Reviews

To be fair, I have not read "The Hobbit" but I don't think 300 pages can easily translate into 8 hours on the silver screen. While "Battle of the Five Armies" delivers in spectacle and action, it officially proves once and for all that there was no need to make a trilogy out of a story that could have been a good two and a half hour blockbuster.

The film picks up where Desolation of Smaug (the best of The Hobbit trilogy) left off, with the titular dragon reigning fire over poor Laketown. The dragon voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch was by far the best thing about the previous installment, so much so that I kind of wished Peter Jackson fudged the story a bit to give him more screen time.

Once the beast has been slain, the massive amount of gold at Erebor is now up for grabs, making the Dwarf leader Thorin Oakenshield greedy to the point of insanity. He would rather choose war over peace if that means keeping his gold and title he feels rightfully belongs to him. It is during these scenes, particularly this one hallucination sequence that work the best during the film.

For the most part the film is just one massive climax of battle scenes that are well done, though I can't say I haven't seen better. Like in any climax of the movie all the characters and subplots come together, particularly romances. This particular one between Tauriel and a dwarf feels a bit out of place in the saga like it exists just because Jackson felt that there needed to be a romantic subplot. It also gets in the way of the story's main focus.

Speaking of which, looking back I was amazed a little Hobbit there was in the actual movie. What exactly does Bilbo do in the final chapter? Not much really. The film has other characters to focus on.

While watching I was reminded of Game of Thrones episode "Watchers on the Wall". That was an action-packed hour of television that somehow felt much more emotionally satisfying than this movie. And that wasn't even the series finale.

The film of course looks impressive but while the original "Lord of the Rings" trilogy was filmed on location in New Zealand (and looks like it) the Hobbit trilogy uses so much CGI that at times it actually looks like a Pixar film. It's like Jackson believed that the first trilogy was burdensome enough to make, so lets just use CGI.

I will certainly give the movie this however, Peter Jackson made a smart decision not to bombard us with a half hour of false endings like in "Return of the King". The series is already long enough as it is.

John Woo's latest epic "The Crossing" is being dubbed as the Chinese Titanic and takes the true story of the sinking of the Taiping and brings an epic love story into the midst. Well actually Woo brings three love stories and we see them unfold as they prepare for the epic shipwreck that would perhaps unite them. Like Woo's "Red Cliff" the movie is in two parts which financially makes a lot of sense to do, but whether it was necessary in the narrative sense we can't really judge until part two.

For a movie that focuses mainly of the ship sinking, the first part is pretty much entirely on terra firma. We see the backdrop of the Chinese Revolution, in which the Communists and Nationalists resumed fighting after being temporarily united to fight the Japanese. Much of the film surrounds these battle scenes which are engaging. Woo clearly knows how to direct action. However they lack the intensity of great war films like "Saving Private Ryan" or this year's "Fury". I noticed the blood that is spilled looked very red and there is a lot stylistic flourishes and close ups of guns. The problem is I feel it's a bit too stylized. The horrors of war is still captured through images of wounded but I feel that not enough justice was served.

In the carnage we see a few of the men whose romantic involvements are intersected as we see them talk about their loved ones through letters. I feel that I'm unable to talk in great detail about each love story and characters because that would take up too much review time. Let's just say there's a classic Meet Cute scenario with one of them, and a glossy dance sequence straight out of a Disney cartoon. When I heard John Woo was going to direct a romantic picture, I was sure that they will be a lot of doves and sure enough, there is in fact a sequence with doves. The actors do have chemistry and I look forward to see what would happen to them in Part II although I felt there was some occasionally sappy dialogue. However it never got to be "Pearl Harbor" bad thank goodness.

There is much heart and humor in this film, particularly a scene where a Nationalist and Communist soldier put down their arms to eat a cooked rabbit. John Woo clearly has his heart in the right place. I though much of the scenes did an excellent job of building suspense for the next installment, especially with the historical aspect. However, how he transitions from part one to part two was a pretty big problem.

Take Woo's "Red Cliff", a film I'm proud to say own both parts, not the edited one part version. In that film, the viewers definitely got their money's worth with it's action and characters and it left a cliff hanger that got you excited for part two. The Crossing Part One ends pretty abruptly and feature expository titles cards that tells the audience what to be ready for next installment. It sort of makes sense that Woo would build up characters before the shipwreck on land since the Taiping didn't have a few days before it sank like the Titanic did. However this ending I felt was pretty lazily done and made the audience feel like they just watch a tease for the real thing instead of a good stand alone movie. I like to call this "Deathly Hallow Syndrome".

Nonetheless, the film is always beautiful to look at, and although it certainly has it's problems I am looking forward to part two. I see much potential for it, and if turns out well it might nudge "The Crossing: Part I" up to a more favorable review.

I've always wanted to make a long note trashing M. Night Shyamalan after his destroyed my childhood with that "The Last $#!+bender". However, I feel there's not much I can say that other people haven't said before. Therefore I decided to review his next film "After Earth." I found that it was an improvement from his previous film, not to imply that it's good in any way. Frankly, I'm at the point where I'm wondering if "The Sixth Sense" was any good. It certainly wasn't good enough for Shyamalan to make increasingly awful films while maintaining his credibility in the movie industry. You notice his name wasn't mentioned in any of the ads, trailers, promos, or even the DVD cover. There's a reason for that. However I'm going to try not to trash him too much because in all fairness, this movie isn't 100 percent his fault. Blockbuster king Will Smith originally wrote this story as a vehicle for his son Jaden. I'm sure he's an excellent father but if you want to do something nice for your son, just buy him a car on his sixteenth birthday or something. Don't put him in the movies, particularly movies that ride solely on his acting ability. Though Jaden was at least trying, which is more than I can say for Papa Smith. More on that later... On the posters we get the movie's tag line and main moral of the story: "Danger is Real, Fear is a Choice". Think about how stupid that sounds. Fear is NOT A CHOICE. We have no control over fear. Cowardice on the other hand is a choice. You can be brave and afraid at the same time. The point isn't that we fear, it's how we react to that fear. I'm already tearing this film apart, and I haven't even got the plot itself. About that plot... The movie takes place exactly 1000 years (oddly round number) after humans left Earth for this artificial planet Nova Prime after, of course, "we destroyed it." Yes, we are once again given the lecture about how humans trash the earth forcing us to leave. It's not clear how the earth was destroyed, though it's implied that it was due to global warming or something. On this Nova Prime, the humans are now organized into this United Ranger Corps commanded by Smith Sr. as Cypher Raige. (I'll let that name speak for itself.) The humans life the typical idyllic futuristic life although they often come in conflict with these creatures called Ursas (despite what their name implies, they look nothing like bears). These beasts can't see but can literally smell fear. Cypher Raige however, is fearless and can easily sneak up to slay them with his cutlass. Considering that this is a futuristic, militaristic society, the absence of projectile weapons is nothing short of perplexing. We are then introduced to Smith Jr. as Cypher's son Kitai. He wants to be a ranger like his father but hasn't mastered the fearless aspect yet. Jaden hasn't mastered the acting aspect yet either, which really sucks considering that he's the real protagonist of this movie, not his father. (Though if he was in "The Last Airbender" he would've been the best actor in that movie). In an effort to bond with his son, Cypher takes him on a seeming routine mission. Did I mention this is last mission before retirement? So that's how you know things are going to go smoothly. Of course the ship crashed on Earth and coincidentally Cypher and Kitai are the only survivors. Unfortunately Cypher has two broken legs, so Jaden alone must travel 100 kilometers to the rest of the wreckage to activate a beacon while daddy sits on the sidelines. Will Smith's dialogue in this movie consists of mainly just commands and expositions, all delivered with as little charisma as possible. We also get scientific gobbledygook like: "Graviton build-up could be a precursor to mass expansion". Seriously, couldn't there have been a seen where he goes, "Awwww Helllllll no!" Even the bad and mediocre films Will Smith has been in, he's always shown some confidence. Until now. The rest of the movie is just Jaden Smith traveling across the now dangerous terrain of earth. He must especially be careful because "Every creature has been evolved to kill humans." First of all, how can they evolve to kill humans if humans haven't been there in a thousand years. And besides, the process of evolution takes millions of years not just a millennium. He must also deal with the new extreme climate for at night temperatures go low enough for humans to freeze to death. How can temperatures be cold enough to kill humans but not any of the native flora or fauna? Did they all evolve rapidly to adapt to that too? In the end the main crime of this movie is that it's just plain boring. There's no originally. Plot points are recycled from countless better movies. The plot holes are gigantic. Will Smith is (metaphorically) castrated in this movie acting wise. Frankly I'm not even convinced that the characters are father and son considering they share little father-son chemistry. I'll give this movie a little credit in that it's better than "The Last Airbender". Then again, "After Earth" did not insult a beloved TV show. Maybe the film could have worked if there was some actual thought put into the story. However, all in all, this movie is just another nail in the coffin that is M. Night Shyamalan's career.