Tag: Action

Die Hard, Die Hard, Die Hard.

Such a strange film series when you think about it. How many others have the main character balding naturally through the series, and look nothing like he really did in the first? It is so strange, yet so real, and thus it is awkward.

But did anyone really like the fourth Die Hard? To me, it felt pretty weird, and put me off. I liked it more than Die Hard 2, but not on the tier of Die Hard 1 / Die Hard 3. Did I tag them all? Well, not Die Hard 5 yet. Oh snap, done.

Either way, time to see what is good and bad about the next installment. Maybe even see if they lied to us about movie scenes with the trailer?

And now my website shows more of this scene than the actual theatrical release.

John McClane (Bruce Willis). Still a cop. Has had a rough relationship with his son. Why? Because of vague “always at work, no time for family” stuff. His daughter (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is fine with it. Just not his son, Jack (Jai Courtney).

But he finally finds him after three years, apparently in Russia. In Prison. For murder. Well, guess John has to use some vacation time to go figure out what the hell is up.

Oh snap, he is actually some sort of Spy and undercover?! Trying to extract Komarov (Sebastian Koch) and his daughter (Yuliya Snigir) from the country, to get valuable information on one of their new leaders Chagarin (Sergei Kolesnikov) who might be willing to start World War 3? Yes, I am aware of the run-on sentence.

Why does John have to show up and fuck everything up? It is like he is looking for trouble. Also featuring Radivoje Bukvic as a tap dancing hit man.

Warning – This was my favorite scene, despite its awkwardness and strange ending.

I can’t not compare the movies, damn it. First things first, this Die Hard is about 30 minutes shorter than the previous Die Hards. That is 25% less movie! Previous Die Hards have had pretty intense plots, some with big political intigue and pretty awesome one liners, with great action as well. So does this one?

Well, first off it isn’t Hard enough. There is one death that feels pretty great, but everything else was a lot tamer. As I eluded to above, the trailer made it seem like the main woman would get down into her skivies for a scene, and in the actual movie it cuts away when the zipper goes down a few inches only. Not even cleavage. I am not trying to sound pervy, but they put a long version of the scene in the trailer literally to attract more males. That was its purpose. Yet it wasn’t in the movie? That is pretty strong levels of deception there.

So no sex, no great violence, heck, even the cursing felt tamer.

But the positives? For the first time, in a long time, it felt like an actual “non stop action” movie. Outside of the “plot-y” beginning, basically once it started, it kept going the whole film. I think my main issue is it really didnt feel like a Die Hard film to me. They basically made him invincible in this film, surviving many crashes without too big of a problem, and having the stupidest fall (that a person can run from) I have ever really seen. Remember in the first film, when he had issues because of no shoes? If this John McClane was there, he would have taken the C4 himself down the elevator shaft.

I think the actual best part about this movie, is that we will get a fifth verse to this amazing song about the franchise.

You gotta shoot ’em in the head. It is the only way to be sure. It is definitely a great statement for anyone who finds that they are stuck in an action movie or video game! Bullet To The Head takes that message and runs with it, basically making a whole movie around that simple(?) life rule.

Another is to always bring your own booze to the bar.

Our “hero” is named Jimmy Bobo (Sylvester Stallone) and — hey, wait, no, come back here. Yes his name is stupid, but let’s give him a chance. He isn’t really a hero, he is a hitman who has had problems with the law his whole life, all over the country. But now he lives in New Orleans, and just completed a job with his partner Louie (Jon Seda). But when they go to get paid, it is a set up! Louie is left dead, and Jimmy is left mad.

Turns out the guy they killed was an ex cop too. A scum bag, but still former cops have former partners, and his is Taylor Kwon (Sung Kang) who has flown in to investigate. But all he can find on his own is Mr. Scumbag up there, who shoots more people in the head than there are provinces in Canada. These two drastically different individuals have to team up to get retribution, but it will be pretty hard when they can’t stop shooting each other as well.

