The Hobbit 2 and the Importance of Pacing an Action Scene

You ever watch a film based on a book and feel like they had to leave out A LOT of important stuff because of time and money constraints? Of course you did! Pretty much every Hollywood film based on a book has been guilty of this crime, but you really can’t blame them. The producers and directors of these films are more or less forced to cram a 700-1000 page novel into a film that’s barely two hours. Films like the middle 4 Harry Potter films, early James Bond films, and the Hunger Games films are particularly guilty of this sin, and even people who have never read the books can often get the impression that entire segments of the book were changed or flat out eliminated to make the basic story concepts fit in the film.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is a case study of a film, namely because I can honestly say that it’s the first film I have ever seen that is actually guilty of the opposite problem. I’ve never read the book The Hobbit, but even without the knowledge of the novelization I get the distinct feeling that massive segments of Tolkein’s other works were shoehorned into this film in order to pad out three whole movies based on a singular kid’s book, a move which would pad out the producer’s wallets as well. Now I know by reading reviews that the first Hobbit movie was guilty of this problem as well, but to me this padding felt pretty organic and flowed relatively well with the story. In fact, if you were to ask me to pick out which parts of the film were added and which were in the book I’d probably fail to get even half of my choices right.

In Desolation of Smaug however, these additions seem to stick out like a sore thumb, and there are a lot of scenes that seem to jar, or flat out halt the flow of what is more or less a very interesting fantasy tale. To make matters worse, this is the first Peter Jackson “Middle Earth” film that (to me at least) fully felt like the nearly three hour running time. How early into the film did I get this odd impression you may ask? Try the first five minutes.

One of the first scenes of the film revolves around Bilbo and company meeting a new supernatural character. He’s an interesting character to be sure, and it certainly is a unique scene, but his introduction and subsequent dialogue amounts to nothing more than “Have fun in Mirkwood guys”. If they had eliminated this early scene altogether and simply had Gandalf warn the company about the impending dangers of Mirkwood instead they could have literally cut twenty minutes off the bloated run time right there, and this is an idea I just had off the top of my head. Now I could be wrong, and maybe the character was a big deal in the book, but to me his role seemed completely useless and out of place.

I know it may seem like I’m already being harsh on this film right out of the gate, but I did this to demonstrate a point. Believe it or not I actually enjoyed this film quite a bit, but it was one of those few movies I like that I also find incredibly frustrating because it was a few simple fixes away from being a great film. It just feels like they took the template of something awesome and just kept cramming more and more crap into it to inflate the running time of the movie. When you have such a well written and widely known story as this, why would you mess with it? We all remember what this leads to right?

Oh…

Nowhere is this “mountains out of molehills” style of film making more apparent than in the inflated action scenes. Now I kind of got the impression that the entire barrel action scene was never in the books, so after the film I looked into it and while there is a barrel scene in the book it is limited to the dwarves hiding in barrels to sneak out of Mirkwood. Here however we are treated to a fifteen minute action scene of elves vs. dwarves in barrels vs. orcs, and it doesn’t flow as well as previously extended action scenes.

Now I know that Peter Jackson has a habit of doing this, even doing so quite a bit in the original Lord of the Rings films. The difference is that in those movies the drawn out action scenes advanced the storyline and were more or less necessary components in the War for the Ring. Yeah, Helms Deep was a much longer fight than in the books, but these scenes flowed well and advanced the story just as the book originally intended. It also helped that these battles, while having fantasy elements in them like orcs, and elves, and wizards, were much more grounded in reality than the longer action scenes in the Hobbit film counterparts, so it’s easier to sit through despite the long running times.

Uh oh! I appear to have opened a can of worms, so it’s time for us to go down the rabbit hole of filmmaking 101 again. Now what do I mean by an action scene being easier to sit through by being grounded in reality? Well I have a theory in film, which we will call the “Guthrie Principle”.

Patent Pending

Basically my belief is that the more grounded an action scene is to real life, the longer you can sit through it before you get bored or your mind starts to wander. Black Hawk Down was more or less a 100 minute firefight between Somali and American forces, but not once have I ever met anyone who said they got bored at any point in the film. The most memorable and well regarded Bond fights in the franchise (the train fight in From Russia with Love, the opening fight from Thunderball, the foot chase from Casino Royale, etc) all have the distinction of being the most realistic fights, and they often end up being the longest. At no point do we see Bond using gadgets, gizmos, or wacky weapons at any point of the more memorable fight scenes.

Conversely, over the top, elaborate, insanely choreographed fight scenes involving beyond belief settings seem to wear out the audience much quicker than the realistic counterparts. The last eighty minutes of Transformers 3 featured dazzling effects, otherworldly action, and breathtaking explosions and settings, and yet despite all this high-tech wizardry for the life of me I can’t remember more than roughly two or three minutes of it! But the big example of this problem is none other than the final lightsaber fight between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker in Episode III.

This is literally a sword fight with laser weapons between two demi-gods with perfect choreography inside an erupting volcano using flying robots, explosive eruptions, and disintegrating set pieces, the epitome of over-indulgence in an action. So how come I can remember every thrust, parry, and swing from Luke and Vader’s lightsaber fight from Empire Strikes Back, but I can’t really recall many of the details of the Obi-Wan/Anakin fight? Don’t just take my word for it though, here’s a quote from none other than Obi-Wan himself.

“It was a challenge with the Obi-Wan/Anakin fight because three or four minutes into it you get over the initial explosion of the fight and why they’re fighting”-Ewan McGregor

He’s basically saying that for such a large and epic set piece the hardest challenge is keeping the audience’s attention through the whole scene, a problem that grounded action scenes never really have to deal with. Now obviously there are other factors to keeping your attention during an extended action scene such as character attachment, personal investment in the film, etc, but as a general original theory I may honestly be onto something. 

