Rate That Movie Part IV: Movies Never Sleep

[numbersix]

Hyena: 6/10
At first it's hard to figure out what this is. A sort of meandering crime thriller. But really it's a low budget epic, a film that bites off more than it can chew and cares not a shred. Michael and his gang of mates bust in on a drug party and snort what they find while beating the hell out of the dealers. But it turns out they're cops, taking down criminals but not before they get their cut. But when a new gang moves in, and when Michael finds out he's under investigation, he walks the fine line of trying to keep everyone at ease. The style is raw and nasty, with some good performances (and some awful ones) and great use of music. An abrupt ending may frustrate some, but it tells its story of a descent into hell with aplomb.

The Inbetweeners 2: 5/10
The waterpark sequence was brilliant, the rest was okay, and never elevates the film beyond coming across as an extended TV episode.

[JohnErle]

The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies: 8/10

Peter Jackson's time in Middle Earth comes to a reasonably satisfying conclusion while still featuring some of the same problems that have plagued the Hobbit movies from the beginning. Many of those problems were also present in the LOTR series, but have always felt more prevalent here because The Hobbit films never quite reach the same heights while still experiencing the same lows.

On the plus side, the Battle Of The Five Armies is immense and truly epic and makes the battle of Helm's Deep look like a forgotten border skirmish, and the buildup to the battle is just as interesting as the battle itself. Despite only appearing mid-way through the second film, Bard quickly became my favourite character in this series, and he plays an even larger role here. His fully fleshed-out character in the movies is a vast improvement over his portrayal in the book.

And the CGI looks better than ever. There's none of the weird artifacts from the 48fps conversion, or unnatural movements (think of the Elves in the trees during the barrel riding sequence) that appeared in the previous Hobbit films.

The biggest problem is an overall sense of sameness. There's no jaw-dropping money shot here like the first time we saw Rivendell, or Minas Tirith, or even Laketown or Smaug, because all the locations and characters are familiar by now. There's a climactic fight on top of a frozen waterfall that comes close, and the winter aesthetic in general gives things a reasonably fresh feel and some nice visuals, but Jackson relies a bit too heavily on things we've seen before, but to be fair, Tolkein did the same thing when he recycled much of The Hobbit while writing the Lord Of The Rings.

If we're going to compare trilogy-cappers, the biggest knock against The Return Of The King was that after the Ring was destroyed, the epilogue seemed to drag on forever and became a movie unto itself. I never agreed with that criticism, and would have been happy to see another 40 minutes dedicated to the Scouring Of The Shire, but Peter Jackson may have taken that criticism to heart because The Battle Of The Five Armies has an ending that's far too abrupt. We never get to see who will be leading the Dwarves after the death of Thorin, and we see nothing to indicate whether there'll be a reconciliation between the Men, Elves, and Dwarves. Bilbo says a quick farewell to the surviving Dwarves, Gandalf escorts him back home, there's a brief sequence in the Shire, and then that's it. For an epic of this size, and the end of a six-film, fifteen year odyssey, I felt it needed more.

Still, it's the last visit to Middle Earth we'll be getting for a long time, and I'm glad I had the chance to see it.

[Buscemi]

The Babadook .5/****

Why did this movie get so much praise again? It's basically an Australian version of the worst Blumhouse movies. From the unsympathetic (and downright annoying) characters to the cheap (and not scary) jumps and passing loud sound design as scares to the titular character that looks like a rejected Tim Burton drawing, it is simply a boring and unoriginal 95 minutes at the movies. The film lifts from other, much better movies (such as Poltergeist, Oculus, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Beetlejuice and The Evil Dead) as well as The Slender Man Mythos and The Others and fails to distinguish itself from other movies in recent memories about haunted houses or apparitions. Director Jennifer Kent seems to really love Burton and Sam Raimi but could it have bothered her to come up with something better than a cheap, hallow imitation of those two directors with none of the personality? The one good character is the dog but he's in only about five minutes.

I saw this for free so I shouldn't be complaining for something that was hyped so heavily, I expected much better.

[JohnErle]

The Vancouver Ashai - 3/10

This film is a Japanese production shot in Tokyo but set in Vancouver, making it quite an oddity, since it's far more common for movies to be shot in Vancouver but set somewhere else. Even though it's an entirely Japanese production, it bears all the hallmarks of a Canadian film, meaning it's earnest, obvious, amateurish, and hopelessly dull. It's the sort of thing that could play on the CBC on a Sunday afternoon without confusing or offending your great grandmother back on the farm in Saskatchewan. Which is a shame because the subject matter had potential.

It's about a Vancouver baseball team founded by Japanese immigrants who prospered in the early 1900's before being sent to internment camps after Pearl Harbor. During the pre-war years, the team becomes a source of pride for the Japanese community while helping the Japanese to integrate into Canadian society.

At the start of the film, the Ashai are perennial losers until they figure out a way to compete against the bigger, stronger, more aggressive Canadians. Anyone with a scintilla of baseball knowledge knows that the way they'll end up doing this is with speed, defence, and strategy, but it takes the Ashai more than half the movie to figure this out, and it takes the equally dumb whiteys an entire season to figure out a strategy to combat it.

The film's Moneyball meets racism concept has a lot of potential, but the movie does absolutely nothing with it except check off all of its predictable, cliched plot points in the most mundane, mechanical, obvious way imaginable. Individual scenes are so utterly lacking in character or distinctiveness, it's like they lost the script during production and had to film the beat sheet.