Also starring Christian Slater and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as the bad guys, Jason Momoa as hitman, and Sarah Shahi as the daughter.

Oh fuck yes, axe fight.

Surprisingly enough, Bullet To The Head is based on a french graphic novel and not a dream by Stallone. I had a lot that I disliked about the movie, and found them exemplified by what the men in charge had to say about it.

“[This] is exactly the type of fast-paced, universally themed project that suits our business model” – Production team. Unfortunately, the movie felt pretty slow. An awful lot of time was given to a plot that wasn’t good, meaning tons of downtime in between fight scenes. Half of these “plot scenes” consisted of Stallone being racist towards Kang. Fun fact, the graphic novel had a white guy, but they brought in Kang to appeal to a wider audience, so all of that specific acist dialogue was just for the movie.

Stallone had enough control over the movie to fire the original director because the director’s version of the film was darker than Stallone had wanted. This left us instead with a strange action movie (that had no problem killing/exploding dozens of men) with Stallone trying to be funny while transitioning between fights. Too bad the humor didn’t work for the most part.

Aside from that, there are other problems I had with the characters themselves. Adewale was a land tycoon, who claimed to never trust people who didn’t do things for money. Those are his last words, as he yells them to a man who is actually killing him (gasp) for the money. Completely nonsensical.

I actually liked John Momoa as the other hit man. His actions didn’t seem to fit his character description, but at least he had interesting fight scenes.

I found myself laughing more at the ridiculousness of scenes that were supposed to be serious, and fighting off sleep during the rest of the film.

I miss sexy movie titles. Just a last name (or even a full name) are boring titles. They don’t even say anything about the movie unless you already know the character they are based on. Parker is actually not the first time this character has been in film. At least five other movies have featured Parker as the main character, based around the crime novels by Donald Westlake/Richard Stark, but most of them at least have interesting titles.

On an unrelated note, I am a little bit interested in the movie Bullet To The Head.” I bet you can figure out why.

Because Stallone wont be attempting to be a British man faking a Texas accent.

Parker (Jason Statham) is just your ordinary crook with a few simple rules. Don’t hurt anyone innocent, don’t steal from those who can’t afford it. That usually means organizations with insurance, and the money goes to himself, so don’t consider him a Robin Hood character. His girlfriend (Emma Booth) knows all about it, because her father (Nick Nolte) is an ex partner of his, who now just sets up criminals for bigger scores.

Which of course he does with Parker and another group of guys. Robbing the Ohio State Fair, a score of about a million dollars, $200k each. Pretty solid. But it turns out the other four members of the crew (Michael Chiklis, Wendell Pierce, Clifton Collins Jr., Micah A. Hauptman) have their eyes set on a bigger prize. Another job for five people, worth millions, but they need some start up cash first, all of what they just got.

Well, they are vague, Parker says no, they try to kill him and run away. But of course he doesn’t die. That would be a sad and short movie. So he creates a new identity, and heads off to West Palm Beach to stop the guys who tried to kill them by killing them first, and of course getting his money back. Shouldn’t be too hard. After all, Jennifer Lopez plays a real estate workers strapped for cash, being chased romantically by a local cop (Bobby Cannavale). Parker basically has his own small army with J-Lo!

Too bad it will take at least 3 small armies to remove his grimace.

The previews for Parker make it seem like a giant revenge action flick. A crime occurs, guy gets wronged, he goes back for vengeance. If anything, it was the exact opposite. Yes, the heist goes off and he gets wronged, but he doesn’t start killing all the people involved on a warpath. No, he has to plan it all first. Here is where my brain starts to get all weird.

I like that it is planned, that the movie looks before leaping and sets everything up first. That way we get to see how smart our main character is! Smart and his great ability to survive despite all these injuries. But then it became too detailed, and a little bit boring. Honestly, after the two hour movie, I had felt like I was in the theater for four hours. It is hard to describe, but things definitely go way too slow.

