Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Doctor Who: The Snowmen Review

H-allelujah! Hallelujah, hallelujah!

Spoilers fall upon this page.

Alright, after two months, Doctor Who is back... before it goes away for another four months. Annoying hiatuses that would make my head explode if I didn't know Moffat wasn't busy writing Sherlock (H-allelujah! Hallelujah, hallelujah!) aside, it's time to review the latest DW X-Mas special. Now, like most Whovians, I have mixed feelings about the Christmas specials. I liked the Christmas Invasion, I liked The End of Time, I really liked A Christmas Carol, but for those there's still... the Next Doctor, the Runaway Bride, and the Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe. That's why I was thoroughly surprised when this episode blew me away.

So when this starts off, the Doctor's become lonely and miserable. He's holed up in the TARDIS in Victorian England, he won't talk to anyone except Strax,Vash, and Jenny (great seeing them again), and the deaths of the Ponds still haunt him. But a monster has come to town, specifically the Great Intelligence (voiced by IAN MCKELLAN!!!!), which is using snow and the nefarious Dr. Simeon to reach his goals of attaining a physical form.

I'm not gonna lie, when I first saw the Snowmen monsters in the trailers, I thought they looked wicked cheesy and this episode was just gonna be a showcase for the show's low special effects budget. But not only were the Snowmen effective, albeit slightly underdeveloped, villains (as were Ian McKellan and the guy who played Simeon who's name escapes me), they were far from the main point of the episode.

The point of the episode was Jenna-Louise Coleman as Clara. I pretty much fell in love with Clara from the get-go (not just 'cause she's wicked hot-which she is); she was smart (one word answer riddles anyone), she was funny, she was curious, she was tough, she could actually talk faster then the Doctor (apparently that's the reason Coleman was cast) and they had really good chemistry, she was basically everything I liked about Rose amped up to 11, but with the whole River Song-style mystery surrounding her.

The mystery, in case you forgot, was that Coleman appeared in Asylum of the Daleks as well and apparently died, which she did again here. Yeah, you thought Rory was Kenny, now we've got Clara; they obviously didn't explain how she came back to life because that would take the fun out of the whole thing, and I'm glad they didn't, because this is a great mystery. I'm wicked intrigued, and I can't wait to see where this goes. I just have to wait until April to find out. Sigh.

Moffat put in his usual great dialogue into this episode, too. The banter was so hilarious, especially from Vash, Jenny, and Strax (here's hoping for that Spin-off to happen) that I lost track of the number of times I laughed (which culminated when Vash and Jenny showed up at the house and Vash said to the maid "Hello, I'm a lizard woman from the dawn of time, and this is my wife"). The music by Murray Gold was great as usual, same goes for the new, squeal-inducing opening titles and spectacular TARDIS interior (also, loved how they inverted the usual line with "It's smaller on the outside).

Overall, this was just a great episode. It's one of my favorites of the new season/series/you know what I mean, right up there with Asylum of the Daleks and The Angels Take Manhattan.

Final Rating: 95%

Also, just a quick side note: this will be my last post of 2012. I'll be back on New Year's Day with my best and worst movies of 2012 posts, so I will see you then.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey movie review

Okay, so at one point last year I read that David Tennant was almost cast as Bilbo Baggins. My response to this was "hell yeah, forget Freeman. Let's get Tennant." Now that I've seen the movie, Tennant can wait to play Gandalf when they reboot the franchise in 25 years.

No spoilers.

Okay, sorry I'm late with this review, but its here. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey starts Martin Freeman from Sherlock as Bilbo, which, if you didn't surmise from my opening joke, is probably one of the best casting choices ever made. He is perfect as Bilbo. He nails everything: the lines, the mannerism, the whole sense of anxiety, its perfect. That being said, one of my biggest problems with the movie was Bilbo didn't really feel like the main character. I mean I know he is, given the eponymous Hobbit thing, and he does get some great lines and character development, but he really felt more like Han Solo in a New Hope: an important afterthought, but still an afterthought.

