R.I.P. Roger Moore: The 2017 James Bond Archives - Final Edition Trading Cards Are A Fitting Goodbye.

The Good: Archive box exclusives, Generally good collectibility, Some truly spectacular autograph card signers, Metal cards are neat, Cool relic cards
The Bad: Orientation issues,
The Basics: The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards make a decent trading card set out of an unfortunately bad James Bond film!


Like many people, yesterday I awoke to the sad news that Sir Roger Moore had died. Roger Moore frequently was underrated and undervalued by James Bond fans, which is ironic because Moore had the most "canon" James Bond films under his belt (Never Say Never Again has licensing issues due to its distribution and its authenticity within the James Bond canon is frequently challenged and counting that film only makes a tie for Moore and Sean Connery having equal quantities of James Bond films). Sir Roger Moore was the James Bond whose films I grew up on and because it was the work I had seen him in the most (other Bond actors having effectively branched out from James Bond or came to Bond later in their careers), I most closely associated Roger Moore with James Bond. His death left me saddened and it seemed fitting that the day after he died, completely coincidentally Rittenhouse Archives released its 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards. As the name suggests, the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are Rittenhouse Archives's last James Bond trading card set for the foreseeable future (unless they do some form of In Memoriam exclusive set for Roger Moore) and so James Bond fans are saying a lot of "goodbyes" over the last twenty-four hours.

The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are actually an incredibly fitting way for fans of the James Bond franchise to say goodbye to Sir Roger Moore, as the trading card set is very heavy in Roger Moore material - the set features four autographed trading cards by Roger Moore and bonus sets from three of Moore's James Bond films - Octopussy, For Your Eyes Only, and A View To A Kill.

The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards allow James Bond fans to complete their Rittenhouse Archives James Bond trading card collection with a lot of flair and some truly impressive cards.

Basics/Set Composition

Fully assembled, the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading card set has 387 cards and is essentially four (or five) sets in one. As well, there is an oversized binder produced by Rittenhouse Archives that holds the entire set, with all of its associated chase cards, which has not always been the case for some of the bigger James Bond trading card sets! The set consists of 83 common cards and 304 bonus cards. The chase cards are mostly available in the packs of cards, though eight of them were incentive or promotional cards and could not be found in any of the packs. The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards were released in boxes of twenty-four packs of five cards each.

Common Cards

The common card set for the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards consists of eighty-three modern-looking trading cards. The entire common set recaps the plot of Die Another Day (reviewed here!). Sadly, the common set for the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are inconsistently oriented. While the backs of every card are portrait-oriented, the fronts of the cards vary between portrait and landscape orientation. That makes the cards something of a pain in the butt to place in the binder as there is no organic way to make the set look good from an orientation point-of-view.

That said, the photograph and writing for the Die Another Day common set in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards is universally wonderful. The 2017 James Bond Archives cards have the traditional UV-resistant coating which is flawlessly applied. The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards feature a great range of vibrant pictures that have not been overly-promoted (and are different from the shots from the Inkworks Die Another Day set from when the film was theatrically released). Interestingly, Rittenhouse Archives included the image from the promotional card within the common set, which is not a usual thing for their trading card sets. The cards have a fresh look to them that makes it a visually-interesting trading card set. The backs are well-written and the cards detail the plot of Die Another Day quite thoroughly. The writing for the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards common set is very entertaining and follows the plot of the film with a lot of detail.

Chase Cards

The 296 chase cards that can be found in packs and boxes of 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition essentially create three additional "common" sets and one bonus parallel set, in addition to more traditional James Bond chase cards. As is the habit in many of the newer trading card releases, there are no bonus card sets that can be completed with even a single case of trading cards; most require at least two cases with ideal collation to assemble the chase sets. The higher-end sets require three to six cases to complete.

The 2017 James Bond Archives trading card set features three extensive bonus sets that require multiple cases to complete. There are retro sets that retell the stories of For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy and A View To A Kill with 36, 32, and 30 cards each. The retro sets in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards illustrate an overall problem with the way Rittenhouse Archives approached their throwback sets (as a holistic collecting issue). Prior retro Throwback sets had up to 102 cards and the detailing on the plot of each movie was as detailed as for the common sets, the films for which Rittenhouse Archives was able to yield less material made for smaller sets. The three retro throwback sets in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are well-written, though they have somewhat more condensed plotting than the common sets (the Octopussy set, for example, devotes a single card to the teaser mission whereas the Die Another Day common set has eight cards for the mission that came before the opening credits in that film!). Rittenhouse Archives did the best they could with the material they were able to cull from the three films in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards, but James Bond trading card collectors are likely to feel like they are getting less for their money on the throwback sets in the Final Edition cards. If Rittenhouse Archives had produced all of the throwback sets at the same time and more evenly distributed them through the last six Archives releases, the throwback sets in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards would not have been so anemic by the numbers.

That said, the photograph and the writing for the throwback sets maintains the high standards of quality that the other retro sets have embodied. The throwback sets, like many of the prior Throwback retro sets are inconsistently oriented and are more problematic to try to put into binder pages in any sensible way. All three of the Throwback sets in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are made of a more retro cardboard stock to make the cards from the older films seem like they were from the period in which the films were released. The For Your Eyes Only and A View To A Kill sets features black and white photography on some of the card backs, but this is nowhere near as problematic as the Throwback sets for the color films that have black and white images on the fronts.

Two per box there are gold parallel cards for the Die Another Day set. The gold parallel set was limited to only 250 of each of the cards. The gold parallel cards are a particularly boring parallel card; they are distinguished from the common versions of their cards by limited gold foil lettering for the title on the front of each card and an individual foil-stamped number on the back, at the bottom of the card. While they are substantively similar to prior James Bond parallel cards, the parallel cards lack any real flash quality to them.

As part of finishing the James Bond trading card line, the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards feature 24 SPECTRE and Skyfall Expansion cards. Found one per box, the twenty-four Expansion cards continue the common card sets from prior releases as bonus cards. The 9 SPECTRE cards for The Complete James Bond come together to form the movie poster for SPECTRE on the back, just like every nine-cards in the common set did. The other fifteen Expansion cards extend the Heroes & Villains, Bond Girls Are Forever, Bond Villains and James Bond Archives sets from prior releases with content from SPECTRE and Skyfall, perfectly continuing those sets and concluding them in a fashion consistent to the original releases.

The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards concluded the 007 Double-Sided (Mirror Cards) card set that was begun early in 2016. The eight cards found in this subset in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards work together with cards found in the two prior sets to create a 24-card bonus card set. These beautiful trading cards feature the incarnation of James Bond on one side and the primary villain on the obverse for each of the James Bond films. The eight cards in the 007 Double-Sided set found in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are every three Bond films starting with the third M3,M6, M9, etc. While this might create a weird ultimate collation the cards themselves are stunning and cleanly printed on a vibrant-looking mirror board that is very fresh looking.