It didn’t help that watching every little step of his recovery/run/planning made me  hate the Parker character. Apparently Parker hates people who break his rules and his creed! Well, so much for the stealing only from those who can afford it. It was almost comical, watching him steal car after car, location to location, without actually knowing anything about the owners of any of them. His creed didn’t mean a dang thing when it actually mattered.

His actions ruin the image of the charismatic thief for me, just a bit. Compiled with the snail crawl of the film makes it hard to recommend to anyone.

The Arnold is back!

Alright, maybe he hasn’t really gone anywhere. The Govenator was still taking part in The Expendables franchise at least, but with The Last Stand he is officially back in the lead role. Just don’t confuse it with the X-Men movie of the same name.

Although Phoenix could solve this problem in an instant.

Sommerton Junction is a small town in Arizona by the border of Mexico. That border is a giant canyon, so there aren’t too many problems associated with it. The high school has a big road football game, so most of the town has left for the weekend to cheer them on, but not Sheriff Ray Owens (Arnold). He is happy to have a weekend off, but he gets a strange feeling about a trucker (Peter Stormare),who comes up clean when his plates are run.

Oh well, it is not like he is secretly a member of the Mexican Cartel, working on busting out Gabriel Cortez (Eduardo Noriega) from FBI Custody (Forest Whitaker), and then racing him to Mexico across the canyon. That would be ludicrous!

Ray decides that no Mexican Drug lord is going to come into his town and kill its citizens, not on his watch. Nope. He wants to make a stand. With his crew by his side (Luis Guzman, Jaimie Alexander, Zach Gilford) and the deputized citizens of an alcoholic who wants to redeem himself (Rodrigo Santoro) and a weapons museum owner (Johnny Knoxville), they decide to go all out to show that they are not just stupid farmers and rednecks.

“GET TO THE DINNAH”

Sometimes it can be hard to figure out if you are supposed to take a movie seriously or not. I like to apply the LG test. That is, if the movie includes Luis Guzman, do not take it seriously, and I don’t think it has failed me yet.

I do love that The Last Stand provides an action movie without an overabundance of special effects, and being set in rural Arizona helps add to the grittiness. I liked the resolution to the plot, even if the plot was one of the more ridiculous things I’ve heard of. It also wasn’t just a silly shoot em up movie where the good guys use Home Alone-esque traps to take out the bad guys. I actually feared that any character could die.

But, the acting still is pretty bad, and the dialogue probably over did its “one liner” quota. I think the beginning was also a bit too slow, but it picked up when they discovered the bridge being built. An interesting movie, but not sure if it is one I will ever try to watch again.

One of the advertisements for Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters basically said “a classic tale with a darker twist!”.

Fuck that. Hansel & Gretel is one of the darkest fairy tales out there. Parents abandon their kids in the wood because they are too poor to eat. Only have some bread. They go to a house, made of candy. They get all excited. Oh no, locks and chains, girl forced to be a slave, boy force to eat. Witch is going to cook and eat the child, but they fuck up her shit and lock her in the oven in an escape. That is dark. I don’t think you can go too darker than that.

But I will say this tale probably has more foul language, nakedness, and blood.

Not to mention 325% more explosions!

For whatever reason, Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) are immune to witch magic. With great immunities come great responsibilities, I think the saying goes. So they were orphaned in by a local town, as they were now heroes, and kind of just started killing all the witches. Unfortunately Hansel also developed super diabetes from all that candy. If he doesn’t get a shot of (somethingvague) every (someamountoftime) he will fall to the ground and die quickly! All that candy, damn.

They get brought into a new town by the mayor, because 11 or so children have been kidnapped recently and they don’t know by who! The Sheriff (Peter Stormare) doesn’t like the idea of other people doing this in his town, but since he was about to kill Mina (Pihla Viitala), wrongfully accusing her of witchcraft, they really really needed to step in. Also, money.