Anyway, like I said, Martin Freeman's a great Bilbo, and everyone else is great too; Ian McKellan nails it as Gandalf (still only the Grey at this point) again, this time arguably even more badass then in Lord of the Rings. Granted, he doesn't take on another Balrog, but he's still kicking some major tail. The guy who plays Thorrin who's escapes me is also awesome; Thorrin is basically the Aragorn of this movie, and of all the dwarves, he's the most developed and has the most fleshed out back story.

Let me touch on that: I like all the dwarves so far (their singing is so awesome), but not all of them feel like actual characters cannon fodder. Sylvester McCoy's dwarf is done nicely, as are the two brothers(?) with rhyming names that I can't spell. Beyond that though... Odds are we're gonna start to care about them in the next two... which is when they'll start to die.

And now for the pacing; I'm gonna say the same thing about the pacing that everyone will: it had some issues. There were a lot of scenes that I thought were kind of unnecessary, especially this one part that I won't spoil, but I will say that while it was really cool, after I thought about, I realized it probably should've been left for the director's cut. Don't get me wrong, it was a really freaking cool scene, but still. Same goes for a couple of  other sequences that I just thought could've been either cut down by a few minutes and removed all together. It goes like this: first twenty mintutes: awesome. Next thirty minutes I looked at the clock on my phone a few times. Then after that it really picks up and its absolutely fantastic with awesome fighting and battle scenes and just epic moments in general with great music (as in I'm probably going to buy these songs on my iPod great) and good special effects (I know some people are gonna say it was a CGI crapfest, but wasn't. There is a lot of CGI, but its not horrendously overused), and a lot of great humor too. I actually laughed a lot more then I expected to. Granted, I know that the book the Hobbit is more whimsical then the books the Lord of the Rings, but I was still surprised by the amount of times I laughed.

There are two characters in the movie I think I need to address now, and the first is Radagast the Brown. A lot of people are gonna hate this guy. I personally didn't, heck I even laughed at one or two things he did while he was trying to cure his little CGI porcupine (named Sebastian), but there will be some people who call him the Jar Jar Binks of Middle Earth. Again, I don't think he is, and neither did my friends that I saw it with. But if you do feel that way, he's only like ten minutes of the movie, so don't worry.

The next character is Gollum. Bilbo and Gollum in the cave together was the best part of the entire movie. I could've watched that for two hours. Gollum looks great too; the effects have made it so he really looks like he's there now, and Andy Serkis, as usual, deserves the Oscar that he won't get. But that sequence was just so entertaining. I actually can't even really tell why it's so great without spoiling it, so that's a bit of a bummer.

The last thing I'm going to address is the 48 frames per second speed. I have no idea what I saw this movie in, I really don't. When I was looking at times for showings on my theater's website, all it said was "showing is in 2D". I'm going to assume that I saw it in 24 frames per second because of that fact that at no point did I think it was on fast forward, so yeah.

Also, just as a side note, without spoiling anything, there was a cameo in this movie that people are gonna find polarizing. I personally really liked it; I got a great kick out of it, and really appreciated the way that they did it. That being said, the guy next to me hated it and thought it was totally unnecessary and indulgent. So be warned, you will be polarized.

In the end, I will say that the Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a movie night classic.

Alright, so what's your favorite Lord of the Rings/Middle Earth movie, which can include the Hobbit? Comment below, let me know!

Saturday, December 15, 2012

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King movie review

I got no jokes, lets just talk Lord of the Rings.

Warning: this review is spoilerific!

Here we are at the final chapter! Frodo, Sam, and Gollum are almost at Mt. Doom, while pretty much everyone else is going to war.

Okay, last review I started out with Frodo and Co., this one I'm starting out with Aragorn and Co. The Orcs are coming, and as usual, Aragorn doesn't have enough men to fight the battle. So he, Legolas, and Gimmely go to this cave where they recruit and army of ghost soldiers with one of the most epic speeches ever. Aragorn's just like "WHAT HAVE YOU!" and it riles everyone up. Back at the city of kings, Gandalf and Pippin (Pippin's safety is in danger) are there talking to John Noble (terrible idea) and you know what, I'm just gonna skip over all this stuff. Long story short, Pippin and Gandalf are at the city, Merry and Arren are heading into battle, and the trio of awesome are bringing in the cavalry. I swear, first time I watched this, I thought, "everything is falling into place". And it is; they are setting up for the huge battles that will dominate the rest of this movie. Everyone is where they need to be for the fight(s).

Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam are being driven apart by Gollum. Sam knows that Gollum's a nutjob; he's even seen him talking to himself, plotting to kill them to get the ring. But, yet again, Frodo won't buy it. And, in the most painful seen in movie history, Gollum succeeds. Frodo makes Sam walk away, and it was sad. My reaction "No, that cannot happen! That did not just happen!" Haven't reacted like that since Wash died (RIP).

Then Gollum is finishing out his plot by leading Frodo into the den of Shelob, the giant spider. He traps him in the cave, and Shelob wants to eat him. Here's the thing: if you have arachnophobia, fast forward through this seen. I know a guy who can't watch this movie because of Shelob, 'cause it is THAT big. Anyway, Shelob wraps Frodo up, and then Sam, who you knew wouldn't abandon his friend, shows up and shouts "leave him alone!" and takes it down! Its epic. This is the movie that proves not only is Sam an awesome badass, but he is literally the greatest friend ever.

Back at the City of Kings, the fight to end all fights is going down. It is so huge that its almost ridiculous (and so epic). And then Aragorn shows up with his army of ghosts and they mow the enemy down. It was awesome (and so epic). But then after the whole bit is over, Aragorn realizes that Frodo needs time to destroy the ring. So he assembles everyone who's not dead and they go to the gates of Mordor and have the actual battle to end all battles. Everyone just charges in and holy crap it awesome. I can't even begin to describe just how epic this fight is. Just imagine it in your head, just imagine everyone and their grandma trying to waste each other.

Meanwhile, Sam and Frodo have reached Mordor, Sam actually has to carry Frodo into Mt. Doom because the Ring's worn him down that much, and then Frodo is standing over the lava, about to drop the Ring in. But he doesn't just drop it in, because that would be anticlimactic. Frodo gives in puts the Ring on, turns invisible, Sam and you just shout "NOOO!!!" and Sauron's eye freaks out. And then Gollum shows up, which I've never been more thankful for. Gollum decks Frodo and BITES Frodo's finger off the get the ring, and then  falls into the lava, taking the Ring with him. Sam saves Frodo, and the look on my and anyone's face when I saw that was "whoa".

The fighting's done, the Ring is gone, and Sauron's dead, but it doesn't end their. It's time for the Return of the King ending. You might've heard that before: basically, this movie ends five more times in the last 1/2 hour. It is a good thing, too, to give closure to all the characters, but you do start to feel worn out after awhile (I watched the extended version the first time I saw this, too, so at one point I just thought "can this end already?"). Basically, Aragorn becomes king and marries his elf girlfriend and your happy for them, the Hobbits return to the Shire, Sam marries that girl he had a crush on in Fellowship (after what he's been through, he's more then earned it), but Frodo just can't go back to regular life.

I don't blame him, I mean after all that he just can't handle everyday stuff anymore. So he and Bilbo go to the Elven holy land with the elves. This breaks the other Hobbits' hearts, too; Sam's crying, but in the end he lets Frodo go because Frodo needs to. And then in the last scene of the movie is this silent shot of Sam with his wife and kids and the movie ends. Is that a downer ending? Maybe a little, but I loved it. It was the perfect ending- well, perfect five endings.

Return of the King is my favorite Lord of the Rings movie, its one of my favorite movies ever period, and in the end I saw Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King, and there was much rejoicing!

So, what's your favorite movie ever? Comment below, let me know!

Saturday, December 8, 2012

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers movie Review

So its pretty obvious who'd win a fight between a Gandalf and Dumbedore. A good question would be who'd win a fight between Treebeard and and army of Ewoks.

Major Spoilers.

The Fellowship is broken: Boromir's dead, Pippin and Merry are captured, Arargon, Gimmely, and Legolas are going after them, and Frodo and Sam are continuing their quest to Mt. Doom. And the forces of evil are trying to kill them all. Yeah.