Also found only two per case are two of the twelve Metal cards for the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards. Featuring the movie posters for each of the last twelve James Bond films, the Metal cards are individually numbered on the back and they concluded a very cool set that was begun in the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards. Rittenhouse Archives has recently gotten into metal card production and the metal cards in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards reinforces the argument that Rittenhouse Archives knows exactly what it is doing with that technology!

The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards feature fifteen Relic cards, split between fairly traditional costume cards (albeit in an uncommon portrait orientation) and relic cards of James Bond props. Rather cooly, the Relic card set features a dual relic card with prop materials from two different props from Quantum Of Solace. The costume cards are limited to 200 each and they are pretty typical costume pieces - James Bond suits, a top from a Bond girl and a supporting character or two's costume pieces. Unlike something like a Star Trek costume that has a variety of fabrics or colors, the James Bond costume cards with costume materials from Casino Royale, Quantum Of Solace and Skyfall have fabric swatches that are very consistent and unimaginative. Fortunately, the rarer relic cards are much more variable and intriguing for card collectors and James Bond fans.

As with most media-based trading card sets, the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards feature autographed trading cards. This set of trading cards features a whopping fifty-six autograph cards, which includes awesome autographed materials like autographed costume cards and a gold signature card. The bulk of the autograph cards in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading card set are split between the familiar format of the 40th Anniversary set – which had very small pictures of the character’s head and were oriented in a landscape format – a single Women Of Bond autograph card and the vastly more popular full-bleed style which was portrait oriented with giant images of the characters and a minimal signing space at the bottom. The seven 40th Anniversary style autographs are highlighted by autographs by three different Roger Moore autographs and one extremely limited Daniel Craig autograph. I was pretty psyched that Ben Whishaw signed another card for this set.

In the full-bleed autographs, the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards Rittenhouse Archives included one of the most incredible autograph line ups of all Rittenhouse Archives James Bond card set releases. In addition to a full-bleed Roger Moore autograph, there is yet another George Lazenby signature card. Rittenhouse Archives included first-time signer Tula alongside highly-coveted celebrities like Judi Dench, Halle Berry, Dave Bautista, Michelle Yeoh, Berenice Marlohe, Lea Sedoux, and Jeffrey Wright. Rather impressively, Rittenhouse Archives had held an incredible autograph card from fan-favorite villain Jaws portrayed by Richard Kiel before he died, which they released in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards. Most of the autograph cards in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are from recognizable actors and characters from the James Bond films. This is one of nicest-looking autograph card sets for James Bond trading cards that Rittenhouse Archives has ever produced.

Non-Box/Pack Cards

The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading card set has eight cards not found in any of the boxes or packs. There are three promotional cards – the usual general release, an exclusive one that Rittenhouse Archives is distributing at conventions, and the binder-exclusive promotional card.

The casetopper for the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading card set is a pretty cool Die Another Day movie poster metal card. The Die Another Day variant movie poster cards are not individually numbered, but it is a metal card and it features artwork from the most recognizable movie poster for the film.

Then there are the incentive cards and they are split between the average and the incredible. For every six-cases ordered, collectors of the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards received a Gold Signature Maud Adams as Octopussy autograph card. This card, predictably, looks amazing, though the value of it is not likely to be on part with prior 6-case incentive cards. The nine-case incentive card is an absolutely wonderful Christopher Lee full-bleed autograph card, posthumously released. This Scaramanga autograph card might well be the rarest Christopher Lee autograph card from Rittenhouse Archives and they look incredible!

The final two cards in the 2017 James Bond Archives set were exclusive to the Archive Box. Filling in one of the gaps in the Women Of Bond autograph card set is a Yvonne Shima autograph that was released as an exclusive. As well, Rittenhouse Archives released a true grail card in the form of a Sean Connery cut signature card, which could only be found in the Archive Box. The cut signature cards - the ones I've seen - look absolutely amazing with vibrant, clear signatures from Connery and they represent the only Sean Connery James Bond autograph card from Rittenhouse Archives.

Overall

The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards might not be flawless, but they are a fitting tribute to Roger Moore and the final James Bond films that Rittenhouse Archives had yet to make card sets for. Collectors will want to hunt down everything they can from this set as it closes the book on James Bond - at least for the time - with a very high level of quality.

This set culls images from the James bond films Die Another Day, Octopussy (reviewed here!), For Your Eyes Only (reviewed here!) and A View To A Kill (reviewed here!)!

These cards are available in my online store! Please check them out here: 2017 James Bond Archives - Final Edition Trading Card Current Inventory!

For other James Bond trading card reviews, please check out my reviews of:
2009 James Bond Archives
2015 James Bond Archives
2016 James Bond Classics
2016 James Bond Archives - SPECTRE Edition

8/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

What A Difference A Year Makes: The 2015 James Bond Archives Trading Cards Are Less Spectacular Than Their Predecessor!

The Good: Not prohibitive to collect (yet), A couple of good autograph cards
The Bad: Misprints, Orientation issues, Vast pool of uninteresting autograph signers, Lack of impressive bonus cards
The Basics: The 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards are an awkward idea that makes for a poor sequel that feels rushed and churned out.


As a trading card collector and reviewer, I try to judge each set I encounter on its own. Every now and then, I find one that makes it too hard to do that. The 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards are one such set. While the 2015 James Bond Archives trading cards are only the second James Bond set I have reviewed, after the 2009 James Bond Archives set (reviewed here!), my lukewarm reaction to the 2015 James Bond Archives trading cards cooled even more when I compared them to the 2014 James Bond Archives trading cards. The 2014 James Bond Archives trading cards were chock full of autograph cards and relic cards and, other problems aside, the 2015 James Bond Archives trading card set looks anemic by comparison, having no relic cards, fewer chase cards, and less and lesser autograph trading cards.

As one might expect, the 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards were produced in 2015 by Rittenhouse Archives, one of the biggest producers of non-sport trading cards in the industry, as their annual James Bond trading card release. For the 2015 James Bond 007 Archives cards, Rittenhouse went with a retro look and feel for a couple of the chase sets, following in the tradition and concept of the 2014 James Bond Archives trading cards.

Unfortunately, between misprints, autograph cards that were not returned in time and rejected cards, the 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards had a rushed feel that made for a less remarkable or impressive trading card set than they could have been.

Basics/Set Composition

Fully assembled, the 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading card set has 622 cards and is essentially four (or six) sets in one. As well, there is an oversized binder produced by Rittenhouse Archives that still does not quite hold the entire set. The set consists of 90 common cards and 532 bonus cards. The chase cards are mostly available in the packs of cards, though seven of them were incentive or promotional cards and could not be found in any of the packs. The 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards were released in boxes of twenty-four packs of five cards each.