Eventually they find out that a blood moon is happening soon, and a lot of witches are going to convene for some sort of special ceremony, lead by grand witch Muriel (Famke Janssen). Shit. That is a lot of witches. And you know what they say, witches dig ditches. Okay, no one says that.

Also featuring Thomas Mann as their crazy obsessed super fan and Derek Mears as Edward the Troll.

I am not sure if attached to the back is as effective as they would have hoped it to be.

Whoa H&G, where did this come from? Not only are you rated R, it is a hard R. I was joking on the nakedness, but it is there. Fbombs a plenty, and the death scenes are pretty dang gruesome, for witch and human alike. The blood looks fake as crap, but there is a lot of it, and there is a lot of murder. I was a bit surprised.

In case you are curious, I doubt there is any real difference between 3D and 2D, so save the money in difference.

The movie was less than 90 minutes in length, and it did feel pretty rushed to me. I think they could have explained certain things better. Just because something is called a White Witch, doesn’t mean I should have to think of it as a good witch. Specific lineage plot points were also a bit strange to me, but I don’t know a thing about this world’s genetics, since they didn’t tell me.

In terms of entertainment, the fight scenes are pretty good. The acting from secondary people not as much. Also, H&G seem to make pretty crappy witch hunters. You don’t see a single hunt of theirs that actually works as planned or goes well. Yes, they always survive, but come on, prep better. I don’t want my heroes to barely survive every bout, you gotta be able to take these witches down.

Not going to lie. When I first saw the trailer for Gangster Squad, I thought it might be interesting. But I was worried based on the dialogue given it might all be cheesy. But I do love vigilantism. Especially real vigilantism. But above all of that, the thing I liked most was just the music featured in it. Made me all sorts of pumped up. But I learned long ago that if I hear a song in a movie trailer, it most definitely won’t be in the movie.

Bitches, yo.

It is amazing that he picked such a diverse group of guys too. I had my money on all white all middle aged!

In the late 1940s, the city of Los Angeles is under siege. Not by the Russians or Germans. Nope, by Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn). From New York, he is now the most powerful criminal in LA, having bought cops, judges, you name it. No one can touch him, not even the mobsters in Chicago. Not everyone is corrupt though. Once Chief Parker (Nick Nolte) sees that Sgt. John O’Mara (Josh Brolin) has brought down an illegal brothel by himself, he enlists him on a secret mission.

There is no way to get Mickey Cohen legally. Killing him wont do anything, someone will just take his place. No, he needs to leave his badge at home, recruit a team (or squad, if you will), take down his entire infrastructure, and sure, maybe kill a bunch of gangsters.

Fuck the law, do what is right!

Well, he gets a team of mostly cops, people who aren’t as worth being bought off who all have special skills. Conway (Giovanni Ribisi), an intelligence expert, Coleman (Anothony Mackie), who grew up on the streets and is one of the few who cares to fix them, Max (Robert Patrick), a fabled cop who has quick hands and can hit anything, and Navidad (Michael Pena), his Mexican partner who is willing to do anything.

Oh, and of course another detective Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling) who has a personal vendetta against Cohen, and not just because he is sexing up his current fling (Emma Stone).

Cohen is going to get those coppers, so hard they don’t even know it yet.

Whew. Well, if you watch the trailer, you are going to get exactly as it shows. The lines are unfortunately mostly cheesy. The “No Ma’am, I was just hopin’ to take you to bed.” Imagine a whole film of that.

I think the movie is a bit of a shame. A lot of great actors involved, but it felt a lot like a no emotion cartoon. I didn’t feel sad when they wanted me to, nothing really resonated. The chemistry is really what was missing here. Between everyone, but especially between Stone and Gosling, who had an unbelievable romance going on. We know they can do that too, since they were together in Crazy, Stupid, Love. So I guess it is a director issue?

Another reason it felt cartoony to me was the filter they used to film it. I don’t know what it was, but look at the second picture. It has a yellow/orange tint almost, but something about it just really turned me off from the whole movie.

