RALPH KILLS HOBBITS SOFTLY IN THE WOODS
Dec. 31st, 2012 11:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogPresenting the last of the cinema reviews of 2012 (as I am very unlikely to go see Life Of Pi, Les Miserables or that Jack Reacher thing, and Django Unchained doesn’t open til January 11).
Killing Them Softly
On paper it’s promising – three nitwits rob a gangster-run card game, forcing the mob to call in a hitman to fix things up. And it almost works, thanks to some really good acting and some snappy dialogue.
But too often it really is a case of style drowning out the substance. It wants to be Pulp Fiction with social commentary, but the idea of gangsters being hard up for money in the tough economy doesn’t really come across, and director Andrew Dominick tends to bury scenes in eye-catching but gratuitous style.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
I’ll be honest up front: as much as I liked the Lord Of The Rings movies, I found myself looking a lot less forward to the film version of The Hobbit once I found out it was going to be done as a trilogy. They might as well have titled it The Hobbit: We’re Milking This Cash Cow For Every Penny We Can Get.
Which isn’t fair to Peter Jackson, I know. I’m sure he feels it’s artistically necessary to split it into three films. But with An Unexpected Journey running close to three hours, I’m also reasonably sure he’s doing some padding to accomplish that.
Anyway, as usual, it looks awesome. And Martin Freeman knocks it out of the park as Bilbo Baggins. But I can’t really say more than that until I see the whole story, and I really have a feeling that in 2014, my assessment will be something like: they really could have done this in one three-hour film.
Wreck-It Ralph
Disney film that does for video game characters what Toy Story did for toys. No wait, come back!
I had low expectations going in, partly because I was never a big fan of video games and thus wouldn’t get much out of it, and partly because the basic idea – Wreck-It Ralph, the villain in a video game, is tired of being the bad guy and wants to win a medal – sounds like too obvious a set-up. Also, Disney Animation Studios has yet to produce a film that I’ve really liked.
Until now.
Even if you just remember the kinds of video games that have existed in the last 30 years, that’s more than enough to get what’s going on, and while the storyline seems a bit too obvious in the first 20 minutes, it soon takes off into some interesting directions. Design-wise it’s amazing and clever, and it’s got a good mix of characters. So all up, I enjoyed it a lot.
The Cabin In The Woods
Yeah, I’m late with this one. By now you know the hype surrounding it: a horror film about five college kids who go on vacation in a remote cabin in the woods – only it’s not the movie you think it’s going to be.
Which is true. It’s made clear fairly early that the above scenario is under the control of other people with their own agenda, and that there is far more at stake than a bunch of young people getting hacked apart by torture-zombies.
Anyway, it's a relatively original take on a hackneyed genre and pretty funny at times. People have complained it’s not very scary, but that’s not an issue with me as most “horror” films don’t scare me anyway.
And now for something completely different,
This is dF
Killing Them Softly
On paper it’s promising – three nitwits rob a gangster-run card game, forcing the mob to call in a hitman to fix things up. And it almost works, thanks to some really good acting and some snappy dialogue.
But too often it really is a case of style drowning out the substance. It wants to be Pulp Fiction with social commentary, but the idea of gangsters being hard up for money in the tough economy doesn’t really come across, and director Andrew Dominick tends to bury scenes in eye-catching but gratuitous style.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
I’ll be honest up front: as much as I liked the Lord Of The Rings movies, I found myself looking a lot less forward to the film version of The Hobbit once I found out it was going to be done as a trilogy. They might as well have titled it The Hobbit: We’re Milking This Cash Cow For Every Penny We Can Get.
Which isn’t fair to Peter Jackson, I know. I’m sure he feels it’s artistically necessary to split it into three films. But with An Unexpected Journey running close to three hours, I’m also reasonably sure he’s doing some padding to accomplish that.
Anyway, as usual, it looks awesome. And Martin Freeman knocks it out of the park as Bilbo Baggins. But I can’t really say more than that until I see the whole story, and I really have a feeling that in 2014, my assessment will be something like: they really could have done this in one three-hour film.
Wreck-It Ralph
Disney film that does for video game characters what Toy Story did for toys. No wait, come back!
I had low expectations going in, partly because I was never a big fan of video games and thus wouldn’t get much out of it, and partly because the basic idea – Wreck-It Ralph, the villain in a video game, is tired of being the bad guy and wants to win a medal – sounds like too obvious a set-up. Also, Disney Animation Studios has yet to produce a film that I’ve really liked.
Until now.
Even if you just remember the kinds of video games that have existed in the last 30 years, that’s more than enough to get what’s going on, and while the storyline seems a bit too obvious in the first 20 minutes, it soon takes off into some interesting directions. Design-wise it’s amazing and clever, and it’s got a good mix of characters. So all up, I enjoyed it a lot.
The Cabin In The Woods
Yeah, I’m late with this one. By now you know the hype surrounding it: a horror film about five college kids who go on vacation in a remote cabin in the woods – only it’s not the movie you think it’s going to be.
Which is true. It’s made clear fairly early that the above scenario is under the control of other people with their own agenda, and that there is far more at stake than a bunch of young people getting hacked apart by torture-zombies.
Anyway, it's a relatively original take on a hackneyed genre and pretty funny at times. People have complained it’s not very scary, but that’s not an issue with me as most “horror” films don’t scare me anyway.
And now for something completely different,
This is dF