Common Cards

The common card set for the 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards consisted of ninety modern-looking trading cards. The entire common set recaps the plot of Quantum Of Solace (reviewed here!). One of the immediately problematic aspects of the 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading card common card set is that the cards are inconsistently oriented. Some of the common cards are oriented with a portrait orientation, though most are oriented with the pictures in landscape format. That makes the set problematic to ty to arrange in any sensible way in a binder.

While the 2015 James Bond Archives cards have the traditional UV-resistant coating which is flawlessly applied, there is a rushed quality to the common set. There are some problematic misprints, most notably the repeated lines on both cards 43 and 44. While it is nice that Quantum Of Solace finally gets a full trading card set devoted to it, it is unfortunate that Rittenhouse Archives did not take the time to make sure it was done all right. Between the misprints and the lack of consistent orientation for the cards, the common set is executed problematically.

Chase Cards

The 525 chase cards that can be found in packs and boxes of 2015 James Bond 007 Archives essentially create three additional "common" sets and two bonus parallel sets, in addition to more traditional James Bond chase cards.

The 2015 James Bond Archives trading card set features three bonus sets that require multiple cases to complete. There are retro sets that retell the stories of You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me and Goldeneye with 78, 93, and 102 cards each. These sets, like the Quantum Of Solace set are inconsistently oriented and are more problematic to try to put into binder pages in any sensible way. The You Only Live Twice and The Spy Who Loved Me throwback sets are made of a more retro cardboard stock to make the cards from the older films seem like they were from the period in which the films were released.

One per box there are gold parallel cards for the Quantum Of Solace and Goldeneye sets. Each of those sets were limited to only 125 of each of the cards - though I have yet to figure out how that works with one set being 90 cards, the other being 102 cards and only one of each of those cards being found per box (somewhere, it seems, there should be a stockpile of Goldeneye parallel cards). The gold parallel cards are a particularly boring parallel card; they are distinguished from the common versions of their cards by gold foil "007" on the front of each card and an individual foil-stamped number on the back, in the middle of the card. In addition to being especially annoying to find and collate from the packs to the sets (the card numbers are in the lower left corner, the foil stamped number on the back is in the middle right, which is covered up when one organically shuffles the cards to organize them from the packs!), the parallel cards lack any real flash quality to them.

Continuing the tradition of fleshing out prior common sets that featured the rest of the Bond films as chase cards in new sets, the 2015 James Bond Archives set features SkyFall expansion cards, one per box. The SkyFall expansion cards add cards to the James Bond Heroes & Villains set (6 cards) and Dangerous Liaisons (8 cards). While I'm seldom impressed by common cards as chase cards, the 2015 James Bond Archives SkyFall expansion cards are just a mess. Apparently, there were supposed to be 9 Dangerous Liaisons cards and one was rejected by the studio. Rather than resubmit to make the full nine-card set, Rittenhouse Archives cut the card and the result was three of the eight cards ended up with troubling misprints. DL19 features the last shot of SkyFall on the front, with text on the back about the beginning of the film. Similarly, the card that has the image of M dying does not have text that accompanies it and the film's train combat sequence that is supposed to open the set is on one of the latter cards in the SkyFall Dangerous Liaisons set. While Rittenhouse Archives is already looking into fixing the three error cards (and possibly releasing the ninth card with an image that gets approved), one has to wonder why the card company did not delay the set to get it right (especially when one considers that the set was not a sell-out from the manufacturer).

Then there are the autographs. This set of trading cards features forty-five autograph cards, which is another step down from the prior few James Bond sets. Autograph cards in the 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading card set are split between the familiar format of the 40th Anniversary set – which had very small pictures of the character’s head and were oriented in a landscape format – and the vastly more popular full-bleed style which was portrait oriented with giant images of the characters and a minimal signing space at the bottom. The nineteen 40th Anniversary style autographs are split between big names - Roger Moore, Dolph Lundgren, and Sheena Easton - and actors with minimal influence or interest to collectors. Sure, Stanley Morgan and Shane Rimmer are new signers, but is the concierge from Dr. No actually a character collectors care about? Mathieu Amalric and Lundgren are wonderful first-time signers, but given that they appear in this set on the less-popular format than some of the other signers, it is hard to consider them big selling points for the set! They flesh out an autograph set that inexplicably has a Caroline Bliss (she was A70 in the Complete James Bond set with virtually the same image) and yet another Jesper Christensen autograph card.

In the full-bleed autographs, there are some impressive and hard-to-find autographs, including one James Bond (George Lazenby), Christopher Lee (Scaramanga), Halle Berry, Teri Hatcher and Maud Adams (not as Octopussy). Lee has the grail card from the full-bleed set, as he died just over a week before this trading card set was released. The full-bleed autograph cards are unnumbered, which might be in keeping with prior releases, which is really annoying for collectors trying to complete the set. Also irksome is how many of the signers are duplicates from prior releases . . . when there are several big names that could have been a part of the set. Barbara Bach (from The Spy Who Love Me) still has not been the subject of a full-bleed autograph card and this seems like the set that it would have been perfect for. While Jeffrey Wright was originally slated to sign for this set, his card was delayed. The three SkyFall full-bleed autographs are not the most significant potential signers - Ben Whitshaw, Ralph Fiennes, and Javier Bardem have not yet signed (neither did Adele or director Sam Mendes) - and between the signers who have signed for prior releases and somewhat unremarkable minor-character signers, along with the fact that there are fewer autograph cards than in the prior Bond sets, the 2015 James Bond Archives cards have an unremarkable feel to them.

That leads us to a commentary on the collectibility of the autographs. In general, the autograph cards have decent and fairly even distribution. The thing is, and I don't know why collectors haven't figured this out yet and dealers haven't highlighted it, there are five autograph cards that are ridiculously hard to find in the 2015 James Bond Archives set. Five of the autograph cards are classified as Extremely Limited, meaning that the signers signed less than 200 of each card. While some of these have inherent value - Roger Moore, Christopher Lee's final card release - the other three are more hit or miss - George Lazenby is hardly the most popular Bond and Nadja Regin and Yvonne Shima are both obscure characters and have signed for prior trading card releases. What people have not seemed to do yet (save dealers who opened a ton of cases of these cards!) is run the numbers. Assuming that those five cards were actually signed at 200 of each card and taking into account that all five of the autographs were found in the archive boxes (let's very conservatively assume there were 30 Archive boxes), that means that any one of those Extremely Limited autographs is found at a rate of 170 out of 8500 (the number of boxes of 2015 James Bond Archives cards). My experience of opening 18 cases netted only one Extremely Limited autograph in every other case. That means that the five Extremely Limited autographs should have some inherent value to the trading card collectors . . . but they are still consistently selling for less than $100 each, which is insanely low compared to their rarity. The full-bleed autograph cards of Regin and Shima are unlikely to reach a value on par with their rarity because the characters/performers are comparatively obscure.

Non-Box/Pack Cards

The 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading card set has seven cards not found in any of the boxes or packs. There are three promotional cards – the usual general release, an exclusive one to conventions that Rittenhouse Archives attended, and the binder-exclusive promotional card.