In fact, some of what I consider to be the best and most memorable victories in action films have nothing to do with action themselves, but with the hero using their intelligence and wits to beat the bad guy with very little or even no violence. One of my favorite “action” climaxes actually comes from a fantastic comedy called Galaxyquest, where the main hero tricks the villain into thinking he’s charging the villain's ship, but in reality he’s hiding the fact that he’s dragging a shitzillion mines behind his ship and directly into the villains main reactor. It’s a fantastic, feel good ending, and while it doesn’t involve a single punch or gunshot it’s nonetheless exhilarating to see such a simple idea payout in the villains defeat.

Think about it, some of the greatest films share this characteristic, and some of them (like Galaxyquest) aren’t even action films:

The point is that you can create a great scene chock full of tension, action, and suspense without using a lot of violence, and a lot of times this payout is even more rewarding. Why else do you think I love Doctor Who so much? Pretty much every episode ends with the Doctor using his intellect and wits to trick a superior force, usually followed with…

But getting back to the review, the drawn out action sequences in the original LOTR trilogy never really bothered me, but in these films they feel shoehorned and unnecessary. Like I said, this is the first film in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit film franchise that really felt like the full running length, and it’s a bit of a shame because once the film gets to the actual introduction of Smaug it’s like a breath of fresh air since the film felt like it was really beginning to drag on.

Smaug, like Gollum, is one of the greatest creatures to ever be created in a film, and every second he’s on screen is breath-taking and exhilarating. The first exchange between him and Bilbo is flat out brilliant, and if I had seen this movie a few months ago it would have hands down ended up on my top five moments of last year. The movie really lights up when he’s on screen, but the only problem is the looooong lead up to get to it.

I need to stress why this film felt so long, and I hate to nitpick because I really did like this film, but the shortcomings really began to get on my nerves after a while. There were a lot of scenes (just like the first scene) that they could have trimmed about 30 percent off of the majority of them. That alone could have reduced the running time by about 45 minutes. Also worth noting is that the entire Gandalf exploring that deserted castle storyline reeeeally felt like they were milking it, you could have gotten everything you needed from that storyline in about 20 minutes, but instead we get a sequence that runs roughly 45-50 minutes.

The final real issue I had with the film was that Peter Jackson seems to have forgotten how to break up the tension of an extended action scene, a trait he excelled at with the previous trilogy. Remember the awesome battle scene of Helm’s Deep? If you do, then you remember that they kept switching back to a comparatively slow and dry scene of Merry and Pippin talking with a bunch of tree ents. The transition of regularly switching from an action scene to a dry scene allows the audience to retain the tension from the action scene while the story can create a secondary tension with the slower scene. This is called scaling or see-sawing, and if done correctly it can perfectly maintain the tension of an exciting and drawn out action scene without the audience getting bored of the action.

This tactic is used in almost every competently directed action movie. Die Hard scaled the epic climactic fight between Karl and John by balancing it with scenes of Hans discovering that Holly was John’s wife, which created a secondary tension that transitioned into the ongoing fight. Return of the Jedi scaled their climax with three scenes occurring simultaneously, and while yes, all three were technically action scenes (the space battle, the forest battle, the showdown between Luke and Vader) at any given time one of those scenes was in a lull that allowed the audience a moment to breathe.

But in Desolation of Smaug Jackson seems to have forgotten this trick that he had previously perfected, and many of the early action scenes drag on without transition and allow the audience to lull and grow somewhat tired. Action scenes are like sprints, and if you don’t take occasional breaks then you will burn out very quickly. Jackson begins to remedy this problem towards the end of the film by interjecting the frantic battle against Smaug with some much slower scenes back in Lake Town, but then he undoes this by throwing orcs, Legolas, and Tauriel into an unnecessary action scene.

Now that I’ve gotten my major gripes out of the way, I can finally talk about the things that I liked in this film, which were actually quite abundant. First of all, I still love the cast. Bilbo, Gandalf, Radaghast, and every one of the dwarves were fantastic in the film, and as I’ve mentioned, Benedict Cumberbatch perfectly voiced Smaug to really put his role in the film over the top. I also loved Stephen Fry in his role as the Mayor/Dictator of Lake Town, and his fantastic turn reminds me that he’s quite possibly the best overlooked comedic actor in the business.

Despite the fact that it dragged on a little (as I’ve talked about), I still really loved the barrel scene. It has a real sense of over the top adventure that perfectly lent a lot of excitement to an already exciting fantasy film. I also really loved Barrel Bombur (you’ll understand what I’m talking about you see it). When I first saw the scene in the trailers I was seriously worried it was really going to stink and irritate me, but the final product was so over the top and insane that it was really hard NOT to become totally enamored by it.

I loved both the orcs and the elves, and while I loved them for different reasons they both delivered exactly what we needed as otherworldly characters. I liked how the Mirkwood elves were considered dangerous and little insane because of their proximity to the encroaching darkness and the years of warfare it has entrenched their world in. On the other hand, I loved the looks, designs and attitudes of the orcs, and it was so damn great to see villains in film that just plain liked being evil without any reservations. I also liked seeing Legolas back in action again, but it was a little weird because apparently Orlando Bloom has been hitting the weights since he vanished off the face of the Earth.

I loved the scene where Gandalf and Radaghast visited the graves of the Nazgul, and I loved how the location was both impossible to get to and impossible to escape from. This really set the stage for just how twisted, evil, and powerful these guys are to escape from their prison. Also, even though I ragged on how overly long the sequence was, I actually loved the was Sauron finally made himself known to Gandalf. It was shot brilliantly, and I’m a sucker for the Eye of Sauron effect since it’s just one of those iconic effects that has become a part of pop-culture.

Now get ready for this, but possibly my favorite part of this film was the love story between Kili and Tauriel. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not the biggest fan of romances on film…

F*CK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOU!

But this romance is handled so perfectly and feels so real that it’s hard NOT to root for Kili through the whole film. I’ve never felt so hopeful or so involved in Tauriel’s race to cure Kili, and I’ve never wanted to see two people get together so badly since a little starship captain named Mal met a space hooker named Inara. Apparently I’m not the only one who seems to think so, as typing in Kili and Tauriel into Google will prove.

Do NOT type Kili and Tauriel into Google.

