The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the latest visit to Middle Earth and is based on JRR Tolkien's book of the same name. As usual, I saw the 2D version as I'm not willing to spend money on an experiment that might not work (that’s my use of the 3D glasses, not 3D film – that seems to be a lost battle:-)).

As the film opens we're in the Shire with Old Bilbo (Ian Holme) and Frodo (Elijah Wood) talking about Bilbo's adventures in the East and a description of the Dwarven kingdom that once ruled there, followed by its fall without a mention of a ring given to the line of Dain. We don't get to see Smaug properly, normally just a shadow on the ground quickly followed by a blast of fire...

We then go to the opening of the story proper with Younger Bilbo (Martin Freeman) sitting on his doorstep and ending up in a discussion of the various uses of 'good day' with Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellan) and Gandalf getting annoyed with the stodgy person that Bilbo was becoming. The dwarves were introduced in small groups with Bilbo becoming more unsettled as the evening passed. Finally all the dwarves and Gandalf are assembled and after a truly heart stopping scene where the dwarves are clearing up the pottery in a fashion guaranteed to give Bilbo a heart attack. They then settle in for a bit of strategizing and planning about taking back the Mountain from the dragon. Bilbo basically doesn't impress the dwarves as he collapses when presented with the contract detailing his potential injuries. He was going to be hired as the burglar but he hadn't impressed anyone yet...

For most of the film, they've stuck very closely to the book in terms of both action and dialogue. Some of the dwarves are less serious than presented by JRRT and less noble, though in a Henry the Fifth moment, Thorin Oakenshield (an impressive Richard Armitage) tells his company that they are his true companions, especially as the rest of the dwarves were a bunch of craven cowards, refusing to risk facing the dragon. The major departures from the book were the subplot where the orc Azog (Manu Bennett) and his merry band chase the dwarves all over New Zea..., ah, I mean Middle Earth was an embellishment on the book. We also see Radagast (Sylvester McCoy), transposed from the LOTR trilogy. From the BBC Radio 4 broadcasts of LOTR I see Radagast as a young wizard but in this, he's of an age with Saruman and Gandalf, if a little more addle-pated (much more reasonable really). The White Council meeting wasn't mentioned directly in the book, just in passing and they managed to insert the lore of the istari quite neatly.

This film takes us through the Misty Mountains and an encounter with the creature Gollum, and the finding of a plain golden ring. Rather than the (by now leaderless} goblins of the mountains chasing them down the mountainside, Azog catches them up once more and the dwarves, Bilbo and Gandalf are treed, only to be rescued by the eagles who take them straight to the Carrock and their first sight of the Lonely Mountain, where the credits roll and we have to wait for another year to see how things continue. Bilbo makes one of those comments you know that you are going to really, really regret – ‘Well, the worst is over now.’ before we’re transported to the halls inside of which, a dragon is waking up...

When I heard that they had spread the story out over three three-hour films and scavenged the LOTR appendices to fill out the time, I was wondering how well it would hold together, but if they can maintain the quality of this film, then we should be in for a real treat over the next few years (the BBC production was around four hours). As an aside, Thorin in the film is pronounced as TH whereas the Beeb used the pronunciation Torin and, as one of their arts and entertainments editors shares the name, I’d probably have gone with that...

Skyfall Review

This is the fiftieth anniversary for the Bond franchise and the third outing for Daniel Craig in the role.

We open with a pre title sequence set in Istanbul where Bond has been sent to retrieve a missing disk with the names of intelligence agents hidden in terrorist organisations – a bit more serious than the usual run of the mill laptop left on a train affair.

Bond chases the thief through the streets and over the roofs of Istanbul - if you saw the Top Gear Special on the cars of Bond you’ll have an insight of how this was done – a more traditional chase and fight aboard a train (or more particularly on the top of a train) before Bond is shot and falls off a bridge into the roaring torrents below.

Roll the opening credits.

Rather unusually, the pre credits sequence has an effect on the main action of the film as M starts catching political heat from the lost disk and her computer is hacked while she’s out of the office causing an explosion in MI6’s headquarters and the death of 6 officers. After this debacle, M is told by her political masters that once this current mess is sorted out she’s out of a job so going home she’s startled to find a returned Bond waiting for her. In their new headquarters (rather appropriately Churchill’s old wartime bunker) Bond’s given a complete physical and psychological examination which he’s told he’s passed and then told to get his new kit from Q (not John Cleese any more), a spotty faced kid barely out of University, and in keeping with the rather minimalist gadgeteering of the Craig years all he gets is his gun and an emergency radio transmitter. And a ticket to Shanghai. And the Walther is coded to work only for his palm prints, of course.