The movie starts off and Frodo is messed up. Why? Well, he's carrying the Ring and Gandalf just died for starters. So, Frodo and Sam are traveling towards Mordor, but they don't really know where they're going. And that's where Gollum comes in, to which my response is "hell yeah!" Gollum is what happens to you if you've had the ring for too long. He had it for like 500 years or something, it's made him a disfigured nutjob with multiple personality. He is one of the greatest movie villains ever. I feel weird about calling him a villain, too, because in Two Towers he tries to do the right thing at first, but in the end he does give into his desire for the ring. Andy Serkis as Gollum... wow. Just wow. The whole thing was done with motion capture, which the Academy's excuse for not giving him the Oscar for best supporting actor (pathetic excuse, mind you). He should've won an Oscar, which is the highest praise you can give a performance, but it still feels like I'm understating it. It's that good.

So he's leading Frodo and Sam to Mordor, and the entire time he's arguing with himself whether or not to kill the Hobbits and take the Ring. At one point he decides not to because Frodo's the first person to be nice to him in literally centuries, but the whole time you know he's gonna snap. Sam knows that too, and that's starting to drive a wedge between him and Frodo. That doesn't really start to happen until Return of the King, but the seeds are planted in this movie. It's painful to watch, too, because you don't want to see them get driven apart because they basically have the ultimate bromance.

That being said, they're journey to Mordor with Gollum is one of my favorite parts of the movie, especially as you see all these armies just move past them, and at one point they're captured, and you know they're gonna get out, but it just feels epic. At the end of the movie, Frodo and Sam are talking, and goes really nostalgic again because Sam's telling Frodo they'res gonna be books about him, and Frodo tells Sam there'll be books about him too. And you believe it. Sam is the only sidekick in the history of movies that genuinely feel like this story could not be told without him. Usually the only way a sidekick ever seems to matter is if he pulls a Nightwing, but Sam stays by his friend until the end, and it's awesome. And then you cut to Gollum and he's decided to kill the hobbits and that freaked me out.

Meanwhile, the three tall badasses of the story are looking for Merry and Pippin. They're hauling ass looking for them too, because they only have so long before the orcs kill them. And on the way, they meet Gandalf, who, as it turns out, got a comic book death. Except now he's the White Wizard, meaning he is a giant badass. They go to this kingdom, and they free the king who's been under the control of Sauron, and then they realize they need to get to Helm's Deep to fight of the Orcs.

I'm just gonna cut straight to Helm's Deep if that's alright with you guys (yes that means I'm skipping over Gimmely's hilarious speech about dwarves DON'T pop up out of holes in the ground- oh wait, I just did). They're at Helm's Deep, and things are looking pretty bad. A MASSIVE army of Orcs is coming to wipe them all out, and they don't have nearly enough men to hold them off. A battalion of elves shows up to help them out, and you think "okay, they might survive this". And then one of the best battles in the history of movies take place. It is so epic and so many heads roll it is ridiculous. I always loved how during this Legolas and Gimmely are counting how many they kill during the fight to see if they can outdo each other, too, 'cause its really funny.

This battle is actually why I Two Towers was my favorite LOTR movie for awhile. Eventually I decided I like Return of the King better, but seriously this fight is awesome. The fact that anyone makes it out alive is astonishing.

And now I'm going to talk about the thing everyone cites as the bad thing Two Towers: the Ents. I don't the same hatred of the Ents that some people seem to, but I'm not especially fond of them. They're just holding Pippin and Merry captive the for a lot of the movie trying to decide what to do with them, and its a bit slow. It doesn't help that Treebeard, the leader, talks...wicked...freaking...slowly, and that the whole thing is a tad boring. It pays off at the end, because the Ents just show up and trash Tower #1 in an also very sweet fight, but still.

But in the end, I saw Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and there was much rejoicing!

So, what you're favorite second movie in a franchise? Comment below, let me know!

Saturday, December 1, 2012

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring movie review

Alright, guys, I know it's been awhile; I decided to take a week off for Thanksgiving because that was just a hectic week for me. But I'm back, and in honor of the Hobbit in all it's soon to be released glory, let's talk some Lord of the Rings.

Spoiler alert!