The fact that this is based off of a true story seems like a farce as well. It might actually be that Mickey Cohen existed only, in which case, fuck your true story tag lines.

Action was okay, acting was mostly forgettable, except a few Sean Penn moments. It was weird seeing Giovanni Ribisi as a good guy finally, so I am glad he can not be type casted (so much) anymore.

The last of the movies to come out on Christmas for me to review, Django Unchained is unlike really any other.

It isn’t random holiday fluff, and it isn’t based off of previous work/book/musical. Sure, there was the movie series Django. But those stories aren’t at all related, all it is is a name share.

But outside of that, you know its a Tarantino movie, so you know, there will be blood.

Along with stylish threads, and stylish walks.

Django (Jamie Foxx) is a slave. A slave walking through Texas. He had a history, hell, he had a wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). Too bad she got sold to another plantation owner, who knows where.

But as luck would have it, a man has freed him from his bondage. Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a bounty hunter and former dentist. He is looking for a group of brothers who have gone on the run, changed their name, and he knows that Django knows what they look at.

So of course he will help him out! Killing white people for money, what could be better? Obviously. Not to mention if he helps him out, he can get cash, and find out where his wife is. Because we have all seen the preview, we know she is with Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), and under the watchful eye of her owner and head slave Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson).

And in this movie, the hammer is an actual hammer, and not his penis.

I think I can say, universally, that Django Unchained basically is firing on all cylinders. It was a classic Tarantino movie, despite being his first western. It had it all. Dramatic tension, thanks to a few scenes between DiCaprio/Waltz, comedy, action, and a lot of gunfights.

This is now the third movie I have seen Waltz in and I love his character so much. The high level charisma and witty dialogue will make the long movie length fly by in an instant. Foxx, despite the main character, does a lot less of the talking, which makes sense given his position and role he has to play.

Despite not showing up until the second half of the movie, once DiCaprio and Jackson hit the scene, they make their presence known and make it count. There is a specific scene in question where DiCaprio accidentally cuts himself by breaking a glass, but doesn’t break character making it all the more intense.

Really, this movie is just a great movie. The “controversy” over word choice isn’t a controversy at all, it is just Spike Lee being a jack ass.

In addition to that, you not only see breasteses, but also a penis. Pretty sure though that a stunt cock was needed.

I don’t wanna sound queer or nothin’, but…

I found myself disappointed again, going to the theaters to see another movie based off of a literary character I had never heard of before. The first teaser trailer for Jack Reacher I actually enjoyed, despite the silly title. But hey, some author gave him that crappy name, so that is what they are stuck with. But once I got the full trailer for Jack Reacher, I really didn’t care if I saw the movie or not. Seemed like your standard action movie, potentially also spoiling the most amusing parts in it.

Damn it trailers, why must you exist at 2-3 minute lengths? You give far too much away!

“I’m hear to kick ass and fuck bitches, and I’m all out of fucks to give.”

The movie begins with a cold open in Pittsburgh, where a man open fires from a sniping position and kills five random citizens before making his get away. However, with the large number of clues left behind, Detective Emerson (David Oyelowo) and District Attorney Rodin (Richard Jenkins) are able to find the culprit and make the arrest within 16 hours after the incident. Despite the facts, the sniper, James Barr (Joseph Sikora) refuses to admit guilt, and asks for one thing. Jack Reacher.

Reacher (Tom Cruise) is a ghost, having been living off the grid in the US for the last two years, without a smudge on his record. Formerly a member of the military police, he has had a past with Barr in Iraq, and makes his way on Pittsburgh on his own to find out just what happened. Helen (Rosamund Pike), Barr’s attorney, daughter of the DA, wants to use Jack as her lead investigator to help her side of the case. She doesn’t want to get him off or anything, but maybe just avoid the death penalty. Oh, and Barr is now in a coma. Hard to help out your own case when you can’t talk!

