The Wolf of Wall Street

The yardsticks of judging films of a certain genre seem to be dug to the depths of inflexibility. We now know exactly when to expect a slow motion sequence, when to break into tears of pity and when to clap for a motivating monologue. And when an amateur rebel of a director comes around with something unconventional, we are ready to pan him down with a misguided sense of knowledge. Conventions, with their now predictable structure have crippled the audience and critics alike. Films, especially the popular ones, have become mere opportunities for wannabe's to broadcast pseudo-intellectual inferences and opinions.

Not us! We know what we're talking about.

An intervention is called for. And not from anybody vulnerable, trying hard to make their mark, but from someone well established and authoritative enough to righteously shove the intervention into people’s throats, basically-a big Daddy. Enter, Martin Scorsese.

A vigilante filmmaker with a large cache of cameras? We need Nicolas Cage to play this guy.

The Wolf of Wall Street is a surprisingly surprising film. With a biopic, that is unusual. Scorsese has challenged the film fraternity by using a genius technique which is disturbingly successful only when it is hidden. The film does not necessarily track the turning points in Jordan Belfort's life, what it does though is that it shows all the instances that highlight the intricacies of the character. These instances might not lead to the next phase of his life but they sure tell you what kind of a person Jordan Belfort is.

There are two separate questions- What is the story of Jordan Belfort? And who is Jordan Belfort? 'The Wolf of Wall Street' answers the second question. Does it do so reliably? We will never know, because it is based on a book written by the man himself. All we can do is laugh at his insanely money, drugs and sex driven life, as it slides down as much as it possibly can. And we get ample moments to laugh. So many moments that you start to feel guilty for laughing at a hard working man's tragedy. But hey, he is a crooked man isn't he? What might have been an immensely intense biographical drama becomes an immensely engaging study of a character. And does it come to a conclusion? Well the story does, but the character doesn't.

The character just keeps drinking.

So go watch it for Dicaprio's potential Oscar winning performance and Scorsese's relentless efforts towards quality film-making. Watch it for the humor and for the seeming light heartedness. Watch it for its aggrandizement of everything wrong, and for the challenge that it puts to your mind. Consume it all as food for thought. It is tasty food.

The Wolf of Wall Street is not unconventional. It is neo-conventional.

IMDB Rating: 8.7/10 (This rating will probably decrease in the following weeks)

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 76%

Should you watch it: Yes

My Rating: 3.5/5

Star Trek Into Darkness

Rejoice! For summer is 'ere!

With it comes unbearable heat, water shortage, short skirts, Dermi-Cool advertisements and most importantly a slew of thriller/action/blockbuster/"Kids! Throw your money at us" movies.

Kicking it off two weeks ago was Iron Man 3. But it's early release date in India meant technically (at least in my mind) it was still spring. Now we have this summer's first big budget sci-fi action movie which in true form is of summer movies is a remake of a reboot.

Hey kids! Look at their poses! This is going to be so much fun! Here, have a  free toy!

I would like to make it clear that my knowledge of the Star Trek universe is limited to what has seeped into my brain as a sort of cultural osmosis from watching plenty of American and British television shows and films. Wait a second. My lawyer's telling me something. My lawyer tells me to declare that I am not a Trekkie, if I do not I am liable to incur physical damage from actual Star Trek fans. So I repeat, in fear of Trekkies ripping me a new a**hole, I am not a Trekkie.

Let's start with the plot, which I can't divulge too much of it because it might have references to the original universe, thus ruining the surprise. So in short, James T. Kirk is the captain of the USS Enterprise. His merry and ethnically diverse crew-members including of course Commander Spock. The traipse around the universe, going where no man has gone before, exploring and observing. That's all you need to know even if you haven't seen the first film. The rest is revealed through exposition.

The writing is pretty good. I've heard that there were a few "terrible" Star Trek movies a few decades ago. If the quality of the writing remains the same J.J. Abrams can pump out half a at least two or three more movies. My only desire is that the next one focuses on something environmental, i.e. the Enterprise reacting to a new world they've discovered. We've had two films with the hero/villain plot structure. I hope the change it up for the next one. The acting is pretty good. As usual the entire crew of the Enterprise gives solid performances and so does Benedict Cumberbatch.