Finally, the last thing I’d like to bring up is that in five movies, this is the first one that ends on a sour note. It doesn’t end on a downer (well, maybe a little), but it literally just ends in what seems like the middle of a scene. All the other Peter Jackson middle Earth movies ended with the story still needing to be continued, but for the most part the most pressing issues in the film were more or less resolved. This is not so much the case in this film however, so be prepared to say “There’s no way this movie is over” at the screen seconds before the credits start to roll.

In a nutshell, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is an enjoyable movie with a lot of flaws. The flaws aren’t nearly enough to ruin the film, or even make in a mediocre film, but they are certainly enough to keep it from reaching the levels of the original Lord of the Rings trilogy.

8 out of 10

I enjoy sending my readers to great movie review sites, so for anyone reading this you should give the Weekend Ronin a shot. They have been kind enough to feature this blog on the show, and their knowledge of film is second to none.

http://weekendronin.com/podcast/podcast.html

And don’t forget to like their Facebook! Thanks to those who already have on my advice.

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2013 Movie Rundown

Top heroes of 2013

1. Katniss (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire)-Warrior, champion, and loyal friend, Katniss lights the fire necessary for a crucial revolution of a long oppressed population. A breath of fresh air for women in film, and the best female role model since Hermione Granger, Katniss is a much needed change of pace following the embarrassing female "heroine" that was Bella Swann.

2. Harada (The Wolverine)-Deadly and dead-eyed ninja archer Harada proved to be an utter badass when covering Wolverine and Mariko in the chaos following a funeral. Despite being in a film featuring heroes as awesome as the legendary Wolverine and awesomely written fellow ninja Yukio, Harada manages to eek out a slight lead because he manages to give us a performance that Hawkeye should have been in The Avengers.

3. Colonel James Rhodes (Iron Man 3)-I can only praise Robert Downey Jr. for so long (yes, he is still perfect as Iron Man) without mentioning how awesome the decision was to trade up to Don Cheadle for James Rhodes. Loyal, resilient, and dependable, James Rhodes proves that Tony made the right choice by trusting him with the Mark II armor in Iron Man 2.

4. Dr. Ryan Stone (Gravity)-I frequently have trouble maintaining my composure when they get my order wrong at Del Taco, so it speaks magnitudes about Dr. Stone's resilience when she finds herself perpetually facing down life threatening situations in the most hostile environment in the universe. Her continued resilience lands her back home, something even her veteran astronaut partner couldn’t manage to achieve.

5. Andy Knightley (The World's End)-Despite initial misgivings about a proposed pub crawl, Andy decides to accompany his former best friend partly to bury the ghosts of his past and partly out of pity. When the shit hits the fan however, it’s up to Andy to keep the group of survivors alive as their “leader” spirals downward into a self-destructive pattern of psychosis.

Top Villains of 2013

1. Seaworld (Blackfish)-The groundbreaking documentary may have been about the murder-prone killer whale Tilikum, but the sheer brutality, greed, lies, and amoral behavior of the legendary amusement park takes the stage as the true villain of the film. When they’re not covering up deaths by framing their trainers, killing whales in the wild, or stealing money from their own charities, you can count on them lying about the life of killer whales in the wild to make themselves look good.

2. Loki (Thor: The Dark World)-Christopher Eccleston may have been the primary antagonist of the film, but no one can deny that the film really lit up every time Tom Hiddleston appeared onscreen. Resplendent in his hatred, and brilliant in his execution, Loki is one of those few villains in Hollywood that you just can’t bring yourself to hate.

3. Leatherback and Otachi (Pacific Rim)-While the film revolved around countless monstrous Kaijus that are as diverse as they are vicious, the big baddies of the film are a pair of Category IV Kaijus that manage to take out 50 percent of the world’s remaining Jaeger force. Massive, fast, and the first Kaijus to carry organic weapons against the human race, these baddies take down the giant fighting robots like they were puppies.

4. El Macho (Despicable Me 2)-El Macho could be placed right alongside every other evil genius mastermind from any James Bond film, and that alone would be enough to an improvement on the previous film’s villain. What places him on this list though is that even jumping out of a plane, while riding a shark, strapped to two tons of explosives, into an erupting volcano still wasn’t enough to kill this villain.

5. Danny McBride (This is the End)-As if being a selfish prick and stealing all the survivor’s food wasn’t enough, Danny McBride becomes a cannibalistic psycho after being kicked out of the house, even going so far as to turn poor Channing Tatum into his personal sex slave. What truly makes him an abysmal human being however is the fact that he jizzes up the last porno mag in existence, that monster.

Top Moments of 2013

1. Death at a Funeral (The Wolverine)-We’ve had four movies featuring the comic legend Wolverine, but this scene is the first real time we as an audience get to see what the hero is really capable of. Even when good ol’ sideburns is missing most of his trademark super-healing he still carves through leagues of mercenaries and assassins with ease, brutally slicing through men like a hot knife through butter.

2. Aerial Rescue (Iron Man 3)-On repeated viewings I am quickly approaching naming Iron Man 3 as my favorite in the series, and the high point in this high point is the thrilling mid-air rescue of the passengers on Air Force One. Teased heavily in the trailers and commercials, this short and sweet action scene makes the audience hold their breath more than any other moment in the franchise.

3. Battle of Hong Kong (Pacific Rim)-Everyone knows how much I preach that bigger isn’t necessarily better in films (see my reviews of Transformers, the Star Wars Prequels, etc.), but in this case the scene is so well shot and action packed that it made me eat my own words. Over the top in the most beautiful way 

imaginable, this explosive and climactic battle scene encompasses everything that is right about monster films.

4. Batman versus Superman (Take one!) (The Dark Knight Returns)-Despite being an animated film, The Dark Knight Returns saga was just as awesome as Christopher Nolan’s trilogy, and no scene is more awesome as the Batman vs. Superman fight at the end of the second part. Unapologetically brutal, and played completely straight, this fantastic scene makes you believe that the Caped Crusader can actually hold his own against the Man of Steel, and in all likelihood, I imagine this scene will be much better than the one we are getting from the actual Batman vs. Superman movie in 2015.

