Movie Review: The Hobbit

I finally went to see The Hobbit over the weekend. Between the length and some mixed reviews I'd seen, I had considered waiting for the DVD to come out. But it's ultimately one of those movies you should see in theaters. We even went to the 3D IMAX version with the high frame rate, though mostly because the time worked out better.

Visually, I don't think I had as much of a problem with the high frame rate as a lot of people. The people definitely looked realistic, more realistic than the sets at some times. It made me feel like I was watching a highly immersive stage show. A lot of the aerial shots over New Zealand and the scenes that took place at Rivendell were really pretty.

As for the plot, the movie was way too long. Everything with Radagast felt unnecessary and tonally off. It was almost like Jackson couldn't decide whether or not he wanted to make a kids movie. So parts of it were  light and silly and others were dark and dangerous. The council meeting at Rivendell was another part that left me bored. I'd rather the movie just focus on Bilbo's journey, like the book did. But I suppose Jackson needs something to fill out three movies and milk this franchise for all it's worth.

The back half of the movie, with the flight through the goblin cave and the riddle game, was really well done and exciting. I'm glad I was able to get back in to the movie and enjoy those scenes, especially after the ridiculousness of the stone giant fight.

Overall I think the movie was really a mixed bag. It seems to be aimed more at hardcore Tolkien fans than more casual audiences. There's so much random back story stuffed in that I was fighting to stay interested a few times. But I did like that parts that were taken from the book. If only Jackson had been able to condense the story a bit, I think the whole experience would have been a lot better.

Movie Review: The Hunger Games

We went to see The Hunger Games last night, and given that I talked about my concerns last week, I thought I'd write a post about the movie.

For the most part I really, really liked it. It was exciting and engrossing. It did a good job of maintaining the horror of The Hunger Games without turning into an action flick where you're simply rooting for Katniss to kill everyone. The poverty of District 12 contrasted nicely with the wealth of the Capital.

I really liked all the extra scenes we got between President Snow and Seneca Crane. They helped explain the politics around the Hunger Games, the way they use a thin shred of hope to help with the oppression of the outlying districts. I also liked seeing that Katniss' mourning of Rue sparked a riot in District 11 which is what caused the gamemakers to change the rules in an effort to bring focus back. It was neat to see how this all tied together.

My favorite extra detail was that the gamemakers set the fire on Katniss because she was getting too close to the edge of the arena. This ties in nicely to Haymitch's victory in his games, and also works well as something Katniss herself couldn't have known in the books.

Really, I liked all of the scenes that we got in the movie that weren't in the book. I think the movie benefited a lot from not keeping us inside Katniss' head and part of me wishes we could have gotten more of this. I wanted to see more of the other tributes. I wanted more scenes with Effie and Cinna. I wanted more of what Prim and Gale were going through back home. But I also thought the movie was almost too long as it was and I'm not sure how they could have fit all of that extra information in.

I think the movie was as good as I could have hoped for. I just hope that the DVD comes with loads of extra features. I want more background information on this world. I want all the behind the scenes stuff that Katniss couldn't know about. And I want more scenes with the secondary characters.