Although the Bond films are straight up action adventures (most of the time) the scenes in Shanghai may as well have been set on an alien planet, really bringing home the transformation in that part of the world in a way that the news reports of China’s economic transformation haven’t really managed.

The action then moves to Macao with a more traditional meeting in a casino with a pretty woman whose bodyguards were more intent on her than making sure she didn’t get into trouble. With three bodyguards against Bond, he finds himself almost overwhelmed until a Monitor Lizard takes a liking to one opponent and another finds stiletto heels almost as effective a weapon as the knife. Bond then takes up his lady’s offer of a sailing trip out to sea to meet his nemesis. As in an earlier Bond, this is an ex-agent gone bad (Six really needs to look into its retirement package…). Like certain politicos back home, this villain believes the days of the agent on the ground are over but after a deadly variation of the apple on the head trick Bond, and a trio of Apaches take villain guy prisoner and bring him back to London. Q attacks the heavily encrypted computer with a degree of gusto that a more experienced hacker might have worried about, though, to be fair, it’s Bond who gives him the clue to break the encryption. Meanwhile, M’s at yet more hearings into the future of the 00 branch. This part of the film was rather cool as we intercut between the hearing and the villain’s breakout as his computer subverts MI6’s systems, and the subsequent chase through the London underground. Although this film doesn’t really go in for mass shoot outs in the style of the Roger Moore films, the action sequences are brilliantly, ah, executed as demonstrated in the gunfight in the committee room. But the villain gets away!

As M is bundled away to safety, her aide-de-camp finds himself pushed out of her ministerial car as an unknown driver whisks her off. It’s Bond of course but in a government car fitted with all the latest tracking devices, they’re not safe and so Bond takes M to the lockup where his Austin Martin DB5 is revealed to a bar or two of the original Bond theme and ‘Yeah!’s of delight from the older males in the audience! With Q busily supplying almost an almost false trail for Bond’s opponent to follow, we find ourselves up in the wilds of Glencoe and Bond’s ancestral seat. Although the  house is stripped of most of the contents, we get a quick lesson on ‘IEDs and your house’ with M showing an alarming facility for mayhem – up to this point, I’d seen her as a bureaucrat but she’s clearly had field experience along the line. And then we get the major confrontation of the film as the house is invaded by the villain of the piece and his minions (where was he getting them?) aboard their helicopter gunship. This constitutes the major action scene of the film, and again, it’s relatively minimalist with Bond, M and the auld family retainer, played with an incredibly posh English accent by Albert Finney (IMDb reports that Sean Connery was considered for this role which may have been a touch too self-referential).

Alas Judi Dench’s M doesn’t survive the fight and the film ends with us being introduced to a new M (we’ll have to see if he does become the permanent actor for the part). This was a shame as Dame Judi has been a fine M, and never better than in this film but we’re all getting older.

We’re promised that Bond will be back. But how many more films for Daniel Craig? Apparently, at forty-three, he’s beginning to feel the strain…

This was a far more introspective film than we’re used to from Bond but I don’t feel it really suffered from this and getting someone of the calibre of Sam Mendes as director really paid off. According to IMDb’s article many of the plans to shoot scenes in foreign climes had to be scrapped due to the uncertainty of the survival of the franchise after the collapse of the studio but Britain stood in excellently on its own merits.

The King's Speech

This is not my usual fair – a more-or-less accurate biopic telling the tale of King George VI’s attempts to overcome the speech impediment that had caused him great difficulties from his earliest years.

The film opens with the then Prince’s disastrous speech at the close of the 1926 Empire Exhibition but quickly jumps forward eight years to 1934 and a dingy consulting room in Harley Street with the Duchess of York visiting a speech therapist in order to help her husband, under the pseudonym if Mrs Johnson. When advised that her husband ought to find a new job, ‘Mrs J’ tells him that this wasn’t an option and the therapist comes back with a quip about the job being related to indentured servitude. Mrs J’s response is heart-felt agreement.

We then get to see the Duke make a start on overcoming the impediment, reluctantly at first and certainly not without many setbacks as the situation evolves; at first the Prince is going through the therapy in order to better fulfil his duties as a royal but as his older brother, the Heir, becomes increasingly infatuated with his married American, it becomes increasingly likely that Bertie will become the King, a thought that (quite rightly!) terrifies him.