The casetopper for the 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading card set is a fairly bland SPECTRE preview card, which continues the downward trend of casetopper cards (they used to be cool autograph, sketch or autographed costume cards!). The SPECTRE cards are not individually numbered, foil or even sealed into their toploaders!

Then there are the incentive cards and these follow the trend of recent Rittenhouse Archives releases! For purchasing six cases, dealers received a gold series autograph of Britt Ekland as Mary Goodnight from The Man With The Golden Gun. Ekland's autograph card is another example of a step down from the prior release (the 2014 Archives set had a Roger Moore gold series autograph for the six-case incentive), though the card looks good. For buying nine cases, dealers were given a Daniel Craig autographed costume card. They were limited and hand-numbered to 250 and are a tough sell after the Craig/Judi Dench dual autograph that was the comparable incentive card last year!

The final card in the 2015 James Bond Archives set is the Archive Box exclusive George Lazenby gold series autograph card. Found only in the archive boxes, which were randomly inserted into cases in addition to being an eighteen-case incentive for dealers, the Lazenby autograph is similarly undervalued as the rest of the set.

Overall

The 2015 James Bond Archives set is a set designed to keep interest in James Bond collecting through the release of SPECTRE this winter and foreshadow inevitable future releases that make full common sets for SkyFall and SPECTRE. Unfortunately, the annual release of a James Bond set was treated with less respect, enthusiasm and access than prior James Bond releases. The result is a placeholder set that feels like a placeholder . . . and an unfortunately sloppy one at that.

This set culls images from the James bond films Quantum Of Solace, You Only Live Twice (reviewed here!), The Spy Who Loved Me (reviewed here!) and Goldeneye (reviewed here!)!

These cards are available in my online store! Please check them out here: 2015 James Bond Archives Trading Card Current Inventory!

For other trading card reviews, please check out my reviews of:
Star Trek Aliens
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 trading cards
Cryptozoic DC Comics Super-Villains

4/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Peter Jackson Fails To Make The Hobbit Legendary With The Complete Motion Picture Trilogy Collection!

The Good: Acting is fine, Plot develops fine, Special effects
The Bad: Unremarkable plot, Reversals, Ridiculously low character development
The Basics: The Hobbit Trilogy is not Peter Jackson’s crowning achievement as it dilutes the magnificence of his The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy.


When New Line and MGM decided to make The Hobbit, I was one of the people who was exceptionally happy when Guillermo Del Toro was replaced with Peter Jackson. Peter Jackson did an incredible job at adapting J.R.R. Tolkein’s novels to make his cinematic The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy (reviewed here!). Unfortunately, Jackson was unable to get lightning to strike twice by making The Hobbit Trilogy equally memorable and impressive.

The Hobbit Trilogy is a surprisingly uncomplicated film series that is a prequel to The Lord Of The Rings. The film collection for The Hobbit consists of:
An Unexpected Journey
The Desolation Of Smaug
The Battle Of The Five Armies

The Hobbit Trilogy is set in Middle Earth and is set well before The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy and includes important elements that lead into the Trilogy Jackson produced a decade prior. As Middle Earth darkens from the emerging presence of Sauron, the wizard Gandalf The Grey visits Hobbiton. There, he enlists the restless hobbit, Bilbo, to join a company of dwarves that is headed to the ruined dwarven city of Erebor. Bilbo is hired to be the company’s burglar, which Gandalf and Thorin Oakenshield – the leader of the company and the presumptive king of the dwarves – believe they will need as Erebor is under the oppressive control of the dragon Smaug. Setting out from Hobbiton, the company of dwarves runs afoul of trolls, orcs and immense spiders which all threaten their chances of getting to Erebor. In the kingdom of the goblins, underground, Bilbo is separated from the dwarves and he encounters Gollum, a creature whom he exchanges riddles with. He escapes thanks to finding a ring of invisibility by chance.

The company escapes into the realm of the Elves, who distrust the dwarves. Once the Dwarves arrive at the Lonely Mountain, they find the Dwarven Nation impossible to enter, until Bilbo figures out how to find the secret door. Entering the mountain realm, Bilbo squares off against Smaug. In doing so, Bilbo inadvertently enrages the dragon and it goes out and destroys the nearby human city of Laketown. With Smaug no longer looking over the mountains of treasures in the Dwarven Nation, the humans, orcs, and elves descend upon the Lonely Mountain to take the gold. But the company is beset from within by Thorin, who has become obsessed with the treasure and the mythical Arkenstone which will solidify his claim to the dwarven throne.

The Hobbit is a very straightforward quest story and after witnessing the quest to destroy the source of all evil in Middle Earth, there is something incredibly underwhelming about a story that eventually gets around to being about one man’s obsession. Thorin Oakenshield is determined until late in the story when he becomes absolutely obsessed with hoarding the same riches that Smaug accumulated. Unlike the One Ring, which is fueled by Sauron’s evil, the mountain of gold has no supernatural reason for the obsession it brings to Thorin, Smaug, and all the others who covet it.

The company of dwarves is surprisingly large – a dozen strong – but only three of them are actually distinct. Thorin, the aged Balin and the young, elf-loving Kili are the dwarves with substantive characters. The rest are just filler and that makes it hard to invest in the bulk of the company.

The Hobbit features Martin Freeman as Bilbo and the role is unlike any of his other parts. He is not at all goofy, not regulated to simply supporting another, more forceful actor. Instead, he perfectly embodies Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo is clever and ethical. He has the heart of an explorer from a people who usually want to simply be left alone and Freeman finds the balance incredibly well.

Director Peter Jackson makes Middle Earth look as amazing as he did in The Lord Of The Rings. The story of The Hobbit might not be exceptional, but the look and feel of it is consistent with the rest of Jackson’s Middle Earth Saga. As a result, The Hobbit stands as a testament that style cannot sell an inferior story that lacks impressive characters.

For other works with Martin Freeman, please check out my reviews of:
The World’s End
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
Love Actually

6/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Peter Jackson Convinces Fans To Return To Middle Earth One More Time With The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies!

The Good: Decent performances, Generally good effects, Much of the plot development and theme resolutions, Special effects
The Bad: Light on character development, Predictable plot repetition, Begins at an awkward place/resolves oddly
The Basics: Likely to work much better in context, The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies holds up poorly on its own, though it is entertaining-enough!


As we reach the end of the year, the final big film of the year has hit theaters. It is, of course, The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies, the final of three films in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit Trilogy. The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies is a final act in the three-film journey that had Bilbo Baggins joining a company of Dwarves on their quest to retake the Dwarven land of Erebor. The thing about The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies is that it becomes the perfect argument against what Peter Jackson did with turning the single novel The Hobbit into three films. The final film of The Hobbit stands very poorly on its own.