5. The Tenth Man (World War Z)-One of the biggest and earliest mysteries of the film revolves around discovering how Israel was able to fend off the zombie invasion, and when the Mossad chief explains to Gerry Lane how his company was able to do so, many aspects on the hard life of a civilian in Israel become clear to the audience. This simple but brilliant scene not only establishes the Israelis as the badasses of the film, but also conveys to audiences the countless atrocities committed against Israel over countless decades.

Top Dorks of 2013

1. Raleigh Becket (Pacific Rim)-Get your god damned thumbs out of your god damned belt loops dude, you’re not a teenager!

2. The Smith Boys (After Earth)-There is so much to pick on in this awful M. Night Shyamalan film, but it doesn’t get any easier than the two idiots that this film is built around. Allegedly written and made to appease both Will Smith’s growing love of scientology and the growing ego of Jayden Smith, these two train wrecks are laughably bad throughout the film. This is what you get when you pass on Django Unchained because Quintin Tarantino wouldn’t re-write it for you.

3. Superman (The Man of Steel)-Nice going Superman, you watch your dad die and do nothing, you let half of Metropolis get pounded into dust, and you wreck half of the military. You have one job dude, what the hell are we paying you for?

4. Gary King (The World's End)-For the longest time I thought it was impossible for Simon Pegg to play a character I didn’t love… and then The World’s End totally changed my mind. Refusing to let his glory days be a thing of the pass, Gary goes to no end to dupe his former friends into reliving them with him, and then abandoning them to their dooms during them. He’s like that guy we all know who won’t stop talking about how cool he was in high school… and then shoots you.

5. Dr. Newton Geiszler (Pacific Rim)-Yes, Pacific Rim gets two mentions on the dorks list, but unlike frontrunner Raleigh, Newton is a dork in the most endearing sense possible. He’s wacky but brilliant, panicky but steadfast, and if anyone other than Charlie Day had played this role it could have been disastrous. Luckily, the talented Day plays this old-as-time trope perfectly, creating a lovable dork we can all appreciate.

Here is a list of my most enjoyable (not necessarily best) films of 2013:

Gravity-9.75 out of 10

Iron Man 3-9.5 out of 10

The World’s End-9 out of 10

The Dark Knight Returns-9 out of 10

Despicable Me 2-8.5 out of 10

The Conjuring-8.25 out of 10

Star Trek: Into Darkness-8 out of 10

The Wolverine-7.75 out of 10

Monsters University-8.25 out of 10

The Great Gatsby-8.5 out of 10

If your favorite picks aren’t on this list, chances are I never had a chance to watch it. Here is a short list of some of the movies I have yet to see this year:

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Fast and Furious 6

Frozen

Riddick

Anchorman 2

12 Years a Slave

Her

Sound City

Hangover 3
Bad Grandpa

Lies, Deceit, and Plot Twists

I realize that I haven’t been faithfully reviewing articles for a while, and for that I apologize. With my exit from the military, my ratings coming through, and my relocation to Colorado, my life has been hectic, but I promise I plan to return to regular film reviews in the near future. In the meantime, contemplate this article while I plan my return.

Be warned, this article is VERY spoiler heavy.

A lot of people are angry at JJ Abrams, there’s no way around it. Strangely, this anger seems to stem from a very unlikely source, lying about a character in his film.

Let’s start from the beginning. The world was greatly anticipating the release of Star Trek: Into Darkness (STID) this last summer, so much so that when nerd favorite Benedict Cumberbatch was cast as “Main Antagonist” the internet went into a fizzy about who he was going to play. The big theories were that he was going to play Trek favorite Khan or Gary Mitchell, which would have been the first time in the new Trek universe that these famous stories were explored from the new universe standpoint.

So imagine everyone’s surprise when JJ Abrams announced that Cumberbatch would be playing… some guy named John Harrison. Everyone scratched their head, called Bravo Sierra, and were treated to Abrams swearing up and down the spectrum that this new villain would NOT be Khan. Eventually everyone moved on and saw the film, only to have Abrams “surprise” us all with a big “AHA! Gotcha!” reveal that this was indeed Khan after all. Nerds were up in arms about this reveal, and eventually Abrams issued a flat out apology saying that he was wrong to lie and he should have just said who it was from the beginning.

But... should he have had to apologize?

Let’s face it, the world of film has changed a lot in the last twenty years. It used to be that the announcement of a big film, be it an original work or a sequel, warranted a complete blackout of information on all the details of the film, since there was no medium to spread speculation or analysis of the film on a worldwide basis. Fast forward to today and it’s nearly impossible to keep all the details of a movie a secret. All the non-disclosure contracts and script control in the world can’t stop a teenager from emailing aintitcoolnews.com to say that the new Avengers is filming by his apartment complex and he overheard one of the sound guys mention Deadpool.

The point is that STID was Abrams child, his creation, and if he wanted to keep the reveal a secret, then he shouldn’t have had to apologize later for lying about the big secret. Keep in mind that this actually happened in The Dark Knight Rises as well  this year when Nolan lied over and over that Miranda Tate was NOT Talia Al Ghul, and this reveal actually DID bug me because her last minute plot reveal kind of tarnished the character of Bane for me. The big difference however, was that no one seemed to care about this lie.

So where is the middle ground in all of this? Personally I believe that lying to keep a reveal secret should be fine, especially considering that just a few years ago trailers seemed to be giving away massive plot points left, right, and sideways. Remember the trailer to Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers that totally showed the biggest surprise of the book by having Gandalf front and center through the whole trailer? Or how about the trailer for Even Almighty, a film that revolved around whether or not there would really be a flood, showing a flood tearing through the city?

Now obviously I have a problem with trailers lying about what TYPE of film you were going to see, like when Watchmen was advertised as an action heavy comic film when it was actually a commentary about the Cold War and the Human Condition. Or how about Sweeney Todd, a grisly film about a serial killer, being touted as a lighthearted musical about a misunderstood weirdo? But when it comes to keeping a secret, DKR  and STID were just trying to keep the main twist of their movies intact. Could you imagine how awesome a film could be if it had been able to keep a plot twist that completely surprised the audience?