We have the death of George V and the succession of Edward VIII and some very unbecoming behaviour of the not-yet crowned King and his paramour Mrs Simpson (honest, it’s not that she was American, just that she was a twice divorced American) and we have Edward VIII signing the abdication papers (1936) and the coronation of Bertie as George VI and the unmasking of his speech therapist as an apparent charlatan – we’ll give Archbishop Lang the benefit of the doubt and that he really did care that the King had been conned and after an emotional confrontation the King and the speech therapist declare peace. The newsreel of the coronation was followed by a piece on a Nazi rally – a nasty comparison between the leaders of the looming confrontation.

The final section is the King’s speech of the title – the speech that the King gave to the Nation and the Empire warning of the potential horrors to follow on the day war was declared, which while not necessarily the smoothest speech ever, managed to capture the mood of the nation with montage images of those he had been involved with including his brother in exile.

Playing a person with a stammer must be an actor’s worst nightmare but Colin Firth was up to the task and Helena Bonham-Carter appeared to manage to capture the spirit of his wife, Queen Elizabeth and there were plenty of emotionally affecting scenes, one of the more surprising when his daughters greeted him with curtsies just after he had acceded to the kingship. However, there were elements of humour as well – the King and Queen accidently meeting Mrs Logue and her husband’s reluctance to let the King meet her.

The film did not really deal with the politics of the situation, the abdication crisis being basically a few moments and the lead up to war being largely ignored too, but these were not the foci of the film. The focus of the film was on the relation between ‘Mr Johnson’ and Logue and while I guess most of this would have been made up, it certainly felt like it captured the nature of the nature of the relationship.

As a side point, the fact that the Harry Potter franchise is coming to an end has released some senior actors for a number of roles in this; Michael Gambon was George V and Timothy Spall played a passable Winston Churchill and there’s Helena Bonham-Carter herself, as Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon.

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

This is the third installment in the Narnia books and sees the two younger Pevensie children, Edmund and Lucy, return to Narnia along with their obnoxious cousin Eustace.

Unlike its immediate predecessor, 'Prince Caspian', this film follows the book surprisingly faithfully with only the inclusion of the external influence of the evil Dark Island on events a serious deviation; in the book things like Lucy's desire to be beautiful like her sister were all internally generated.

The actor playing Eustace was fantastic capturing his nature down very neatly. Alas, this is going to be the last time we see the Pevensies for quite a while (assuming we do get the rest of the films!).

An unreserved 4/5

John Fairhurst
http://www.johnsbooks.Co.Uk

Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows

Having just seen the latest Harry Potter I ain't ashamed to say that I found it quite enjoyable - not that this is to say that the subject was particularly enjoyable!

He who must not be named has made his move, Dumbledore's out of the picture and the Order of the Phoenix decide Harry needs to be hidden. Harry's aunt, uncle and cousin move out from Primrose Avenue and Hermione bespells her family so she's no longer part of the family.

Various members of the order meet up at Harry's and half are bespelled to look like him so they can attempt a shellgame. But right from the off the deatheaters are after the members of the party so we get a chase scene that wouldn't embarrass Bruce in a Die Hard film and the producers don't shy away from casualties and we don't actually see anyone actually die, we see an injured Weasly twin.

We see a meeting Ingram the dark council with a somewhat dissolute Lucius Malfoy, and a frankly petrified Draco in attendance.

A change in the minister of magic sees a change in policy towards the muggles too and half-bloods with lists being produced of the undesirable.

All in all, the film makers went to a surprising degree of effort to make the new ministry look and feel like pre war nazi Germany. However, they've also managed not to be too heavy handed with this - not to be too cynical but there's that 12A rating to protect after all :-).

As this is only half of the book the ending does leave us hanging somewhat but in a rather intriguing way...

John Fairhurst
http://www.johnsbooks.Co.Uk

Prince Caspian

I've just seen the latest film in the group of Narnia films this morning and enjoyed it quite a lot.

The film is a bit different to the book, particularly in the way that the film shows a conflict between Caspian and Peter as to whom was the leader of their merry band and the attraction between Susan and Caspian.

Some reviewers have commented that the girls don't get much action in this, but they must have seen a different version of the film. If anything, they are more involved than in book, particularly Susan. The reviewer also seemed to miss that it was both Peter and Susan who were stopped from coming back to Narnia.

Now we just have to wait until The Voyage of the Dawntreader comes round...