The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Spanks – 5

Director – Peter Jackson

Writers – Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson & Guillermo del Toro

Starring – Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Graham McTavish, Ken Stott, Aidan Turner, Dean o’Gorman, Mark Hadlow, Jed Brophy, Adam Brown, John Callen, Peter Hambleton, William Kircher, James Nesbitt & Stephen Hunter

Release Date – 14 December 2012

MPAA Rating – PG-13

Run time – 169 Minutes

Director Peter Jackson did an awesome job adapting The Lord of the Rings to the screen about a decade ago. After a bunch of issues with the studios with money and original director Guillermo del Toro resigning because of those issues Peter Jackson decided to step back into the directors role for The Hobbit. It was originally planned to be made into two movies and would bridge the gap between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but after filming they realized they had enough footage for a trilogy. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the first film of the trilogy.

The Hobbit book is only 310 pages and I was unsure if they would be able to make a book that short into three epic movies. So far, they have done a great job. To bridge the trilogies together, the first scene included Ian Holm and Elijah Wood. They also are adding more about the Necromancer but it is all from stories written by J.R.R Tolkien. All the added stuff so far does work perfectly with the narrative of the book.

If you don’t know the story, it is about a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins who is asked to join a company of 13 dwarves on a quest to steal the treasure of the dragon Smaug and to take back the dwarf city under the Lonely Island. Bilbo’s job on this unexpected journey is the burglar.

The look of The Hobbit is very similar to The Lord of the Rings with the only difference being the advancements in digital special effects. New Zealand is still the perfect location for Middle Earth. Ian McKellen is an awesome Gandolf and it wouldn’t have been the same if he did not reprise the role.

The Hobbit was filmed with a new technique called High Frame Rate. The film was shot at 48 frames per second which is twice the frame rate of ever other film in the cinemas today. The picture looks much more clear and crisp than before. It takes a little getting used to the way it looks. I adapted to it by the end of the prologue but The Future Mrs. Spanky said it got distracting. They only showed the High Frame Rate in 3D unfortunately, but he technique made the 3D look better. The High Frame Rate will work great of the epic blockbuster movies, I just hope Hollywood doesn’t make it a norm like they did with 3D which took away the event that 3D was in the early 2000’s.

Life of Pi

Spanks – 4

Director – Ang Lee

Writer – David Magee

Starring – Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan & Rafe Spall

Release Date – 21 November 2012

MPAA Rating – PG

Run time – 127 Minutes

I entered the theater to see Life of Pi knowing little about the story because The Future Mrs. Spanky read the book. From what she said about it it seemed very cool. It is the story about a teenage boy from India whose has parents that own a zoo. His parents sell the zoo and the animals and on the ocean voyage to Canada he survives when the ship capsizes in a storm. He gets out on a life raft, but he is not alone. He is the only human. There is more about spiritually and religion throughout. The Future Mrs. Spanky said it follows the book well.

The movie starts off very slow, but once it gets to the shipwreck it gets good. The problem is, that doesn’t come until what seemed like the midway point of the movie. From that point it is just one person and a few animals and you would think that would be the slow part. Not if two of the animals are predators, and it is a small life boat. The movie is made so that you feel for the animal characters. I even made a comment about how much I cared for one of them.

Visually the movie is awesome. The film was filmed with a 3D camera, but I didn’t feel that the movie needed to be in 3D. It was just a reason for the studio to charge the viewer a few more dollars a ticket. If the movie was screened in 2D we would have seen it in that auditorium.