Imagine seeing trailers for a film called Prey, which focused on a group of soldiers and mercenaries waking up in a forest and being picked off one by one by some unseen force. You don’t think much of it, but you decide to give it a chance since it looks like a decent action romp in the vein of The Deadliest Game. You go with some friends to see it, thinking it’s pretty entertaining, when halfway through the film you find out that the characters have actually been transported to an alien planet, and that the unseen force hunting them down is actually this love-able feller.

This was Robert Rodriguez’s original plan when he began working on his film Predators, but he had to abandon this entire marketing campaign because as soon as he acquired the license the internet was abuzz with the news that “Robert Rodriguez is making a new Predator movie!!!”. Love or hate Predators, you can’t deny this would have been one hell of a surprise for the movie going audience. Luckily, there’s hope on the horizon in terms of secrecy. Against all odds, Shane black was able to keep the big Mandarin twist in Iron Man 3 a secret, and Joss Whedon has stated that while the audience is all but right about Coulson being a Life Model Decoy, he has also respectfully been tempting us with the real story behind this plot point.

It’s understandable to be upset about being lied to, especially when it involves a film franchise as recognizable and beloved as Star Trek or Batman, but remember that the directors are trying to keep the surprise a secret to convey genuine shock to the audience. Instead of thinking that the trailers and directors are lying to you, try adjusting your brain into thinking the director is keeping the plot a secret the same way a parent is trying to keep a child’s Christmas present a secret.

Pacific Rim

A long hiatus, I can’t think of a single person who doesn’t need one every now and then. After taking off so much time however, I was faced with the dilemma of how I should jump back into my next review… more specifically, how I would justify it. I decided that maybe a post-summer movie rundown would be best, after all, with the exception of Iron Man 3 and The World’s End there wasn’t really anything this summer that really popped, noting I was REALLY excited about seeing, so maybe judging everything else on the same playing field was the best way to handle this.

Then I saw Pacific Rim… and I decided that I would be breaking this idea model after all.

Pacific Rim is the newest film from Guillermo Del Toro, the Oscar winning director of such fantastic pieces of cinema as Pan’s Labyrinth, and The Devil’s Backbone. As great as these films are however, it’s his work in American film that he is best known for, such as Blade II and the Hellboy films. Now there are some people out there who really hate the Hellboy films, I mean REALLY hate them, but I believe them to be some of the best character driven comic films out there. Are they simple? Yes. Are they effective? Very. Are they impressive features of film featuring some of the best creature effects and modeling in the business? Absolutely.

And right there we have the first trait in the essence of what makes Del Toro, his first class creature designs and effects. Del Toro has never been one to skimp on monsters, which is fantastic because hearing him talk about monster movies is like hearing a small child talk about their Halloween candy hauls, there’s nothing in their voices except unbridled passion, love, and admiration. This adoration translates well into his films, creating monsters that are believable and real not by using CG like everything else in Hollywood these days, but by using practical effects and models. After all, when you can make creatures that translate into film as seamlessly as this…

or this…

or this…

then why wouldn’t you be proud to display them at every possible moment in a movie. Hell, you could cut out story entirely and have a kick-ass film based on kick-ass monsters.

Now this is where most of you would cry “But Kyle! All you do is slam films that rely more on special effects than on story!” and yeah, you would be totally right. BUT… there are some very important distinctions between a film like Pacific Rim and a film like Transformers 2.

First of all, Del Toro went into this film with the intention of making a modern day monster film that focused more on the monsters than the characters. With that mindset in place, and a total disregard for deep characterization more or less on the back burner, he STILL managed to make a film with characters in it that I cared about and became emotionally invested in. Does he rely on old tried and true tropes to do so? Oh my goodness, yes, but the sad fact is that in this modern day Hollywood most action movies don’t even bother with simple tropes and tactics to get us to connect with the characters. All these films seem to be interested in is connecting action scenes with the thinnest thread of story possible. The fact that Del Toro is able to transcend these films so easily shows how effortlessly Del Toro can create a human drama in the middle of an action film.

Nowhere is this effective character/audience relation more apparent than in the Hellboy films. While the films certainly have a few problems sprinkled throughout them, I absolutely loved each and every one of the characters, and I have often described the movies as “A human drama about a monster”. Hellboy, Abe, Liz, and Professor Broom are such deep, interesting, and likeable characters that the sometimes simple dialogue doesn’t tarnish their strong connection with the audience. There is a scene in the second film where Hellboy and Abe get hammered and start singing Barry Manilow that is so funny and so heartfelt that it just plain makes you feel good watching it, no matter how ridiculous it looks or how silly it comes off.

Now I mentioned that Del Toro sometimes has a small problem with dialogue, but notice how I said simple and not poor, or weak, and I think I know why Del Toro sometimes has this problem. I have noticed that a lot of times there seems to two types of writing when it comes to Guillermo Del Toro. The first type is the man who caught Hollywood’s attention with deep, moving gothic character films such as The Devil’s Bacckbone and the phenomenal Pan’s Labyrinth. The second type of Del Toro is the audience favorite who makes wide appeal monster action films such as Hellboy and Pacific Rim. Now while the former type is the one who always gets Oscar nods and awards for their writing and characters, these films also happen to be foreign films, and it should also be noted that English is Del Toro’s second language.

Do you see where I’m going with this? Del Toro’s English speaking films are always the films that are dinged for writing that sometimes comes across as “overly simple”. I think this simplicity is due mostly to Del Toro’s language barrier, but really… when you think about it, is simplicity really a problem in writing this type of film? Larry King has had a thirty year career that many attribute to the simplicity of his questions after all. Simplicity in a film like a monster movie can keep the audience engaged no matter what age or demographic they fall into. Remember again that there is a big difference between simple writing and immature/stupid/ insulting writing.

Unrelated video

Now even though there is a bit of a problem with the writing, the acting of some of the main characters was also a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, we had a slew of actors who handled their roles masterfully, from seriously grounded (such as Idris Elba) to necessarily manic (such as Charlie Day).  On the other hand, the two male leads (Charlie Hunnam and Robert Kazinsky) felt pretty flat and emotionless, not at all helped by them both pulling off accents that neither one of them had any right doing. The lead character seemed to be having the most trouble in the group though, which is surprising considering how amazing I thought he was in Django Unchained and Inglorious Basterds.