What will Jack conclude? Did Barr finally snap and take out a few civilians? Or is something else at play here? You know, since he is being followed by random thugs and gang people (Jai Courtney, Werner Herzog). Robert Duvall is also around eventually, as your everyday friendly gun shop owner. Yay small businesses!

Look familiar? This scene literally takes place on a different day as the other picture.

The first words spoken in the movie don’t happen until 8 minutes in. It wasn’t just eight minutes of opening credits either! No, we got to see the shooter set up, take his shots, and leave. We saw all the clues gathered and the shooter arrested and taken to jail, all before anyone said a word. The only way to describe the snipe scene is creepy. You get to see through the cross hairs, hear the breathing, and watch as the sniper figures out his victims and shoots, all in one long scene.

And boy did it really set the tone for the rest of the movie.

Jack Reacher is not a CGI-driven action movie full of explosions with a one man super hero who spits bullets and is amazing at everything. No, there is actually a bit of thought involved and he has weaknesses. The story takes its time to develop, going at the best pace to make sure the plot actually makes sense. The actual reason for the shootings I found to be disappointing, but I appreciated the build up to the reveal, even if it involved talk of conspiracies and corrupt government agents.

This is also a non comedic role for Tom Cruise. I usually find his more serious stuff to be lacking and a bit dull, yet I think he really carried this picture in a calm and confident way. Don’t worry, there are some amusing scenes, but it isn’t the main focus of the film.

I’d recommend this movie if you are looking for an action movie that isn’t completely mindless and what looks like a faithful interpretation of the book.

You know what one of the weirder feelings ever is? Finding a movie that you have never heard of because it went straight to video, and actually having mostly really big actors in it.

I never know what is to blame for something like that, but I assume it is due to shitty post processing or whatever, a good idea that people liked became shit, and then they just had to try and bury it. It is not like Fire With Fire is a bad title, just kind of a cheesy one.

Firefighter with Firefighter would have been a completely different movie.

Yes, Jeremey (Josh Duhamel) is a firefighter. A nice bad ass one in Long Beach, California. But when he is celebrating a nice extinguished fire, he happens to witness a murder at a convenience store! Not just any murder, but in fact, the head of the local white power gang, David Haghn (Vincent D’Onofrio)!!! For whatever reason, he doesn’t have his lackies do his business, like Vinnie Jones, but does it himself. Oh well, sucks to be him.

Now Jeremy gets sent away for witness protection, to the magical land of New Orleans. The cop on the case, Mike Cella (Bruce Fucking Willis) is trying to rush the court date, so Jeremy can go back to living his life. Because once a criminal is in jail, he can no longer hurt you.

But first, he is going to fall in love with a cop in NO, Talia (Rosario Dawson). Eventually he realizes that yes, gang boss in jail does not make him safe, especially when they are able to find him in witness protection. So he does what any sane person would do. Go back to California, away from your escorts, and wage war on the gang himself! Maybe he can even get some of the crips to help, lead by 50 Cent.

I know everyone is excited to see Curtis Jackson back up and acting.

Alright, my apologies to the director or editor or whoever I blamed for post processing suckitude. Because that wasn’t the only problem, the writer has to share the blame as well. Turns out the plot was really bad, along with the acting/dialogue. At one point, when the mobsters find out his location in NO, the sniper fails to hit either of their vitals, but just Rosario Dawson in like, the shoulder or something. But the entire scene leading up to it with gun training, during it, and after, my head did not leave my palm. It was so bad to watch.

Unfortunately, that was early on in the film as well. The convenience store scene was bad, Bruce Willis was bad, it was just all bad. I found it very easy to start multi-tasking when he decided to go back to Cali and take down the gang by himself. Very easy indeed. Lets just say, fire got used.

Watch out everyone, movie event of the year coming through.