Filled with subplots and the end of character arcs, The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies hits the ground running without any explanation, prologue or attempts at explicitly connecting to the prior film. The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies is an immediate follow-up to The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug (reviewed here!) and opens with the world of Middle Earth turned up on its end and it ends with an anticlimax that returns Peter Jackson to his horror roots. At least he does not force the audience to endure multiple endings, a la The Return Of The King (reviewed here!).

With Smaug furious and released from his mountain prison in Erebor, the dragon turns his attention on nearby Laketown. Burning Laketown down with his flame breath, Smaug runs afoul of Bard, who was imprisoned by the master of Laketown. Using the ancient weapon designed for such purpose, Bark kills Smaug and news soon spreads through Middle Earth that Smaug is dead and Erebor is ill-defended and filled with treasure beyond measure. Inside the mountain stronghold of Erebor, Thorin Oakenshield becomes obsessed with finding the Arkenstone and he is driven mad with desire for the treasure. Confirming that Thorin’s condition is not likely to get better should he get the Arkenstone, Bilbo keeps the stone hidden from him. Seeing that Thorin’s party has survived, Fili, Kili and those who were stuck in Laketown head to Erebor, with Kili telling the elf maiden Tauriel he is in love with her.

When the Elves and refugees from Laketown arrive at Dale, the human ruins adjacent to the Dwarven kingdom, Thorin feels threatened. Gandalf is rescued from his prison by Galadrial, Radagast, and Saruman, in the process pushing the non-corporeal version of Sauron back in the process. As Gandalf makes his way to the ruins of Dale, Bilbo sneaks out from under Thorin’s nose to do the same. There, Bilbo tries to broker a deal between Thranduil, King Of The Elves, and Bard before war breaks out. Thorin is withholding promised gold to Bard and the refugees and the return of gems stolen from the Elves; Bilbo presents Thranduil with the Arkenstone to use in trade for the treasures Thorin is holding. Thorin’s determination to let the Elves and humans attack is bolstered when the main force of the Dwarven Army arrives to repel them. Almost immediately, though, Orcs attack and the humans, Dwarves and Elves find themselves united against two armies of Orcs led by Azog The Defiler. As the struggle for Middle Earth is fought before them, Thorin shakes off his dragon sickness to begin a very personal fight against Azog!

The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies is surprisingly fast-paced for a film with a running time over two and a half hours. Despite having plotlines that seem incongruent with the main plot surrounding Thorin Oakenshield and his madness fueled by greed for the Arkenstone, like the Kili and Tauriel love story, the recurring weasel Alfrid, the rescue of Gandalf, and the conflict between Legolas and his own father (Thranduil), the pacing of The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies is remarkably tight.

In fact, almost all of the actual issues surrounding The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies involve how the film fails to stand on its own or how it fits into Peter Jackson’s larger Middle Earth Saga. On its own, The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies is a film that is mired by its failure to explain itself. It begins with Thorin mad and having achieved most of his goals. In The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies, Thorin has a somewhat unexplained obsession (the importance of the Arkenstone is vastly understated in the film), goes mad and overcomes it on the strength of his own will (not reason or the threat of being wiped out). Similarly, Gandalf’s imprisonment is not explained within the film; the whole Necromancer concept seems dropped in The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies!

In the context of Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth Saga, the big issue in The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies is Legolas. Legolas has one truly huge character moment in Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings Saga (reviewed here!). Legolas witnesses Elven death at the Battle Of Helm’s Deep and it leaves him shocked and shaken (in the commentary tracks, Jackson talks about how he has never seen Elves die because they are otherwise immortal). With that in mind, Legolas’s place in The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies seems utterly ridiculous. We are meant to believe that Legolas arrives at the field of battle, albeit late, and sees none of the elven bodies around that his father does?! Come on!

That said, The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies has pretty wonderful acting, getting viewers to invest in the characters, no matter how minor they are. The film has issues in the larger context, like how the eagles play the same trick as in The Lord Of The Rings (Tolkien’s fault, not Jackson’s) and a bloated cast that leaves the majority of the dwarves in the company unexplored as far as fleshing out actual characters, but the performers all play credibly in the environment. Luke Evans shines as Bard and Richard Armitage manages to make Thorin’s tormented persona pop on the screen.

Ultimately, The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies finishes Peter Jackson’s tenure as a master of Tolkein’s works for screen with a film that ties everything together, even if it does not stand very magnificently on its own.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
To Write Love On Her Arms
The Voices
Love, Rosie
The Seventh Son
Song One
Match
Vice
American Sniper
Paddington
Inherent Vice
Selma
Still Alice
Predestination
Expelled
Annie
Comet
The Imitation Game

6.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Very Average Bond: The Man With The Golden Gun Is Direct And Pretty Good.

The Good: Decent performances, Straightforward plot
The Bad: Very light on character development, Lack of nuanced performances, Inclusion of J.W. Pepper
The Basics: The Man With The Golden Gun is a much more practical Bond film that has Bond hunting an assassin who appears to be after him!


The Man With The Golden Gun has a special place in my heart. As a young person, there were a number of things that happened in short order. I got sober, finished my James Bond phase and began a longterm love affair with Star Trek. My father used to get out the various James Bond films out from the library and I was grounded when he got out The Man With The Golden Gun. As a result, The Man With The Golden Gun became the final Bond movie I cared about and did not get a chance to watch back in the day.

Now, as part of my determined quest to watch all of the James Bond films, I have finally caught up with The Man With The Golden Gun. After Bond films with absurd and complicated action-adventure plots that often border on science fiction, there is something remarkably refreshing about The Man With The Golden Gun. The Man With The Golden Gun has James Bond largely as an investigator and seeing the spy actually do detective work, tracking clues, makes the character seem surprisingly fresh for the usually formulaic film series.

When a hitman pays a visit to Scaramanga’s private residence, it appears his valet, Nick Nack, has betrayed him. However, the man with the third nipple works his way through the elaborate maze Nick Nack created to recover his golden pistol and kill the hitman. Back at MI-6 headquarters, M is alarmed when a golden bullet with 007’s number is sent to the spy organization and it is obvious that Scaramanga is planning to kill James Bond next. Forced to take sabbatical, James Bond decides that the best way to stop Scaramanga from making good on his threat to kill him is by tracking him down and killing him first.

Bond’s search takes him to a bellydancer who has the bullet that killed another Agent (002) and analysis of the bullet leads Bond to Lazar. Lazar is the man who crafted the infamous golden gun utilized by Scaramanga and when Bond menaces Lazar, he confesses that he has a new shipment of bullets for Scaramanga. Tracking the recipient of the bullets to a hotel in Hong Kong, James Bond ends up at the Bottoms Up club where Scaramanga shoots another man on the street next to him. Evading the police in Hong Kong, Bond realizes that Scaramanga does not have a contract out on him. With the murdered man being identified as Gibson, an alternative energy expert, Bond realizes that Hai Fat could afford to hire Scaramanga. Impersonating Scaramanga, Bond pays Hai Fat a visit, but he quickly falls victim to Scaramanga’s quest for further fortune.