Wait… they’re different people? No joke?

So anyways, young Christoph Waltz didn’t really seem to have any emotional commitment to his role and felt underwhelming. On the other hand we have Charlie Day and Bern Gorman hamming it up like pros as delightfully cheesy eccentric “mad scientist” archetypes that are a most welcome addition in an original science fiction monster film such as this. I particularly loved Day as a manic scientist obsessed with the Kaiju, going so far as to have the defeated ones tattooed all over his body.

Simple writing, bad acting, you’re probably wondering what’s so special about this film by now, so let me just get it out of the way by saying “Fantastic awesome monster smashing robot fights!”. Now yes, as a student of film I know I’m supposed to look past action sequences and absorb a film for its deeper meanings, but sometimes action is so unique, original, and exceptional that it transcends the shallow depths of other aspects in the film.

The key to these riveting action scenes is that, like many other Del Toro films, there is a lot of heart and personal feeling injected into the action sequences. This is a far cry from the sterile and emotionless action scenes that seem to permeate the landscape of most Hollywood action films. With this film we get the sense that every single action scene advances the story in one way or another, it’s not just an action scene for the sake of having an action scene. Once again I’m going to pick on Transformers 3, which I know is getting old, but when you have so many good examples of bad examples it would be negligent to not use the case studies Mr. Michael Bay has provided us.

So one thing that really boils my blood in action films is the long, drawn out action scene that doesn’t advance the story whatsoever. For example, in Transformers 3 there is a long car chase on a freeway with robots weaving, exploding, and shooting their way through a freeway.

It’s a pretty little scene to be sure, but just think that five whole minutes have passed in a film with absolutely no plot advancement, character development, or even significant dialogue. This scene alone was bad enough, but to make matters worse the finale is almost an hour long and follows the exact same criteria of not advancing the story.

Now you may say “Well how come you like the finale in The Avengers so much?” and the difference is that The Avengers spent an entire movie masterfully flushing out all of the main characters of the film. Every single scene in Transformers 3 that doesn’t revolve around action feels so rushed and condensed that I felt like I was going insane, and then once the action scenes started the story would come to a screeching halt. A story should flow through both slow, methodical, expository dialogue and well shot action scenes in equal measure, action being used to advance critical key elements of the story (the destruction or acquisition of something important to the story, the death of a character, etc.). Imagine the storytelling of The Avengers and Pacific Rim as a smooth, carefree drive through the countryside, while the story in Transformers films is more like a jerky, shuddering stop and go drive through congested city streets, and on top of it the driver is learning to manually shift.

Pacific Rim follows the same format of using action scenes to punctuate important moments of the story. Not a single Kaiju/Jaeger fight occurs without the destruction of a key component, an important character moment, or the advancement of a critical plot point. These action scenes are also crisp, well shot, and deliberately paced while managing to be exciting and action packed. For example, instead of cars racing at each and smashing into things in slow motion every second of the fight, it may take a Jaeger (giant robot) several minutes to close the distance between himself and a monster. Also, each haymaker, each kick, each blow delivered on screen is a long windup that you feel every ounce of energy behind as opposed to the super fast and snappy punches delivered by wisecracking racist robot cars.

So why break the silence of my summer films with this review? Well, I think it’s just really important to spread awareness of an original film to the general audience, especially when the film isn’t getting half of the recognition it deserves. This film is getting pretty ignored by general audiences, and while it is still barely eeking out a top 10 spot in the box office I think it is word of mouth that is keeping it alive. Is is the greatest film ever made? Not by a long shot. However… it is a film that has something for everyone, and you would be hard pressed not enjoy the experience this film delivers.

7 OUT OF 10

I like directing my readers to other works they may enjoy, and for a great listen give the gentlemen on the podcast Reel Junkies a shot. A great and funny poscast featuring knowledgeable insight into film.

http://weekendronin.com/podcast/podcast.html

Iron Man 3

A lot of people are going to hate Iron Man 3. There’s no way around this fact. Sometimes when you see a film you can tell in the first ten minutes that it's going to polarize its audience, especially sequels such as The Hobbit or Die Hard 2: Die Harder. On the other hand, a lot of people will be able to look past the "flaws" of the film and love this movie for the exciting change of pace it brings to the table. So which side of the fence do I fall on? While there are certainly a few things in this movie that I didn’t quite like I can safely say that I really enjoyed this film.

Right from the beginning of this film we know that Shane Black is about to turn this franchise upside down on us. The typical storytelling of Jon Favreau has been replaced by Shane Black’s sharply written Christmas narrative style mixed with his affinity for flashbacks. As a result we begin the film with a flashback to Stark meeting Yensin (as mentioned in the first Iron Man film) at a 1999 engineering convention. We are also introduced to two other characters who will shape the events of the film: Dr. Maya Hansen and Dr. Aldrich Killian. While their meeting is brief and seemingly unimportant at first, Tony lets us know right away that he had just “created his own demons”.

Sadly, these aren’t the only demons haunting poor Tony, as he has been thoroughly shaken to the core following the events of The Avengers. Tony is battling with a massive case of the superhero yips which have plagued him with self-doubt, hallucinations, mania, insomnia, and crippling panic attacks. As a result the man has resorted to building suits of armor full time, culminating in creating a total of 42 suits, most of which he deems as useless. I don’t understand why the studio is so against exploring Tony Stark's legendary status in the comic world as an alcoholic (it would be a perfect way to deal with his anxiety in this film), but this new interpretation of the post-Avengers stresses is certainly a suitable way to show the audience an inventive version of his human weaknesses.

To compound all of these problems, a new terrorist named “The Mandarin” has begun bombing American targets, working his way towards what he calls his “Final Lesson for America”. Fans of the comic will recognize the Mandarin as the closest thing Iron Man has to an arch-nemesis, and his appearance has been hinted since the first film with the appearance of the Army of the Ten Rings (Mandarin’s power stems from his use of ten alien rings). While I can guarantee that this film’s incarnation of the Mandarin is going to cause a lot of controversy in the movie going community (more on that later), one thing that any viewer can agree on is that Ben Kingsley knocks another performance out of the park.