Also, this.

Abrams directs it well, the pacing is fast to keep things interesting for the typical attention deficit crowd of the summer. It moves as it should, like a blockbuster, the familiar dramatic reveals, the cliffhangers and all the other tropes are there. The usage of lens flares has reached epic proportions. I know for a fact that their purpose is to create an optimistic atmosphere and making it seem as if action is taking place off screen. I understand that. But the extent of its usage is ludicrous. My only question to the designers and constructors of the USS Enterprise would be, "Anti-reflective surfaces, you heard of them?"

One last thing. 2001: A Space Odyssey got it right in 1968 when it showed the lack of sound in space. It's 2013, why can we still hear the guns and explosions in space?

In conclusion, go watch the movie it's pretty good. I couldn't put it more simply.

So rejoice, summer is here. And though the Americans might have gotten democracy and McDonald's before we did, rejoice because here in India the Star Trek movie releases a full week before the American release.

IMDB Rating: 8.5/10 (This rating will probably decrease in the following weeks)

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 89%

Should you watch it: Yes

My Rating: 7.5/10

Aatma : Shit hit the (horror) fan !

This is possibly how the job interview of the director of ‘Aatma’ went-

Producer A: What can you offer us? Do you have any new ideas to revamp the genre?
Director: I want to make a horror film.
Producer B: are you any good?
Director: I want to make a horror film.
Producer A: Why should we appoint you as the director of this film?
Director: I want to make a horror movie.
Producer A: I think we should appoint him, he is motivated enough.
Producer B: yes, he wants to make a horror film.
Director: I want to make a horror film.

I am a conscious phobophile. Not the one that goes to amusement parks and vomits his guts out while laughing out loud, sitting on a rollercoaster. I am the one that goes to watch horror movies and vomits out popcorn while gasping out loud, sitting on the edge of the recliner seats. I just made it up- the latter part- to make the introduction of the review a more poetic and an artistically consistent experience. Because I believe that when a film is not entertaining, its reviews surely are.

Yes, I am a conscious phobophile, perhaps placed somewhere in the centre of the phobophile measurement scale, but a phobophile nonetheless. Nothing connects to me more than fear does. And do not misunderstand this love of fear for love of exploitation; the lesser the gore, the merrier the horror movie experience. Because then you know that they have better things to focus on, rather than the obvious ones that waste everybody’s time.

The reason I emphasize on my genre preference is to take the following point home- it takes great effort to disappoint an audience on all counts, but it takes a miracle to disappoint the fans. You might say that it is easier to disappoint the fans because they have been analyzing the genre for a substantial time and expect more from a horror film than the rest of the audience do. I disagree. I say that they go to whimper, love to whimper and relish even a small helping of whimper generation.

Before I go dissecting the movie, I need to present a justification for watching the movie in the first place. Why would a critic have to do that? Isn’t he/she supposed to disregard the trailers and his/her own conscience in order to rate the movie objectively? This would be true in most of the cases. But if you are familiar with the quality of the current Indian horror film churn-out, you would have to be a nutcase if you want to pay to watch one yourself. I fancy thinking that I am not a nutcase, therefore the justifications- Firstly; the Bhatt camp has monopolized and ruined (in that order) the Indian horror cinema. This movie was an exception. Secondly, Nawazuddin Siddiqui had smitten me with his performance in Gangs of Wasseypur, Kahaani and Peepli Live. I trusted his choice of script.  I wonder if he would also come up with a justification list after watching the movie himself. Thirdly, the plot-though a cliché, but a newer one- promised to explore multiple emotions and directions than the usual haunted house paradigm.

Promising posters have become a reason to suspect foul play

Aatma is a story of a woman trying to save her daughter from being taken to the afterlife by a possessive, psychopathic, cuckolded and (before I forget) dead husband. Towards the beginning of the film, we learn that the daughter has been kept away from the truth of her father’s long absence. So when he comes late at night (when her mother is fast asleep) and tucks her in with a bed time story, the girl doesn’t suspect oddity. Soon her father starts accompanying her to her classroom and helps her with the classwork. The father also tells her that he loves her more than her mother does and that he is going to take her away with him, away from her evil mother. The little girl is also oblivious of the fact that this loving man, her father, is/was a wife beater.

