. It has been taught that all stories can derive from a certain number of plots. I've heard many different numbers that can fill in that blank, but the fact of the matter is is that it doesn't matter. Because no matter how much the plot matters your audience will not be interested if you do not relate it to them in an appealing manner. It is about the journey and so in making a film about an actual journey it is likely hard to figure out how to make it fresh and interesting. This is certainly a challenge director Emilio Estevez was aware of when he began work on "The Way", a film that chronicles a fathers journey of traveling the "El camino de Santiago" from France to Spain. The story is rooted in more than just a man making a trek though, there is obviously the reasons why he is doing this and while in terms of storytelling this is of course used as a means to make us feel for the character, to relate to him, it is also the reason we want him to take a journey and ultimately why we don't mind tagging along with him. Estevez does a fine job of navigating our protagonists story while providing enough entertaining company and genuine incidents along the way to recommend this heartfelt, if not sometimes slow moving diary of a weary traveler.