The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
My winter break started out with the second installment of The Hobbit, directed by Peter Jackson. Knowing Legolas would return, the addition of Tauriel, and remembering the fond memories of reading the book, I was beyond excited for the premier. Admittedly, the first installment wasn't all that exciting. Jackson is following the story line of a children's book that can lose your attention at times (Tolkien was an amazing thinker and creator of worlds, not so much a great creative writer, in terms of style), so we can't expect too much more out of the movies built upon that book.
Nonetheless, the first part was good, and I was hyped for the second part. Sadly, I think the second part was actually worse than the first. The opening five scenes all happen in the course of a few minutes. From the start, the audience is whipped around to different places and turmoils brewing and being stamped out quicker than we can take them in. To me, the movie continued to do this throughout, always leaving scenes feeling unfinished and not quite right. The Hobbit is a short book, considering other Tolkien books. There shouldn't have been that much to fit into the movie, but it was jerky and spotty because of the abundance of extra material Jackson decided to add in to this movie. The Addition of Legolas, Tauriel, the Legolas-Tauriel-Kili love triangle, Azog the Defiler, and Gandalf's whole quest to find the "necromancer" are the main additions that add to the length of the plot, but there are plenty more.
Honestly, the best part of the movie was probably Smaug, the dragon. All criticisms aside, that was the best cinematic dragon I have ever witnessed. It was perfect--well not quite perfect. Of course, in Jackson's flurry of changes, he changed my favorite line from Smaug's speech from "My breath...Death." to "I am fire, I am Death." So sad to lose that epic line. Overall, the acting was great, especially by Evangeline Lilly (Tauriel) and the great Ian McKellen (Gandalf), the effects were wonderful, and the plot was thick and action-packed, but the jumpiness and the feeling of an incomplete movie with incomplete scenes just left me unsatisfied.
My score: B - still definitely worth watching.
In terms of overall success so far,
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug did fairly well. It seems that people didn't like the first Hobbit as much as they thought that would, so opening weekend box office sales were much lower than the first installment despite being much more action packed. The original Hobbit made about $84 Million on its opening weekend while Part 2 made only $74 Million. So far, Part 2 has made $664 Million worldwide, suggesting that it may not reach the $1 Billion mark that Hobbit Part 1 did. Though no quite on par with the quality and success of past Peter Jackson-Tolkien team-ups, we still look forward to the third installment of the Hobbit
Frozen
On the other side of cinema, the next Disney animated production actually came out much earlier than the Hobbit, but I just got around to watching it, and I'm very glad I did. Because of the last couple great successes in this realm (
Wreck-it Ralph, and
Tangled), people were excited to see this new winter adventure by a female protagonist who looks and acts similarly to how Rapunzel did in
Tangled.
Frozen made about $67 Million on it's opening weekend which is great for a film in this genre (Compare to
Tangled's openign weekend of $48 Million). It seems Disney has caught on to the fact that movies sell well when the main character is fun, quirky, flawed, but ultimately lovable and relatable.
The big highlight of this movie for me was the messages it sent.
Frozen starts like any other Disney movie: a tragic backstory, a remarkably unaffected and emotionally stable protagonist, and a quick romantic interest that is deemed "true love." However, this Disney movie does something that no other Disney movie has done for a long time. It deconstructs the idea of love at first sight that just ends up perfect without doing any work on it, and it reconstructs a long-lost theme of the true love between family members, in this case sisters. Of course, Anna has to have a love interest by the end of the movie, but it is innocent and quirky and new. The messages of the movie win me over, despite the presence of only one or two quality songs sung by the characters in its musical form ( they used the same few many times in different situations) and the occasional lack of immediacy. I think Anna may be one of my all-time favorite Disney princesses after that adventure.
My score: A-
**A little interesting secret Easter egg: Rapunzel and Flynn Rider from
Tangled actually made an appearance in
Frozen during the "For the First Time in Forever" performance when Anna runs out the gate. You can see them both here standing on the left.