History testifies to the fact that the villain needs to be a better developed and a more real character than the hero himself. Be it Darth Vader or Voldemort or Raoul Silva from Skyfall, all these people-though fantasized and exaggerated their antics are- are more like us, they faced real conflicts in decision-making and survived them only to die at the hands of their respective contrived, utopian and idealist figures- the Heroes. Aatma had a great potential to build a great villain. And with a casting triumph like that (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), their job was half done! But the ham-up operation was led by a team of headstrong genre-terrorists that interpreted the ‘holy book of horror’ wrong. The hero/heroine in this case- It’s like all the other cases, they are always right. Only in horror movies, they get to be dumb as well.

An ideal way to make this film would have been the adoption of a moody approach. Things should have taken time to unravel. The relationship between the father and the daughter, the father and the mother and the mother and the daughter should have been explored to the point we started caring about them. Even if they had ascended to melodrama, I would not have complained. The idea of the story does provide an opportunity to discover sentimental passages that could lead to an enthralling climax, full of emotion. But then this is a lot of wishful thinking. Let us see how the film’s been executed (pun intended) in this particular universe of ours-

The film opens with a song that could have been used in the background during the spooky scenes. As soon as the opening credits are done with, the film jumps into the plot, perhaps too early! This is the perfect place to explain with an analogy- instead of putting the first gear, the film directly puts the fifth one and as for the climax, it chooses the only one left- the reverse gear.

Once you spot a logical loophole in a film that you wanted to enjoy, the experience just gets ruined. In this particular film- why does the mother not sleep in her daughter’s room when she knows that a psycho ghost comes visits the little girl and has already threatened to take her away? Why does the woman never make an escape strategy throughout the film? Why expect the ghost to just give up its escapades for no reason? Every time the dead husband makes his nightly appearance, this woman- probably suffering from short term memory loss- hops, skips and shouts with shock. The antagonist himself is not a very stable character. This particular ghost has got his ideology wrong! His counterparts will cringe in embarrassment when they see how illiterate he is in the art of haunting. He kills all the random people for no reason, even if they do not come in his way. This might be the film’s alternate way of telling us that he is a psychopath. The problem is, they waste a lot of time saying that. There is no limit to the variety of ways in which the movie annoys you- A certain character in the movie (that of a cop) is investigating the random murders committed by this misguided ghost of ours. He gets to annoy us by repeatedly reminding us, in a pseudo-ominous tone- “Yahan kuch galat ho raha hai…” This exercise is used to bring us back to the edge of the seat, even as the film reaches its climax. They got it right in a way. The film was so bad in developing any sense of fearful progression that we had to be reminded by this guy time and again.

Another flaw is that the movie ‘tries’ to be intelligent. It tells us of things that are happening off-screen, through random dialogues (badly delivered). Now most filmmakers use this trick to focus on more important plot points. This film wasted those plot points off screen. What WAS kept was stupidity. Here is an example; our Sherlock Holmes explains a murder scene to our heroine-

“Unke sharer par koi ghaav nahi tha”
“Phir who kaise mari?”
“Unka Galaa kaatkar maara gaya”
“Par aapne toh abhi bola ki koi ghaav nahi tha”
*ominous pause*
”Unka gala andarse kaata gaya tha”

*audience mocks the situation with sarcastic sighs of realization*

And worry not; the film is full of these. The little girl was just attacked by a supernatural ghost but was saved at the last moment by her mother. The mother takes her away to spend the night at the neighbor’s place (why? The house is not haunted, the little girl is! Why endanger the innocent neighbors?). There a friendly woman tucks the girl in with her own and reassures the mother- “she is safe now”. How do you know? You have no basis to prove that statement! Just because a dialogue is necessary, you don’t have to speak baseless stuff. Times like these, we should go with the Hollywood staple- “everything is going to be alright”. It’s a broad statement that doesn’t talk about now. It talks about the final state of being. So even if things go wrong in the immediate future, you cannot be blamed. For uttering that one baseless dialogue, I guess the neighbors deserved the endangerment. 