Kingsley’s performance isn’t the only strong suit of the film, because he’s accompanied by a fantastic cast including Rebecca Hall, Guy Pearce, William Sadler, and a criminally underused Jon Favreau. But as great as the entire cast is, the two heroes of the film are what really make this movie shine. Don Cheadle is fantastic as James Rhodes, and while it was a little sad to see Terrence Howard abandon the role in the second film I am glad that Favreau decided that if he was going to trade him out, he might as well trade up as well. At this point I really shouldn’t need to point out how great Downey Jr. is in the titular role of the film, but I really need to make a point of it because he is just sooooooo damn good at it. He has taken a legendary character and managed to make it all his own, just like Heath Ledger managed to do with his famous portrayal of the Joker.

Shane Black brings a breath of fresh air to a film that felt dangerously close to becoming stagnant. As much as I love Jon Favreau both as an actor and a director (any director who relies on practical effects over CG gets a star in my book), repeated viewings of Iron Man 2 have left me with an increasing feeling that the film could have been so much more. While moments of Favreau’s Iron Man brilliance shine through in many parts of the film, it felt like he may have had to push aside some of his greater ambitions in order to begin incorporating elements of the upcoming Avengers film.

While I certainly don’t blame Favreau for the weaknesses of the second film, I couldn’t have been happier with the arrival of Black to take over the franchise. Black has been one of my favorite screenwriters for years with his ability to tell a story better than almost anyone else in the industry, and his trademark narrative style is evident in the opening seconds of the film. One of my favorite overlooked films of the last ten years is his comedic masterpiece Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and as huge as Robert Downey Jr. has become in Hollywood due to the Iron Man film I believe his true comeback was kick-started by his performance in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Luckily, Black hasn’t lost a step for taking on this blockbuster franchise. His talent for witty and touching dialogue pushes the writing of this film into the stratosphere. This is important because of the three films this one is probably the lightest on the action, and Tony only dons the famous armor for maybe ten to fifteen minutes cumulatively throughout the flick. By forcing Tony to face this new adversity without his armor we have a chance to see the resiliency and brilliance that is inherent in Tony Stark, and as a result, this is easily the most human and emotionally connective story of the trilogy. This simple transition allows the audience to not only see why Tony is a hero, but also gives the audience a reason to believe that only Stark has the right to decide who should or shouldn't wear his suits of armor.

Tight camerawork is also key in the film, and the solid direction mixed with the smart writing gives us a film that never lags and never feels like the two and a half hour film we are treated to. Best of all, this flick comes off as sort of an “anti-Michael Bay” action flick, a movie that does not feel like the overproduced and empty shells that Bay films have become. True, it’s not as action packed as Bay’s films are, but I would rather have well flushed out and realized characters over the near eighty minute final action scene in Transformers 3 that left no lasting impressions in my mind.

Luckily, when the film does deliver action scenes it delivers them in spades. This film contains some of my favorite action set pieces of the last ten years, including an exhilarating mid-air rescue, an epic confrontation at an oil production facility, and my favorite, a gunfight between mercenaries and a partially armored Tony Stark at a manor. Fantastic humor and one-liners are sprinkled through the action scenes, one of my favorite involving a clueless Tony keep trying to give Rhodes his pistol magazines because he doesn’t understand that magazines aren’t universal between different models of guns. The talented Black has a knack for delivering humorous action pieces that are both unique and familiar for this beloved franchise, and it’s one of the main reasons I think this hand off between Favreau and Black was such a good idea.

Unfortunately, there are problems with the film, and I am about to seriously delve into spoiler territory so if you haven’t seen the film please scroll down past the large END OF SPOILER TERRITORY banner for my final thoughts and score.

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One of the largest problems I had with the film was the role of Mandarin, or rather, the absence of him. In a nutshell, it’s revealed in the middle of the second act that the Mandarin was a made up threat so that Aldrich Killian could disguise his accidental explosions as terrorist attacks. It’s a brilliant tactic in storytelling, and I’m amazed that the studio was able to keep this game changing plot point out of the public eye the way they did. It kind of reminds me of the trick they initially wanted to pull with Predators, which in my mind could have been one of the greatest marketing campaigns in Hollywood history had it worked out.

But these guys succeeded, and as a result we are going to have a film that a lot of people are going to complain about. Personally I think it was a brilliant move, but my only issue with this plot point is that Mandarin is sort of a big deal in the comics, in fact he’s more or less the closest thing that Tony has to an arch-nemesis in the comics. Pulling a bait and switch like this on a major character in the film is one thing, but to do it to what is essentially a villain that they have been building towards since the very first Iron Man film sort of feels like a cop out.

As a reference, imagine watching the Harry Potter franchise from the beginning. Imagine all the tension and all the excitement you felt rising during all those years they built up for the final showdown between Harry and Lord Voldemort. Now imagine you go to see the final film Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows: Part 2, and about thirty minutes into the film Voldemort gets shot in the face by this asshole…

… and now the film revolved around a final showdown between him and Harry. You’d probably be a little pissed off right? Now imagine you’re a lifelong fan of the comic, and you’ve been waiting forever to see a confrontation between Mandarin and Iron Man, but surprise! Bait and Switch!

What makes this even more of a travesty is the fact that it almost feels like The Avengers perfectly set up the story for the Mandarin to appear. In the comic the Mandarin received his powers from ten rings he found on a crashed alien craft, and if you would have put that in the first or second Iron Man film it would have felt out of place in this relatively grounded comic property. But now since the failed alien invasion from The Avengers left plenty of crashed alien craft lying all over the floor of the Earth it seems like this storyline could finally be realized.

BUT… as much as I may not like this small detail, I can absolutely say that I did not see this plot twist coming, and it’s one of the few films that has been able to pull the wool over my eyes in quite a while. Plus, when you think about it, this could be seen as just a different view on the character of Mandarin since Guy Pearce brought it up on several occasion that he was the Mandarin.