The Man With The Golden Gunis a remarkably straightforward film. There is a hit called in on James Bond and he methodically follows the trail of clues that bring him from the threat to the trained assassin. There are no convoluted plans, a remarkable lack of gadgets and a diminished sense of whimsy in The Man With The Golden Gun. Instead, Bond is the target and he spends the film trying to get the target off his back. Despite how much I usually love complicated characters with intriguing motivations, there is something refreshing about The Man With The Golden Gun. The Man With The Golden Gun features a villain who is undervalued and simply wants money (lots and lots of money).

While there is a brief subplot that makes it appear that Hai Fat will be the villain and there is a an irksome buddy comedy thread whereby James Bond is paired up with the blonde MI-6 Agent Goodnight (and later the Louisiana sheriff J.W. Pepper), The Man With The Golden Gun is largely uncomplicated and straightforward. Rather than get bogged down with larger themes of greed and corruption, The Man With The Golden Gun is fleshed out by a somewhat pointless martial arts demonstration whose only point seems to be to foreshadow the comic scene in Raiders Of The Lost Ark (reviewed here!) where Indiana Jones shoots a master swordsman.

While The Man With The Golden Gun has some pleasant surprises (like the buttkicking girls who rescue Bond from the karate experts), the film is mostly straightforward and predictable. For Roger Moore’s second outing as Bond, Moore is given little to do. This version of Bond requires no real emotional range and while Moore gets the few one-liners out of the way credibly, he manages the physical stunts admirably. Similarly, Christopher Lee plays Scaramanga without any subtlety or depth. Instead, he is monolithic and cold as the title character. There is nothing like the nuance and innuendo he used when playing Saruman in The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy (reviewed here!). Scaramanga has a professional appreciation of Bond, but Christopher Lee plays him as anything but passionate about anything. Instead, he is cold and efficient and constantly professional.

The result is a film that is generally average, but not unpleasant. It was worth the wait to watch it once, but it was nothing lifechanging I’ve been missing for the past twenty-five years.

For other James Bond films, please check out my reviews of:
Dr. No
From Russia With Love
Goldfinger
Thunderball
You Only Live Twice
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Diamonds Are Forever
Live And Let Die
Die Another Day
Casino Royale
Quantum Of Solace
Skyfall

5.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

The Journey Builds, But Is Not Resolved, In The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug

The Good: Decent acting, Special effects, Moments of character
The Bad: Very much a transition movie
The Basics: Suffering from all the expected problems of a middle act, The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug is entertaining, but holds up less well on its own.


In the history of film and plays there have been few things more difficult to pull off successfully than a middle act. Middle acts within a work have the responsibility of moving the plot along and bringing characters to a situation that will require the final act to resolve. The benefit of the middle act is that it can usually move unencumbered by character establishment. As a result, middle acts can be great for character development, but on the plot front there is little in the way of resolution and some people dislike middle acts because – in order for the plot and character development to actually occur, the sense of conflict usually reaches its peak in the middle act. That usually makes middle acts darker and more moody than the initial and final acts.

In terms of trilogies, the middle film usually bears a responsibility that is tough for viewers to reconcile. Many times, they lack the initial spark of the first film in the series and the viewer does not get the elation of resolution that the final film brings. In my mind, the most successful middle act films have been limited to The Empire Strikes Back (reviewed here!) and The Dark Knight (reviewed here!). Unfortunately for fans of Peter Jackson’s interpretations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings (reviewed here!), The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug is not going to break that tradition.

The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug picks up where The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (reviewed here!) left off as the prequel story of Bilbo Baggins’s journey with the dwarves that made him an outsider among the Hobbits of the Shire. The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug is, foremost, not a tight film; the movie meanders with side stories that flesh out the various characters and the setting of Middle Earth. But, given how characters like Legolas pop up in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug without feeling absolutely essential to the main storyline and how Smaug would have been sufficiently villainous without the extensive backstory Peter Jackson includes in the film (courtesy of other volumes Tolkien wrote), the film feels more like an exploration of a fantastic setting rather than a tight character journey that is pushed by the strength of Bilbo Baggins, the menace of Smaug or the failings of Thorin Oakenshield (though all those are factors in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug).

Following the attack on the Dwarves and Bilbo, the assemblage regroups by fleeing into the residence of a skinchanger (a man who can turn into a giant bear), who hates the orcs more than he hates the dwarves. With Gandalf heading out on his own, the Dwarves and Bilbo enter Mirkwood Forest. There, they encounter giant spiders and Bilbo is instrumental in saving the dwarves from their webs and bites. The elves of Mirkwood surround the Dwarves and capture them. Bilbo helps the Dwarves escape the elves and gets them closer to the Lonely Mountain, where Thorin intends to reclaim the Dwarven homeland. After the barrel ride downstream, the fellowship arrives at the human village of Lake-town. There, the humans warm to the Dwarves as they have been menaced by Smaug once they are exposed and their shifty leader sees an opportunity to usurp the threat.

Thorin calls upon Bilbo to make good on the contract he has with him and Bilbo is sent into the Lonely Mountain. Bilbo enters Smaug’s lair and there he encounters the dragon, setting into motion the events that push Middle Earth toward a war.

The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug does a decent job of foreshadowing the fatal flaw of Thorin Oakenshield. While The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey painted Thorin as the obvious hero of the prequel Trilogy, The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug starts to insinuate that Thorin is not an honorable Dwarf and that his motives for getting into the Lonely Mountain and reclaiming the dwarven kingdom is not based on a noble intent.

The film also does a good job of making Bilbo Baggins seem more morally ambiguous than some of the other Middle Earth films – especially the prior film. Baggins was hired as a thief and while he does several heroic things in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, he illustrates an aptitude for escape and light-fingered thievery. In fact, in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug Bilbo Baggins’s actions actually bring surprising destruction at the breath of Smaug. If Thorin’s anger and greed are foreshadowed, it is Bilbo who goes a long way to instigate the incidents that bring those defects to the surface.

The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug is entertaining and it illustrates well the range of both Martin Freeman and Richard Armitage. While fans may geek out over the return to the franchise of Orlando Bloom whose career seems to have it its high with The Lord Of The Rings (reviewed here!) and the addition of Evangeline Lilly from Lost (reviewed here!), the real story for The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug comes from Freeman and Armitage. Richard Armitage does a good job of taking a pretty monolithic character of Thorin Oakenshield and adding layers to him. While many of those layers come from written lines, it is Armitage’s performance, his bearing that sells the underlying emotions of the character. Armitage emotes with a fire in his eyes that actually resonates and sells some of the lines that do not quite resonate.