Kid's possessed by a ghost! These guys put the 'no' in in'no'vation! 

When it comes to acting, what you have got to do in a horror movie is, firstly, be cynical when it comes to walking the corridors. Definitely, do not switch on the lights, because that way the disable the ghost. And secondly, act like you were being chased by a monster. The child actress cannot be blamed for her performance, but we can say that she was not motivated at all. Bipasha Basu must be proud that she is doing different stuff than dancing to item numbers, wearing skimpy outfits, but watching her in movies like Raaz-3 and this one, you want to pick her up (like you do in those strategy games) and place her in a place more respectable… the shampoo commercials, maybe? No she does not do a bad job; she could have definitely done a better job, only there is not much of a job to do. It’s more than dancing in skimpy outfits, but it’s sillier. As for Nawazuddin Siddiqui, he has just had his adrenaline shot to fame with his Gangs of Wasseypur stardom. He will have to choose his scripts carefully. I have to admit though that he was arresting in whatever little screen presence he had. He was one of those good ideas that were kept off the screen, you see?

Finally, if I were you and I was reading this article, I would pan the critic for

1.       Wasting so much time in watching a movie he knew was not going to be any good

2.       Wasting so much time in writing a review for the movie nobody is going to watch any way.

Perhaps I would be right in doing that. It is not hard to see that shock horror is on the verge of dying. But it has been dying for a long time. There are superior genres. Genres that make you laugh, the ones that make you think about your life and the ones that inspire you. Horror in itself has been made into a cheap way of earning money. In olden days people used to go to magic shows to get dumbfounded, now we go to horror films. People will never stop testing their courage. They need to be motivated regularly. They need to know that they are not afraid and they need to feel intelligent. These needs are satisfied by today’s horror cinema. The genre will always remain on the verge of dying. What a sad state of immortality. I am reminded of a particular episode of The Twilight Zone, in which a man makes a deal with the devil. He trades his sickness for immortality, only to be imprisoned for life!

I do not regret watching this film. It was a waste of time, but it was laughably bad. Everybody in the auditorium laughed their guts out. They had a good time wasting their time. 

One thing is for sure. As the crow's been flying, this has become a paradoxical statement-

' I have a good taste in movies. My favourite genre? Horror '

As for ‘Aatma’, there was not a singular scary moment. Don’t watch it deliberately, only accidentally.

Rating:  0.5 / 5

Sandy Hooks (and) The World

9:30 a.m, December 14^th

Sandy Hooks Village,

Newtown,Connecticut

Adam Peter Lanza, an armed 20 year old man, wearing a military outfit, killed 28 people in a span of 20 minutes. First he shot his mother in the face, 4 times. Then he stormed into the local elementary school killing twenty kids (all between the ages of 5 to 7) and six adults of the female staff. The 28^th ‘victim’ was Lanza himself.

Adam Lanza

The police arrived. No shots were fired by them. Investigation says that Nancy Lanza (the perpetrator’s mother) was a firearm enthusiast who used to stock guns and believed that violence was the only way to survive once the economy crashed, which according to her was very eminent. She wanted her kids to take this seriously, so they accompanied her to the shooting range on a regular basis. Nancy Lanza was a woman who could predict the fall of American economy but was oblivious of the eminent fall of her son’s sanity.

The victims

The crime is unforgivable. What had the children done to meet such a horrifying end? To Adam Lanza they were merely a collateral damage in his superior battle against the world. What enmity he had against the kids is a mystery and that is what the whole world seems to be obsessed about. Sure it is puzzling. This tragedy affects the whole world and the whole world needs to contribute in solving the crime. We need to spread awareness about the 28 people who died in Connecticut, because it so happens that an incident like this rarely takes place in our country. We need to spread awareness and we need to tell people how this event has scarred us for life. We are a global community and we unite against issues like this, right? 