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This film was a fantastic new look at an already solid film franchise. With a fresh perspective on the property, solid writing, fantastic direction, and outstanding performances all around, Iron Man 3 sets an early standard for this summer that I find hard to believe any other film can top.

9.25 out of 10

I like directing my readers to other works they may enjoy, and for a great listen give the gentlemen on the podcast Reel Junkies a shot. A great and funny poscast featuring knowledgeable insight into film.

http://weekendronin.com/podcast/podcast.html

April Rewind: The World's Fastest Indian

In a lot of ways, my rewind articles are my favorite to write. They expose the reader to great films they may not know about while at the same time give exposure to a great film that a lot of people don’t know about. What makes this entry so special though is that it’s the first entry for a film that’s based on a true story, even though the true story itself is so insane that even Ripley’s Believe it or Not would find this far-fetched.



The World’s Fastest Indian tells the charmingly true story of Burt Munro’s legendary 1967 record attempt at the Bonneville Flats. For those of you unfamiliar with the story of Burt Munro his story is one of the greatest in the history of sporting, right up there with Olympic “Miracle on Ice” and the Ali vs. Liston fight. It’s a truly inspiring story about a man who set his mind on accomplishing the impossible, and spent over forty years working towards just that.

First, some history on the event. One week a year an event is hosted at the Bonneville Flats called Speed Week. It’s a big deal in the racing community because the expansive salt flats are a perfect track for setting records and many speed records have been set at this event. It’s a place where the best and brightest drivers in the world show up with top of the line vehicles capable of incredible speeds. So imagine one day when this sixty eight year old man from New Zealand walks into your race…

 

And he’s trying to do it with this vehicle…

 

Oh wait, sorry, I meant this motorcycle…

 

A 1920 Indian Scout, a motorcycle that was never intended to go faster than 30 miles per hour, and Burt was trying to top 200 miles per hour with it. To top it all off, the man was bats**t crazy, removing entire segments and safety features of his bike in favor of smaller, lighter components. Things like shocks, brakes, and forks were removed or weakened to the point of breaking, and Munro didn’t have a single safety feature necessary for the flats such as a parachute or fire extinguisher. He didn’t do this overnight, in fact he spent 47 years of his life modifying his motorcycle for the event, getting into countless crashes and accidents along the way while perfecting his craft.

How was he allowed to race? Well, he was intensely lovable and friendly, making him a truly unique character in record-setting history, and he just sort of charmed his way into racing. It was also a different world back then, an America that was willing to take chances and explored the idea of thinking outside the box. If Burt Munro had shown up today with his motorcycle he would have gotten his ass kicked right out of the race It’s an incredibly interesting story about an incredibly interesting man set in an incredibly interesting time in America, and making his long journey into an accurate and faithful adaptation is a great idea that pays off big time.

The big draw of the film is seeing Anthony Hopkins act the hell out of his role. It got to the point where friends and family of Munro said that even though Hopkins didn’t look a thing like Munro they still thought it was him reincarnated, the same kind of praise that was given to George C Scott for his portrayal of General Patton. I’ve always been a huge fan of Anthony Hopkins (who isn’t these days?), but I’ve noticed that lately he hasn’t really gotten many roles that require him to be anything but Anthony Hopkins. So imagine my delight when I see Hopkins in a role so utterly different and unique that you forget that it’s Hopkins at several points.

The direction and story telling elements of the film are basic, but solid, offering a lot of interesting simple moments in an already interesting trek across the US by a foreigner. It’s a funny story even without the stuff that happens to the poor man along the way. Stories like this don’t need a lot of padding, so the writing and direction are perfectly what they need to be for the audience to get emotionally attached to the character of Burt Munro. It may seem like a simple film, but the neat story of Burt Munro and the solid writing never let the story and film feel like they are lagging before they get to the events at Bonneville.

Something else I really liked about movie was the way they portrayed the other American racers once he got to Bonneville. Most adaptations of a sports film would have them be a bunch of dicks as soon an Burt showed up, taunting him with things like “Hey old man, you expect to win this race with that thing?” followed by a round of dickish high fives and guffaws at the expense of the old man. It’s the easy way to get the audience to root even more for the protagonist, make him the underdog against a bunch of jerks like Daniel-san in The Karate Kid. It’s not even bad film-making to pull this kind of trick, it’s cheap and manipulative yes, but it’s effective as well because it strengthens that emotional connection we have with the character.

As much as I loved Steven Spielberg I’ll be the first to admit that he really over-relied on this tactic during his films. How do we make Chief Brody more likable in Jaws? Make him the lone dissenting voice amid a sea of dickish politicians. How do we make the characters in E.T. more relatable to the audience? Make the government agents trying to find him (agents who are doing this for national security mind you) unnecessarily cruel and cold. Yeah, Minority Report is really good, but how can we make the audience side with Tom Cruise even more? Make the agent tailing him a shallow and unlikeable career-hungry asshole instead of taking the time to create a well developed character.

Not the case in World’s Fastest Indian however. Once Munro finally gets all the way to the Bonneville Flats the film goes out of its way to talk about how great the other racers were to him, going out of their way to get around regulations so he could drive, setting him up with living arrangements (he had been living out of his car until that point), and generally doing everything they could do get Burt entered into the events. The film doesn’t resort to tropes in order to establish a stronger connection, and the movie comes out stronger for it.

The World’s Fastest Indian is a great example of a film that can go miles just by following incredible events that happened in real life without resorting to clichés. The surprisingly awesome Disney sports film Miracle followed this same blueprint and as I just mentioned, it came out surprisingly awesome. Sometimes real life truly is stranger and more magnificent than fiction, and this film does a great job of reminding the audience of the wonderful things that can be accomplished if you just stop being so afraid of taking risks like Burt Munro.

9 out of 10

I like directing my readers to other works they may enjoy, and for a great listen give the gentlemen on the podcast Reel Junkies a shot. A great and funny poscast featuring knowledgeable insight into film.

http://weekendronin.com/podcast/podcast.html