So, with the Hobbit coming out soon, but not soon enough, I figured this'd be a good way to prepped. So, The Fellowship of the Ring starts off with this big flashback about basically the history of Middle Earth. There was this guy Sauron, who was CRUSHING everyone else until eventually all the humans, elves, and dwarves teamed up to stop stop him. They do that-sort of. Only problem is that his ring survived, and his ring basically has his soul inside of it. Flash forward 3000 years, and we're in the Shire, home of the Hobbits. Specifically Bilbo Baggins, the current owner of the Ring, and his nephew Frodo, the main character of the movie.

Then one day Gandalf the Grey, who's basically the greatest wizard in the history of film (sorry Dumbledore, but Gandalf would kick your ass), comes to see his old friend Bilbo, who's celebrating his 111 birthday. It's at this point that we realize something that I personally love about the LOTR: it's ability to switch tones flawlessly. Let me explain: the first ten minutes, the flashback, are really epic and dark, and then we get to the Shire and it's...happy. Nostalgically happy even. That's something these movies do a lot (go from epic to sentimental to epic again on a dime), and you buy it, too. It's something  in these movies I think people don't talk about enough.

Anyway, so eventually Bilbo skips town, and the Ring (which turns you invisible when you put it on, I should've mentioned that earlier) is now in the hands of Frodo, and at Gandalf's advice, leaves town himself with the Ring. But his gardener, Samwise Gamgee (Rudy himself, Sean Astin), winds up coming along. We don't know it yet, but Sam is going to become the greatest sidekick in the history of film. Along the way they pick up two other hobbits, Pippin and Merry (played by Charlie from LOST!), as well as Aragorn.

Let's talk about Aragorn, shall we: he's the man. He was supposed to be king, but he gave all that up because he wanted nothing to do with it (and 'cause he wanted to shack up with elven Liv Tyler). He's played by Viggo Mortensen, and it's perfect.

Aragorn brings them to Rivendale, where they meet up with Gandalf, Bilbo, Boromir, and an elf and dwarf, Legolas and Gimmley. It's at that point they realize the Ring is evil, and the only way to destroy it is to got to Mt. Doom in Mordor, the place where it was forged, and toss it into the volcano. So they form the Fellowship of the Ring to do the task I just described, and we have the rest of our movie.

From that point on, it's epic. There on the quest of all quests. They're going across mountains, and into caves, and it's awesome. They establish that Frodo is the only one who can carry the Ring because he's the only one it doesn't seem to corrupt (unlike, say Boromir). Then we get to the best seen in the whole movie: they're in this mine that they've been fighting to survive in and then the Balrog comes out. They don't stand a chance, but then, in the event that established Gandalf as not only the greatest wizard ever but also the most badass old dude ever, Gandalf goes up to it while the others run away and screams "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" They have a fight, and then the Balrog drags Gandalf down with him, and it's the single most depressing movie death since Obi-Wan Kenobi (but like his counterpart in Star Wars, he doesn't stay dead for long, but again, that's another movie).

And then we're in the forrest, where Boromir finally gives in and tries to steal the Ring from Frodo, just in time for the Orcs to show up. There's a huge fight, Boromir dies, and the Fellowship breaks. Frodo's trying to get to Mordor by himself now, but Sam won't let him because they've got the ultimate bromance. Pippin and Merry get captured by Orcs, so Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimmely go to get them, and we have ourselves a cliffhanger.

What else is awesome about this movie besides everything I've just said? How about the acting by literally everyone. Sir Ian McKellan's great, Sean Astin's great, Orlando Bloom and the guy who plays Gimmley who's name escapes is great, and Elijah Wood is great as Frodo. That's important to, because Frodo is really the entire point of this story, and he'd been played by a crap actor, the entire franchise would've been worthless. The characters are great too, and the dialogue is the best possible dialogue you could have in a movie a like this. Add in awesome landscapes, fantastic music, and excellent action scenes (I'm not gonna say epic battles yet, because those don't really start until Two Towers), and you've got this movie. And it's awesome! I actually don't have any problems with this movie, because it's the perfect introduction to this world.

And you know what?

I saw Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and there was much rejoicing!

So, what's your favorite franchise-starting movie? Me, still gotta be New Hope. Comment below, let me know!