So what do we do? We twitter, we blog and we put up status updates, cursing Lanza, cursing his mother and cursing the American government. As soon as we are done with this, the little children wouldn’t have died for nothing! They were actually a mere collateral damage in our superior battle against the world, which begins with regulating American laws concerning possession of firearms. We are all Lanzas, shooting with our keyboards into the virtual world of internet.

Meanwhile, as the people of the cynical world are engrossed in their pseudo-humanity, the top management of the media houses is hunting for the next piece of information, rather the next bait. When they take a coffee break, they switch on their respective news channels. It warms them to see so many people dancing to their tunes. The chairman pats the backs of his executives for choosing the right ‘piece’. The sponsors are happy. The increased primetime viewership assures them that their marketing investment decisions have been sound. Other entertainment channels sulk because they cannot come up with such interesting pieces, as their network is supposed to air reality shows where the actors take too much time to rehearse their scripts, causing a further lessening of profits. They pacify themselves by saying that the audience will get tired of the violence and will come back for some animation films to uplift themselves and some nerdy sitcoms to laugh at. So the question that arises is- How much do those children mean to this industrial world where success is measured by profits? Money brings happiness, so the only way to quantify happiness is to count the money. So in a way, when some people are earning money through others’ tragedy, they are buying happiness. So happiness- like money- does not go out of system, just changes hands. Is this too heartless an idea? Well, If Lanza can happen to this world, so can this idea.

History tells us that Lanza is nothing. He is a big thing today because we are now living in a ‘pro-peace’ world and not in the times of ‘violent land grabbing escapades’. So we believe. He is a big thing today because he is all over your internet and television screens today. He is a big thing because the issue was blown up like a balloon. Whether the reasons for this amplification are sentimental or monetary, are for you to choose; whichever choice comforts you more is the right choice.

When I say that this issue has been blown out of proportion, I do not mean that it was not horrifying. So here comes the need to define a limit to the ‘proportion’. The proportion is inversely related to your ignorance. Here’s a simple exercise-

1. Leave this article for a minute, open your local newspaper
2. Scan through it
3. Notice how many homicides, rapes and other violent cases you find in there
4. Remind yourself that is just your town. India being the seventh largest nation in the world contains hundreds of towns like yours
5. Do the math

Now would you tweet about it?

Probably not. I will tell you why, because nobody else is tweeting about it. It is not ‘trending’! So why would you discuss something that is not in fashion? Isn’t it elementary that you discuss what is ‘in’ rather than discuss what is important? There was a time when people were reprimanded for not doing but only talking. If that is not the case now, can we at least discuss the right things?

New Delhi. The evening of 18^th December.  A 23 year old girl and her boyfriend boarded a city transport bus. Surprisingly, they had only four co-passengers other than the driver. The co-passengers, not very surprisingly, started passing lewd comments towards the girl. This tactic was just to spark a violent argument with her boyfriend, which then gave them a reason to hit him up with iron rods. With the male taken care of, the men proceeded towards the female.

Late at night, a passerby found two bleeding beings, by the roadside. They were in a state of shock. The perpetrators long lost to the night.  

This incident is on the front page of Chennai’s issue of The Hindu, right below the detailed descriptions of GMR-Maldives tussle, Dhoni’s loss against England and Gujarat voting rounds, squeezed between an SBI advertisement and that of a highly reputed college that has started providing a master’s program in family business management.

 The girl and the boy were not the residents of United States of America, they were born and brought up in a busy Indian metropolitan city where the news of children being crushed under city buses is as usual as the weekly fluctuations of the stock market, where the head of the nation does not call press conferences every time people die. Because then he would have to be on the TV all the time. He would have a separate channel for himself.

