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2C | LAWRENCE JOURNAL-WORLD | SUNDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2014
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Jon Ralston, features editor, 832-7189, @jonralston, jralston@ljworld.com
‘Hobbit’ finale tarnishes ‘Rings’ legacy
T
he mammoth cinematic achievement of Peter Jackson — adapting the rich world of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth since 2001 — will always come with an asterisk; a sad irony. Turning “The Lord of the Rings” novels into a filmic trilogy was possible only with the latest in computer-generated graphics. It was the only way to realize Tolkien’s vision of fantastic creatures, enormous sets and massive-scale battles. It also took a team of writers who knew Tolkien’s dense and detailed universe (appendices and all) forward and backward, while understanding the unique requirements of narrative visual storytelling. With the first three “Lord of the Rings” movies, Jackson re-invigorated fantasy filmmaking and set in place a production design and special effects standard that has been aped in every large-scale historical drama and fantasy movie/TV show since. In addition, the director set the bar incredibly high for achieving the right balance of character, action and urgency to relate to a wide audience and appeal to hardcore fans of the source material.
SCENE STEALERS
ERIC MELIN
eric@scene-stealers.com With all the structure and look of “LOTR” codified and duplicated ad nauseam for a decade, Jackson then undertook telling the comparatively slim story of “The Hobbit” — a book with a similar hero’s journey, which ended up being Tolkien’s warm-up act for the larger task of the full trilogy. But while Tolkien expanded and enriched his writing for the “LOTR” trilogy, Jackson faced the task of adapting a lesser tome. Instead, he raided Tolkien’s unused appendices and expanded one popular children’s book into three films. I’m not just arguing that Jackson needlessly padded “The Hobbit” trilogy out to three mov-
Martin Freeman in “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” ies. That’s a common criticism that even the biggest fanboy would agree with. The sad irony is that — given the enormous familiarity with Jackson’s cinematic Middle-earth and the almost identical structure and conflict of both trilogies — the sixth and final film “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” is a slog of an exercise; one of stubborn inevitability that ground me down to a nub. At 144 minutes, it’s the shortest in the series, but this chapter is so lacking in depth and surprise that it feels like watching
a never-ending series of video game cutscenes. One big problem is that Martin Freeman, now fully comfortable in the skin of brave hobbit Bilbo Baggins, is barely in the picture. There are so many supporting characters the film follows that Bilbo is gone for long stretches. Whenever Freeman is back onscreen, he’s amiable, funny and energetic — radiating the best qualities of his character. Unfortunately, that’s not a lot. Bilbo’s struggle to resist the power of the ring exactly mirrors that
AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures
of dwarf king Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), whose honor is tainted by the promise of gold and power. Since we’ve already seen this inner conflict portrayed in the “LOTR” trilogy with Frodo (Elijah Wood), it’s taxing for the sixth time here — and with two characters, no less. Besides all the redundant explication from a storytelling standpoint, the final sad irony of “The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies” is that Jackson’s visual effects are the best they’ve been. The rendering of three-
dimensional battles has never been more convincing. But the costumes, creatures and production design are all variations on a too-familiar theme, and this time more than ever their surface-value pleasures are hung out to dry by an absolute lack of urgency or surprise — two concepts that Jackson had mastered in the superior “LOTR” trilogy. Two years ago, as an exercise in editing, actor Topher Grace re-edited George Lucas’ lugubrious “Star Wars” prequels into one efficient, 85-minute fanedit (“Star Wars Episode III.5: The Editor Strikes Back”) that reportedly somehow preserves the hero-gonebad journey of Anakin Skywalker and removes all the excess fat. When Grace or some other aspiring editor inevitably gets around to condensing “The Hobbit” trilogy, it might be safe to enter Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth again. — Eric Melin is the editorin-chief of Scene-Stealers. He’s a member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association and vice president of the Kansas City Film Critics Circle. On the air-guitar circuit, he goes by the name Mean Melin and is a world champion of air guitar.
‘Wild’ breaks free from mold of pretentious self-discovery films
I
t could have been pretentious: An aimless young woman, searching for herself, discovers her own courage by hiking 1,100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail alone. That’s pretty much the one-sentence description of “Wild,” now playing at Liberty Hall and starring Reese Witherspoon as Cheryl Strayed, the real-life author who did just that and wrote a best-seller about it. It just goes to prove Roger Ebert’s old saying — and one of my favorite quotes about film criticism — “It’s not what the movie is about, it’s how it’s about it.” This isn’t the onewith-self drama-queen travelogue of “Eat Pray Love” or the pompous one-with-nature spiritual quest of “Into the Wild.” It’s a down-to-earth tale of a damaged woman with something to prove to herself, told in an interesting way. “Wild” has a real dark side — in both the flashbacks to Cheryl’s painful past and the looming threat of a woman traveling alone, meeting the wrong kind of person along the trail. There’s real danger here, but there’s also a wicked sense of humor. Cheryl knows the trip is a bad idea, but is compelled to go forward because there is nothing to go back to. She curses her own unpreparedness the entire trip. She doubts and curses herself out loud. In the opening scenes, she chucks her hiking shoe down a steep hill in frustration, only then realizing what a dumb mistake that was. Adapting “Wild” into a feature film has been a passion project of Witherspoon, who also produced the movie. Although she’s a little too old to play a twentysomething, she throws herself into the role, inhabiting all of her char-
Reese Witherspoon in “Wild” acter’s contradictions. She’s playing way against type as a griefstricken divorcee whose downward spiral of promiscuous sex and drug addiction led her to this unlikely place. The film’s frank depiction of Cheryl’s sexuality is one of the things that supports the actress and helps to lift her out of her comfort zone. Having written the novels “High Fidelity” and “About a Boy,” screenwriter Nick Hornby understands aimless characters, and his script is a skillful balancing act. It undercuts an overly serious tone whenever possible and layers in a poignancy that rarely seems forced. As she continues her journey, Cheryl earns the respect of fellow hikers along the trail. As the narrative unpacks her personal story, she earns our respect. Director Jean-Marc Vallee (“Dallas Buyers Club”) does an amazing job of varying the kinds of shots in “Wild,” which could have been overtly aesthetically pleasing — all color-treated outdoor vistas and sunsets. Instead, his depiction of Cheryl’s surroundings is more natural; it varies by the landscape, and echoes the honest portrait of his heroine. Cheryl’s inner monologue is illustrated through a combination
AP Photo/Fox Searchlight Pictures
of clever techniques, including narration from Witherspoon, her own memories and the songs that get stuck in her head. The flashback sequences — especially the ones featuring an enigmatic Laura Dern as her mother — are a nice break from her hiking adventure, and sport a dream-like quality, with quick flashes and lots of camera movement. “Wild” breaks the mold of other trip-asself-discovery films with a refreshing honesty. The filmmakers succeed in telling a familiar story in bold fashion, bringing the audience into the mind and experiences of its lead character without making her an allegorical or literal martyr. “Wild” is 113 minutes and is rated R for sexual content, nudity, drug use and language. — Eric Melin
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