Arrow - TV Series on the CW
This series has been out since October of 2012, but I boycotted it for a year because one of the directors gloated that the
Arrow series would be better than the
Smallville series, which is my all-time favorite TV series starring Tom Welling as adolescent Superman. But a year later, I was ready to forgive and watch season 1 on Netflix. WHAT A FANTASTIC SHOW. I would not say it's better than
Smallville, but it will compete hard for that spot.
Arrow is fundamentally different than any other hero-based series I've watched. It develops the Green Arrow (Stephen Amell) as a emotionally wounded survivor of five torturous years on an island in the North China Sea called Lian Yu (Purgatory). He comes back from this five years of pain and suffering ready to save his city from corrupt business owners and thugs alike, and willing to kill anyone in his way to do it. Oliver Queen (Green Arrow's real identity) has turned from a rick playboy to a cold killing machine, dedicated and driven in his cause.
Like
Catching Fire and
The Hunger Games did on the big screen,
Arrow focuses on the trauma that loss can cause, and the struggle to cope with terrible situations without going crazy or losing everyone you love. It is a powerful series emotionally. The acting is superb, and every addition to the Arrow Team gets the audience excited at the new prospect. This series has claimed it will not be including other superheroes like Superman or Wonder Woman who look like gods next to Green Arrow, who is just a man with a broken past, a bow and arrow, and a lot of money. Like Christopher Nolan did with Batman,
developers Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Andrew Kreisberg will keep Arrows enemies and allies super-power-free and less fantastical to level the playing field with the Green Arrow. So far, the action has been perfect, and the non-super world of Arrow has worked fabulously.
Arrow is now on season 2, and I've caught up. In the end of season 1, Oliver loses someone he's very close to, which causes him to regret many of his decisions. He decides to stop killing in honor of the deceased person (trying to avoid spoilers here). The lack of killing adds a lot to the character development as well as his growing guilt while flashbacks to his time on the island show the audience the many hard decisions he had to make to live those five years on an island.
Arrow seems to be delving into the fantastical a little bit as it has added Barry Allen (The Flash) to it's arsenal of heroes and a few super-strong mercenaries to its enemies.
My score: A+
Arrow season 2's tenth episode will debut on January 15, and I am eagerly awaiting its continuation because of great suspense that has been building the last few episodes. So far,
Arrow has been bringing in about 4 million viewers every episode, which means it will be sticking around for a god long while. There are even plans to give Grant Gustin, who plays The Flash in
Arrow, his own spin-off series starring him as The Flash.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D
The Marvel universe continues from
The Avengers and
Iron Man 3 into
Agents of Shield, the new ABC series that follows the adventures of S.H.I.E.L.D., a government agency dedicated to protecting U.S. citizens from extra-normal activities and investigating people with supposed super-powers. It's genius really, what Marvel is doing.
The Avengers did so extremely well in large part because of the previous five movies that all came together into that one massive team-up movie. It took the idea of individual movies and threw it out the window: they were all related and played off each other. People who saw one wanted to see all of them. Now they are going one step further with
Agents of Shield, continuing that same universe in a full series. The pilot opens with the audience witnessing Phil Coulson (who died in
The Avengers) walk up to a new recruit, in fact not dead. Coulson made appearances in
Thor, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and
Captain America as well as
The Avengers, so people knew him and were pained by his death when it occurred. His resurrection was the perfect way to start the series.
The series constantly plays on the other movies in it's Marvel universe. The actors reference "New York" as a horror and tragedy, meaning the battle in
The Avengers they talk about gods like Thor and joke about Iron Man. The top agents try to beat Captain America's training times. It's written like on big inside joke, and those who have watched the movies will love the references.
As a series on its own,
Agents of Shield does not fall short. The characters, like the scientific and quirky British duo Fitz and Simmons, are developed further each episode. Every character on the team has a unique personality that we can connect to and love. Then, in one of the most recent episodes, the series plays with that, threatening the life of one of the most lovable characters and bringing me to tears. It's a spy show, so there are missions and undercover ops like you'd expect, but the episodes always surpass the typical "spy-show" expectations with emotional tragedies, complex plots between new characters and old favorites from popular movies, and the always-loved superpower aspect of the series.
My score: A-
With its pilot episode bringing in 17 million viewers (pretty much unheard of for a pilot episode) and the series continuing to bring in 10+ million viewers every new episode (it took
Big Bang Theory three seasons to reach those numbers), it's safe to say this will be a successful franchise and very worth watching and looking forward to the next episode on January 7th (my birthday!!).
"But we actually had Oliver tell Roy, ‘I want you to go down to the hospital and keep an eye on Laurel.' When Nyssa and her goon kidnap Mrs. Lance, Roy actually confronts them. Nyssa shoots him with a dart with snake venom and says, ‘A normal person would be dead by now. You're stronger than you look,’ and he says, ‘I get that a lot.’ Then they have a fight, but the venom starts to affect him, and she takes him out."
My winter break started out with the second installment of The Hobbit, directed by Peter Jackson. Knowing Legolas would return, the addition of Tauriel, and remembering the fond memories of reading the book, I was beyond excited for the premier. Admittedly, the first installment wasn't all that exciting. Jackson is following the story line of a children's book that can lose your attention at times (Tolkien was an amazing thinker and creator of worlds, not so much a great creative writer, in terms of style), so we can't expect too much more out of the movies built upon that book.
This series has been out since October of 2012, but I boycotted it for a year because one of the directors gloated that the Arrow series would be better than the Smallville series, which is my all-time favorite TV series starring Tom Welling as adolescent Superman. But a year later, I was ready to forgive and watch season 1 on Netflix. WHAT A FANTASTIC SHOW. I would not say it's better than Smallville, but it will compete hard for that spot. Arrow is fundamentally different than any other hero-based series I've watched. It develops the Green Arrow (Stephen Amell) as a emotionally wounded survivor of five torturous years on an island in the North China Sea called Lian Yu (Purgatory). He comes back from this five years of pain and suffering ready to save his city from corrupt business owners and thugs alike, and willing to kill anyone in his way to do it. Oliver Queen (Green Arrow's real identity) has turned from a rick playboy to a cold killing machine, dedicated and driven in his cause.
The Marvel universe continues from The Avengers and Iron Man 3 into Agents of Shield, the new ABC series that follows the adventures of S.H.I.E.L.D., a government agency dedicated to protecting U.S. citizens from extra-normal activities and investigating people with supposed super-powers. It's genius really, what Marvel is doing. The Avengers did so extremely well in large part because of the previous five movies that all came together into that one massive team-up movie. It took the idea of individual movies and threw it out the window: they were all related and played off each other. People who saw one wanted to see all of them. Now they are going one step further with Agents of Shield, continuing that same universe in a full series. The pilot opens with the audience witnessing Phil Coulson (who died in The Avengers) walk up to a new recruit, in fact not dead. Coulson made appearances in Thor, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and Captain America as well as The Avengers, so people knew him and were pained by his death when it occurred. His resurrection was the perfect way to start the series.
Catching Fire was a complete success. This sequel to the Hunger Games was stuffed full with emotion and devastation even more-so than its heartbreaking predecessor. As loved-ones and strangers die around Katniss, the true beauty of the movie was in Jennifer Lawrence's phenomenal acting in times of immediate trauma. Jennifer lost it when terrible things were happening, so much so that the audience has no choice but to lose it with her.
Even the movies spend enough time on this for the viewer to know: their loved one's will never forget them and are shaken to their core by loss. The Hunger Games series shows that their are terrible consequences for violence and does justice to the true human reaction to loss and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) often found in military memoirs and other non-fiction trauma stories.
We can now look forward to Mockingjay: Part 1, which will be equally as emotional or even more so. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Jennifer Lawrence said she cried on her first read-through of the script. This will be very good.