I once asked someone, “Why does this city have such a disturbing road-accident rate?” The answer I got was more disturbing, “This is a metro, such things keep happening, you take care of yourself”. To my surprise, the same person was tweeting condolences to the Connecticut community, two days ago. Maybe the ‘Sandy Hooks Massacre’ is the new ‘Gangnam Style’ then. Sometimes I feel that being a global citizen has its disadvantages. Because there are no borders to adhere to, we start believing that we belong to the better part of the globe. Our reality becomes America. No more do we take steps to improve the quality of television in our country, we would rather watch international sitcoms that the internet gives us an easy access to. Not that it’s a bad thing to do, but don’t you forget that it’s just your computer screen that has the look of a developed rich economy. When you step out of your house, there’s still going to be gaping potholes, needy beggars and the undying stench of corruption. The exposure towards the better world is backfiring. The portal on your latest sharing device’s screen is just make-believe. Now when indigenous writers dream of plots for their story, they do not think of Kapoors, Mishras and Khans. They think of Mr. Smith and the bar on the Dewey Street. Including me. I do admit that in a fast-paced thriller, Anand Sharma would make a bad name for a protagonist. I would like to clarify here that I am not against the fact that internet provides access to global citizenship, hell I love the internet! But I try to retain my identity. Do you?

Israel has been torturing the Gaza Strip for a long time now. It is known to assassinate important leaders of its neighboring countries, until recently. It’s bombing on Sudan is a major discomfort to all the countries around it. The death toll and the living conditions are unimaginable. And let's not forget that Israel itself is under the constant threat of annihilation from these neighbors. The civil war in Syria has destabilized the whole of west Asia. With the various communities fighting for their rights, the governments of Sudan’s allied nations are distracted. It is said that Israel’s attack on Sudan was just a warning to Iran, which is probably supplying arms to Sudan and also 'allegedly' developing nuclear weapons, atomic bombs that could wipe out a country the size of Israel in a matter of seconds. One superpower that is supporting Israel in its violent endeavors is the United States of America. You see an integral part of the country’s economy functions on the selling of arms. When there’s no war, the arms sales take a drop. So “let the whole world fight, let me earn the money to defend my country against these violent countries”. Enter- greed. There is no deficiency in firearm production, so “let me sell some to my own citizens; so what if they are already drowning in taxes, there’s nothing wrong in providing money to support their government so that it can protect them from the violent countries out there!” But this injection of cynicism into the society has proved to be an overdose. And then we have reactions like those in Wisconsin and Sandy Hooks, Newtown.

Justice is a very relative term.  Ajmal Kasab’s death was celebrated with fireworks and processions. The death was just a part of the Mumbai tragedy. This fact was forgotten. So much are we in the clinches of media that we have stopped thinking for ourselves. The picture is being drawn in front of us and all we do is appreciate or criticize it. We too can pick up a brush, you know? But then surely we cannot trot the globe and collect all first-hand information ourselves. So we have to depend on the news channels to provide us with the relevant information. The news channels have competitors (it’s a money game after all) so they will try to attract you towards their particular channel. And this can only be done by showing you something attractive; content that is more magnetic than the competitor’s. Important news gayi tael lene (can kiss my ass). And thus we watch what we are provided with. “Yellow Journalism” is too extreme a term for the entirety of Indian Media. But there’s a mild jaundice fever, one can sense it.

This is how things are running. And new stuff will start running when this stops. What we can at least do is close the internet window occasionally and open the literal window of our rooms. There’s things we cannot ignore. There’s things we ought to see, we ought to do. Besides, this will also make way for a better torrent speed!

Just for the record folks, between last year and this year, the Syrian Civil war has killed 50000 people. This includes about 2500 children. Many of them were tortured to death. But surely the Connecticut issue is more grave and discussion worthy.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Let me start by apologizing for the month long delay. Busy lives and a lack of good movies have kept us from posting reviews. But we're back. And now to business.

Whenever I watch a good movie on screen I tend to come out with a small smile plastered to my face. If it's a long awaited release or a sequel this smile lasts longer. If some of my favorite actors delivered fine performances in it the smile lasts even longer. The smile lasts the longest when I am too caught up in the experience to sit back and think about the movie. We've all been guilty of post-movie exuberance disorder. This year particularly has made me suffer the most, I think it is because of the number of big movie franchises that had their latest sequel/prequel/reboot this year. And I do suffer, the suffering starts the moment I begin to think about the movie and start deconstructing it.