And to make matters worse, the Canadians in the film are all hopelessly bad actors with profoundly laughable accents. Apparently the white actors were all US naval officers posted in Japan, which explains why they all sound like Texans pretending to be Quebecois lumberjacks. If one of the Canadians had said "aboot" I could have let it slide, but when they all do it's obvious the filmmakers have never set foot in Western Canada and think we all sound like Bob & Doug McKenzie. Maybe this is how people in other cultures feel all the time when seeing their stories portrayed onscreen by outsiders, but as a Canadian I'm just not used to it.

[Chienfantome]

Don't say anything more John, you sold it to me, I wanna see that Vancouver Ashai now !!! (or maybe not)

[JohnErle]

Don't say I didn't warn you. I rarely see foreign language films in theatres, so when I take the plunge I expect something better than this! I think I've seen more new subtitled films this year than in any previous year, and the only one that really stands out is Stranger By The Lake. I'll probably catch Force Majeure soon, and it better be good or I'm going back to boycotting all subtitled films, like Geezer.

[Chienfantome]

Or maybe it's just French films that work well on you...

[numbersix]

The Hobbit Part 3: 5/10
Well, it's an improvement on the previous two films, just because we get a resolution! Yet even this one runs too long and is generally badly paced, rushing past some moments and dwelling far too much on others. The main problem is that the Hobbit film has been building itself up to a confrontation with a dragon, but in the first 10 minutes that's resolved. Which would have been fine if this was a single film, but because of the emphasis (5 hours of buildup!) what happens feels like an anti-climax. It's kinda like spending the first 2 LOTR films building up to the confrontation with that giant spider.

Having said that, there are some aspects to the big battle that were impressive. The scale and the sense of mounting odds against this turning out well was delivered effectively. Perhaps it's me, or the frame rate, but some of the physics during the big battles just felt silly. It's not so much a CGI issue but a direction issue. These horrible orc creatures were just so easy to defeat. There's a scene where Bilbo throws stones and knocks out these huge goblins. It's like the balance between dark, ominous warfare and amusing action isn't struck very well. This is mostly rectified later int he film when we get some great one-on-one fight, particularly the one involving Legolas on the fallen tower and Thorin on the ice.

The drama was lacking. Firstly, the attempt to address the perspectives of everyone left the film a little shallow. It should be Bilbo's story but I think they struggled to give him enough inner drama. He's pretty much always right in this part. Richard Armitage does well with his Thorin, although I think his struggle and decisions made were too easily resolved. I did enjoy the "gold floor" scene (though I could have done without the voices-in-my-conscience bit).

Overall, there is no doubt that this was a bloated trilogy. And one full of repetition both in itself and with the LOTR films, which did pretty much everything here but far better. This was a cynical move by Jackson and co, and the laziness in writing ("Why does it hurt so much" says an elf in love) confirms that. Some of the visuals are great, but this story would have been serviced much better as either a long single film or at the most a two-parter.

[undeadmonkey]

I understand, quality wise, that the movies suffer, but you have to see that it made sense, studio wise, to make three movies instead of two. Who wouldn't want to make 3 billion instead of 2.

[numbersix]

I understand, quality wise, that the movies suffer, but you have to see that it made sense, studio wise, to make three movies instead of two. Who wouldn't want to make 3 billion instead of 2.

Oh without doubt that was the case, but I'll certainly think twice before ever paying to see a Peter Jackson film ever again. I'm sure he'll be weeping at that

[JohnErle]

Oh without doubt that was the case, but I'll certainly think twice before ever paying to see a Peter Jackson film ever again. I'm sure he'll be weeping at that

Especially since you said that after the last one too but still saw the finale anyway.

Did you see it in 48fps 3D? I saw it like a proper movie, in 24fps 2D, and didn't experience any of the physics issues you mentioned, unless you simply mean the way bad guys drop like flies when its convenient for the story, while putting up a hell of a fight when Jackson wants them to, but that's been a problem with this franchise ever since Aragorn fought off six Ringwraiths single-handedly way back in the Fellowship.

I totally agree with your spoilered comments though and think Smaug's attack on Laketown would have worked much better as the climax of the second movie. If Jackson had followed that up with some foreshadowing of events the Dwarves had set in motion, that would have nicely set the tables for the third film.

[numbersix]

I saw it in 48FPS 3D. Wanted to see how I can take it, whether it's something that I'll get used to or something that's just wrong. I will say this - if 48FPS becomes more prevalent stunt people are really going to have to up their game. And my issue with the physics was probably more of a creative issue. Yeah, the LOTR films did have inconsistencies in terms of defeatable enemies, but I felt this took it to another level. But if I was more engaged with the characters, maybe that wouldn't matter.

And I knew you'd catch me out about not going to see it! What can I say, I was having cinema withdrawal symptoms and there was nothing else I wanted to see. At least I waited until Netflix to see the 2nd one. I will stand firm on my Marvel Films stance, though, I'm not paying them a dine anymore.

[JohnErle]

The only thing worse than 3D is 48fps 3D. The first two Hobbitses in that format were bad enough, I didn't need a third visit to prove that it's a worthless medium.

[Buscemi]

How is it that high-frame rate gets trashed so much but post-converted 3-D gets off so easy? At least with high-frame rate, you are seeing the movies as they were meant to be seen. Innovation is always better than a cheap cash-grab that's often done without the filmmaker's wishes.

As for its future, Bryan Singer had expressed shooting the next X-Men in high-frame rate but he's probably changed his mind. I do believe that it has a future in documentaries though. 48 fps (and even 60 fps) tend to have a more life-like feel so why not show reality the way it is?

[Chienfantome]

I haven't dared to see a film in 48fps for now. I meant to see the 2nd Hobbit that way (or was it the first one ?), but got the showing wrong and saw it in 24fps. I'm pretty sure I would not like it, but I'd still like to try once, out of curiosity.