Martin Freeman might well be one of the best comic actors of our time. In The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, he pushes the range of what he can do. He’s been sidekick in Sherlock and an able supporting comedic presence in films like this year’s The World’s End (reviewed here!). As Bilbo Baggins he manages to present a more serious character who is still fun to watch and engaging. In other words, despite moments of goofy body language, Freeman holds his own as a serious and viable character who is fearless in the face of the virtual dragon. Freeman plays Bilbo with a straight face and a sense of moral ambiguity that fits the character perfectly, all without hinting at being the same actor who played any of the other roles he has! Freeman is a perfect chameleon actor in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug and that sells the reality of the film wonderfully. One never feels like they are watching Martin Freeman; like Ian McKellen (who is all Gandalf all the time he is on screen), Freeman completely embodies his character in the real and virtual sets of Middle Earth.

But, ultimately, even at nearly three hours (one struggles to guess what Peter Jackson will put back into the film for the inevitable Extended Edition), The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug feels like it is just getting started when it reaches its climax. Like most middle act films, The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug leaves one wanting more and feeling like they are dependent upon the final act to make a true judgment on how much they enjoyed this film on its own.

For other works with Lee Pace, please check out my reviews of:
Breaking Dawn, Part II
Lincoln
Marmaduke
When In Rome
Pushing Daisies - Season 1
Wonderfalls

7/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Returns Fans To Middle Earth, But Asks More Of The Audience.

The Good: Effects, Performances
The Bad: Pacing, Light on character development
The Basics: An adequate prequel, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey sufficiently starts the set-up for The Lord Of The Rings!


Prequels are a tough sell for me. In going back to make the prequel to The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy (reviewed here!), objectively it is a tougher sell than some might expect. After all, the prequel films, which now begin with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey feature few real surprises. After all, the novel has been around for decades and, more importantly, it is instantly established that the protagonist cannot possibly die. This, usually, diminishes some of the enthusiasm for investing in a prequel. And, while it is hard for fans of Peter Jackson’s cinematic interpretation of The Lord Of The Rings not to let their heart skip a beat the moment the first words in the familiar typeface Jackson uses appear on the screen.

But the longer The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey continues, the harder it is to maintain that enthusiasm. While there is an immediate surge of joy to return to the familiar and magical setting of Middle Earth – though with the time spent now in Hobbiton, one wonders how the lesson on Hobbits in the extended edition of Fellowship Of The Ring will hold up when one sits down to watch all six films back to back – the pacing of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is not as well-executed as in The Lord Of The Rings. Moreover, the stakes are no longer the world, so there is no sense of urgency to the mission the protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, finds himself on.

Bilbo Baggins is a Hobbit, living in Hobbiton, generally happy with his existence. But then, his home is overrun by dwarves and the wizard Gandalf the Grey. After being frustrated by the slovenly nature of the Dwarves and the indifference of their leader, Thorin Oakenshield, Bilbo rejects the entreaties of Gandalf to join their quest. Uninterested in helping the Dwarves invade Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, to retake it from the dark forces that have conquered it, Bilbo has a change of heart once his annoying guests depart.

Catching up with the Dwarves, Bilbo comes to appreciate more what their fight is for as he comes to understand the importance of his own home. And through a series of conflicts with Trolls, Goblins and other monsters that inhabit the land outside Hobbiton, Bilbo grows closer to the Dwarves. After helping thwart a trio of Trolls, side trip to Rivendell and falling into a goblin trap, Bilbo feels he is truly a member of the company. His bond with the Dwarves is shaken when Bilbo ends up frightened and alone when he is lost in caverns, which puts him into peril he cannot even understand at the time and leads to a conflict with Thorin's oldest enemy.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is good, but for those looking for more than to be dazzled by the visual effects, it takes a lot of faith and the trust that this is an essential step in the character development of Bilbo Baggins. The visual majesty of Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth – which still, is vastly better than what Guillermo Del Toro might have done given his creative repetition in his works – is tempered by a pace that is, at times, agonizingly slow. Say what you will about the multiple endings to Return Of The King, but they do something to resolve the massive scale of the films and make it more intimate. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey aches to build the world of Middle Earth and it does so without the sense of incredible importance that The Lord Of The Rings possessed.

That said, for a film that builds to the prequel moments of The Lord Of The Rings, with Bilbo encountering Gollum and discovering the One Ring, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey does what it can as well it can. The discovery of the One Ring is an incidental thing and, as annoying as that might seem, it makes it entirely plausible that a character as smart as Gandalf – as portrayed in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - would remain ignorant of it as long as he did. On its own, away from knowing where the Saga is going, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is just a slow build-up, a quest based on nationalism for a nation viewers are unlikely to feel compelling empathy for that abruptly ends well before it actually reaches its conclusion.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is somewhat low on character development; this is a film more concerned with establishing Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf The Grey, and Thorin Oakenshield, than it is with changing them. The film begins to challenge them, especially Bilbo, whose sensibilities about home and its relationship to the larger world slowly change.

On the acting front, Sir Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchette, and Christopher Lee, all flawlessly retake the roles they had in The Lord Of The Rings. Richard Armitage explodes into the franchise as Thorin Oakenshield and he is magnetic, albeit with almost the same level of screen gravitas as Viggo Mortensen had as Aragorn in The Lord Of The Rings. The real acting triumph for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey comes from Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins. Freeman had a role he had to both mimic and make his own, taking over for Sir Ian Holm’s Bilbo (a task made more potentially difficult by the aged Bilbo, performed by Holm, appearing in the film!). Freeman takes the challenge, managing to deepen the goofy aspects Ian Holm’s Bilbo and also bringing out the more serious side of the character. Bilbo is essentially a bit character in The Lord Of The Rings, so Freeman has to flesh out the character while still making it seem like he would reasonably evolve into the aged Bilbo. He nails it. Freeman has an amazingly expressive body language that makes him viable as a reluctant quest participant and he plays Bilbo as the common man, as opposed to even attempting to bring heroic stature to the character.

For those who can stomach the slower nature of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and the way it takes its time to truly establish Middle Earth – showing instead of relying excessively on voiceover exposition this time – will find themselves eager for the next chapter. For those who are not as into fantasy films, it is hard to see how this would be the one to sell them on the genre.

For other fantasy films, please check out my reviews of:
Beautiful Creatures
The Twilight Saga
Alice In Wonderland

7.5/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

The Modern Mediocrity Of Tim Burton Continues With Frankenweenie

The Good: Decent voice work, Good animation
The Bad: Plot and characters fail to pop, Nothing superlative
The Basics: Tim Burton’s latest animated film, Frankenweenie takes a very simple premise and drags it out to an awkward length.


Tim Burton’s works are almost universally hailed as creative, even outside the cult of fans who have grown up outside his works. Inside the fan culture that follows Tim Burton’s works religiously, there is no differentiation between his films; they are all met with the universal declaration that the latest work is a “creative masterpiece” or a work of “creative genius.” With Burton’s latest, Frankenweenie, it will be hard even for those within the bubble of his fandom to call it brilliant.