I call it the Dark Knight Rises Effect. Not to be confused with the Matrix Revolutions effect where a sequel purely sucks.

Before I start on the review let me get something out of the way. This adaptation of Tolkien's novel The Hobbit differed from the novel in many ways. The characters were slightly different. Some of the plot points have been changed and some of them expanded. I will not complain about these as they would take up far too much time and they would require me to re-read The Hobbit. The movie differs from the novel. Some of you might be angry about the changes. I'm angry too, sometimes. But this review will not focus on those differences.

When I first read about the development of The Hobbit a few years ago I had no fears that it would not be made. I expected it to be made. LOTR had made three billion dollars. The studios had just found a prize winning formula, damned if they didn't exploit it. In fact The Hobbit would be easier to make than the LOTR as the story was adventurous yet lighter than the LOTR. There were pockets of darkness but it was nothing compared to the war and death that predominated Gandalf's later quests. I then learnt that The Hobbit had become two movies which did not feel natural as Peter Jackson had already adapted the longer novels into single movies instead of splitting them up. This year I learnt that the movies had been split into three parts to 'fully' tell the story. I was afraid that this three movie split was an effort to garner more profits. But I gave the director the benefit of doubt, he might genuinely be interested to narrate a riveting tale of adventure, loyalty, honor and bravery in great cinematic detail and quality. Looking at An Unexpected Journey I'm leaning on the theory that Tolkien has become Jackson's cash cow.

One is a gold hoarder the other is a dragon.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected journey covered the first leg of Bilbo's journey with the dwarves to reclaim their former home and hoard of precious metals, Erebor also known as the Lonely Mountain. Meanwhile dark forces are stirring, the elves keep twitching, Saruman is still a good guy and Gandalf is mysterious and old. As you can see plot-wise quite a lot of stuff happens. The all familiar aerial landscape shots that double as tourism adverts for New Zealand make the viewer feel right at home. The cinematography is spectacular as usual but the third dimension did not enhance my movie viewing experience nor was it used effectively as a medium by the filmmakers.

What is important is the way the story is told. I am reminded of a line that Gandalf delivered in this movie, "Power lies in the small things, small acts of kindness and love" or something. It is the small things that can irritate you, can mark the difference between a film and a movie, can show the commercial vision behind the movie. For example movies rely on character arcs that rarely surprise people anymore. You know that the scruffy orphan is going to win the baking championship because she was beaten at the musical choir showdown midway through the movie. In this movie too you could clearly see the character development taking place and unlike LOTR it was not well handled. More Avengers than The Godfather, do you see what I'm getting at. Action movies are littered with tiny little cliffhangers that you know the characters will clear but they include anyways because they keep you on the edge of your seat. At least they did, ten years ago. You know the ones I'm talking about? The character jumps across a chasm and instead of landing cleanly the character has to hold on to a ledge or an opportune plant growth with his/her fingertips till he/she is rescued. The little things make a difference, quite literally in Tolkien's universe but somehow the makers of The Hobbit failed to notice that.

Now the star of three successful adaptations.

Martin Freeman was a great Bilbo, unsure at first but slowly becoming adjusted to his new destiny as a hero of sorts. Sir Ian McKellen was his usual self. Fantastic. Can the man be anything else? Andy Serkis was back as Gollum, the show stealer. Elijah Wood made a very small appearance as Frodo and he looks younger than Daniel Radcliffe. Of the dwarves I have few words. None of them made lasting impression. None of them were as endearing as Gimli. They did a fine job sure, but nothing outstanding. The music just like the rest of the movie is good but it could have been better.

Soft young skin with Fair and Elrond Cream. Enriched with jujubes from Mirkwood.

Overall I'd say it was a good movie. Certainly a good experience. Disappointing though. Especially to those who've been waiting almost ten years to see it. Some of you might think I was being too harsh on the movie considering it was based on a children's book. My reply is this, the movie aimed to be more than a children's story. I recommend you watch this in a movie theatre.

IMDB Rating: 8.8/10 (This rating will probably decrease in the following weeks)

My Rating: 7/10