Sure, that is debatable. After all, Twilight Ended, the year isn’t over yet, and the end of Batman Trilogy and Avengers went down. But The Hobbit still may have been a greater buildup. After all, the previous LOTR movies were all nominated for Academy Awards, and the last one won!

This is a new trilogy, taking in more than just the Hobbit book, with tons of lore, and stretched into three movies. I AM ALLOWING MYSELF SPOILERS IN THE SECTION IN BETWEEN PICTURES, BECAUSE WELL, most people know this story anyways. The Animated Movie was a thing, after all. That middle section is normally reserved for plot anyways, and I feel like its hard to really give away shit, because its so well known.

Either way, spoilers in the middle warnings!

Spoiler: Only one hobbit is really focused on in this movie. That’s 75% less Hobbits than LOTR.

As most of you know, The Hobbit takes place before LOTR. Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) is a simple Hobbit, who doesn’t like adventure. Gandalf (Ian McKellen) comes by, fucks it all up, and without warning, thirteen dwarves have crashed the place and are eating all his food! Oh noes!

Why? Because they want to reclaim their ancient kingdom, that a terrible dragon named Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) has taken over! Thorin (Richard Armitage) is the last line of Dwarven royalty, and technical king of a home they don’t control. He sent out a call for dwarves to help him take back the mountain, and only 12 answered. But according to Gandalf, they also need a Burgler, and he has decided that Bilbo will fit the bill.

The first hobbit movie ends after the encounter with Gollum (Andy Serkis) and the escape from the Goblins, and then the further escape from the orcs by Eagle Power. We also get an appearance of Frodo (Elijah Wood), Elrond (Hugo Weaving), Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), and a pre-evil Saruman (Christopher Lee). Balin (Ken Stott) is the next main dwarf, Azog (Manu Bennett) is the pale orc main antagonist, Figwit is now Lindir (Bret McKenzie). AND THEN WE HAVE RADAGAST THE BROWN (Sylvester McCoy). A mother fucking druid/crazy wizard?

Don’t remember him? Because like I said, this is more than the Hobbit. A lot of the Tale of the Necromancer is in here too, and was only set up in this movie. Gandalf left the Hobbit a lot to do his own shit, and he was doing the necromancer stuff. This added a lot to the movie that I wasn’t expecting.

One other thing I liked? Well, as most of you know the story, you know that Gandalf and the Eagles are a Deus Ex Machina on a stick. Rarely do they solve their own problems without one or both of the groups coming to save the day. Same thing happened in LOTR, and it was pretty annoying. One of the biggest examples is when they are in the trees with the orcs and worgs attacking, then the Eagles come and carry them away. Well, in the movie, that scene is QUITE longer and a bit more inspirational. Yes, it ends the same way, but damn it, the Dwarves don’t just sit their crying. They fight back, they give it their all, they show courage and bravery. I loved that change. Same result at the end, but I think the way they got there was a little bit better.

Pictured: Actual Trolls picking apart the Hobbit.

First off, no I didn’t get to see the movie in 48 fps. They decided to can the wide release idea, and only have it in select theaters. Sucks to suck, I might get to see it next week that way, all depends on if I want to see it again. The 3D on its own, was very nicely done, rounding out the movie in a good way, like Life of Pi did.

Martin Freeman felt really good as Bilbo. I understand the direction they took the character is a bit more witty and awesome, versus kind of a selfish asshole. Same with the dwarves, but really, I think it made the story better. There were like, three songs in this movie, maybe a throw back to the animated movie. None as silly as those songs, unfortunately.

I also read an article telling me the main 19 differences between the book and the film, and honestly, it mostly seemed like harmless fluff changes that didn’t matter. But when I left the theater, I heard lots of grumblings in regards to changes from the book still. Oh well, one day people might not have a shit. Just kidding, it will never got away.

It had its flaws, and some pacing issues in it. Personally the rock giant fight scene came completely out of nowhere for me, and didn’t really make…any sense. Just happened in the middle of traveling, no explanation, no buildup, and then it was done. Really disliked that scene.