Frankenweenie is an awkward animated film that does not seem to know what it wants, precisely, to be. Unlike the Tim Burton animated musicals, Frankenweenie does seem to be attempting to tap clearly into the adult and young adult demographic, much like Coraline (reviewed here!) a few years back. But, beyond that, the film’s execution does not move toward the clearly horrific (despite the final act) and the animation makes it very hard for the adult viewer to take the horror seriously. Based (apparently) on an earlier short that Burton made thirty years ago, Frankenweenie barely makes it to full feature-length. As I have never seen the original Frankenweenie, this review is entirely for the new Tim Burton, full-length film.

Victor Frankenstein is a boy who has one real, true, friend in the world: his dog Sparky. They play together and Victor, an aspiring child filmmaker, uses his dog in his home movies. When Sparky is killed, Victor is traumatized and despondent. With his love of monster movies and classic horror movies, Victor comes to believe he can resurrect Sparky. As unlikely as it initially seems, Victor is successful and he is thrilled to have more time with his beloved dog.

Unfortunately, despite the miracle of science Victor has achieved and his desire to keep is quiet, soon many people know about Sparky’s miraculous resurrection. Other children are afraid of Sparky or want Victor to resurrect their pets. But as local fear grows, Victor finds his relationship stressed as Sparky flees and the town turns against them.

Frankenweenie, far more than being original or clever, is an animated Frankenstein where the “monster” is a dog instead of an amalgam of human flesh. As a result, the themes of alienation and loss in Frankenstein are not fully developed in Burton’s film. So, the eventual mob scene is more predictable than organic and Victor’s motivation is less audacious than it ought to have been. Dr. Frankenstein was a man of science and while Victor is clearly experiencing exceptional loss, Burton and writer John August never develop it enough to make his subsequent actions seem truly believable.

On the flipside, the ignorance of the townspeople is entirely developed and predictable. Burton’s Frankenweenie makes the passing attempt to develop the arguments of reason vs. emotion, science vs. religious faith well, but even there he is preaching to the choir. Mr. Rzykruski’s tirades against the idiocy of the locals are not going to wake the anti-scientists wake up and realize their folly. Still, the effort is appreciated by the open-minded viewers.

On the animation front, Frankenweenie is good, but the character designs are exactly what one might expect of Tim Burton following Corpse Bride and The Nightmare Before Christmas. The black and white is fine, though the strange nostalgic quality looks somewhat ridiculous in crystal clear, digital projection. Frankenweenie’s faults are not in the effects.

Neither are the problems with the voice performances. Frankenweenie’s characters may be underdeveloped and walking through the motions of another story’s predestination for them, but the voice actors do fairly well by them. Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, and Martin Landau all use their voice talents to realistically emote, especially for concern and frustration. Charlie Tahan bears the brunt of the voicework and he does fine. He is a kid playing a kid and he does well, especially for portraying sadness.

Short and filled with the feeling of being uninspired, Frankenweenie is a mediocre, often pointlessly frenetic, reimagining of Frankenstein that never completely pops.

For other works directed by Tim Burton, please check out my reviews of:
Dark Shadows
Alice In Wonderland
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
Corpse Bride
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory
Big Fish
Batman Returns
Edward Scissorhands
Batman

4/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

And Yet, They Allowed Him To Continue Making Movies . . . 1941

The Good: I'm stretching here, so I'll say the cast
The Bad: Not funny, Acting is terrible, Just about everything
The Basics: Despite generally talented cast members, 1941 is terribly unfunny and it demeans the career of Steven Spielberg to consider he ever directed it.


Sometimes, there comes a movie that is so terrible that all one wishes to do is erase it from their memory. Wrong Turn, which is my all-time most hated movie is almost completely forgotten by me. I know I don't like Wrong Turn (reviewed here!), but I don't even remember why. I'd have to go read my review and I know enough about how much I hated that movie to know I shouldn't do that. Similarly, every now and then I hear a song from Bush's album Sixteen Stone (reviewed here!) and I develop a bit of a tick. Steven Spielberg, apparently tuckered out from making classic films like Jaws (reviewed here!) and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, squeezed out 1941 before making Raiders Of The Lost Ark (reviewed here!). Checking out the IMDB, none of the titles under his directing credit since then jump out as comedies. Perhaps he learned his lesson. I learned my lesson and I'm filing this movie in the Outbox of my brain with other movies I loathed.

1941, appropriately enough, happens in 1941. Approximately one week after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese submarine ends up lost near Hollywood, fueling the belief that the Japanese are about to attack California. Sgt. Frank Tree prepares for the attack by trying to get the military organized. The crazy and frenetic Captain Wild Bill Kelso is determined to keep the skies clear of Japanese and generally California goes into hysteria as relations between the Germans and the Japanese on the submarine fall apart.

1941 is a comedy with what could have been a clever concept. Instead, it's just plain dumb. Most of the humor is slapstick, which is the lowest form of comedy. None of it is particularly clever. Things crash, houses get run into by tanks, it's pretty basic stupidity humor. There is nothing clever in the execution of 1941.

The idea, though, is not bad. The idea of California going into hysteria following the attack on Pear Harbor is a decent enough idea. I'm not sure how well it works as a comedic idea, but it certainly does not work in this comic rendition of it. Instead, we are subjected to slapstick gags, banal character and obvious attempts for cheap laughs.

A perfect example of this is embodied by Captain Kelso. Wild Bill Kelso is played by John Belushi and the role runs like an extended Saturday Night Live sketch. Belushi as Kelso falls down, bugs out his eyes, chomps on cigars in a parody of masculinity of the time and blusters his way through even the least complicated of lines. The thing is, we've seen Belushi act like this. It's familiar. It's not Kelso, it's Belushi and that's poor use of the actor or poor acting.

Similarly, Dan Aykroyd, who plays Tree, is familiar for his overly serious delivery, much like how he played the anchor on the Saturday Night Live news. John Candy is in the movie far too briefly and if you blink, you miss Christopher Lee. In short, any talent that could have made the movie funny or allow it to possess a certain quality is lost in either preconceived notions of how the actors ought to be used or drown in a terrible script.

And Steven Spielberg phones this one in. There is nothing spectacular in the direction. In fact, there is nothing even visually interesting in 1941. And the problem is, where some truly lame movies do not take themselves seriously, like camp classic The Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes, 1941 does take itself seriously. So there are no gaffs with production design or production elements. Things like the house being barreled into with a tank happen in a meticulously constructed way that a serious director would.

Still, the net effect is garbage. 1941 is not funny. It is not entertaining and I shudder to think that there now exists an even longer Director's Cut. Part of the shudder is astonishment that Steven Spielberg would admit he remembered making this movie. I know I shall do my best to forget it.

For other works with Tim Matheson, be sure to check out my reviews of:
No Strings Attached
The West Wing
The Story Of Us

2/10

Check out all the movies that were better than this one and read reviews by visiting my Movie Review Index Page where films are organized best to worst!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |