Movie Review Round-Up #4 - Walt Disney, Tonto & Some Hobbits Save the Snow Queen

And here I thought I was done with movie reviews for a while - turns out my wife & I have seen quite a few moving pictures here lately, mainly because of the fact that we received a handful of gift cards to Regal Cinemas as Christmas gifts. (I was an AMC man growing up in Lancaster, SC - a city that exists in the shadows of Charlotte, NC - but Regal seems to dominate the theatrical landscape here in the midlands of South Carolina.) Therein lies a decent question to ponder: Would we have seen some of these films if we weren't able to get in for free? Going to the cinema is an expensive prospect seeing as how getting to a theater isn't exactly a 5 minute drive for us, unfortunately. Chances are we would have in the case of Frozen as both my wife and myself are suckers for anything with the Disney logo situated somewhere in the poster art. Similarly, Saving Mr. Banks was an almost automatic selection because you can't go wrong with Tom Hanks. He's essentially the Peyton Manning of Hollywood (Or maybe Peyton Manning is the Tom Hanks of professional football?) in that unless something extraordinarily unusual happens you can count on his performance alone being worth the price of admission.

Then we have The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Lone Ranger, two titles we viewed at home. In the case of The Hobbit, I purchased it on Blu-ray right after it became available and it had been sitting on our entertainment center ever since (yes, that puts it there almost a solid calendar year). I can give no other justification for the delay than the fact I'd simply not taken the time to invest 3 hours of my time in the film. That and we both wanted to watch it so we could hopefully then go to the theater to see The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. As for The Lone Ranger, it fell into that most bothersome category of movie, that being the sort of flick that you're watching because you're halfway expecting it to be horrible due to what others have said/written about it and you want to either verify or discredit those experiences for yourself.

As an aside to this introduction, I'll note that this turned into a very Disney-heavy Movie Review Round-Up as 3 of the 4 films I'll be talking about originated from the House of the Mouse. I have no real reasoning for pointing this out other than to brag on the fact that my wife & I will be going to Walt Disney World again in May, this time for the 2014 edition of Star Wars Weekends at Disney's Hollywood Studios!

Frozen

Based loosely on a Hans Christian Andersen story called The Snow Queen, Frozen follows the story of Elsa and Anna, a pair of Norwegian sisters born into royalty, the former of happening to have been cursed (as her parents would have her believe) with the power to manipulate ice. Unfortunately she has difficult in controlling these powers and inadvertently injures her younger sister with them while they were playing. Their parents seek out the aid of a troll king who is able to heal Anna, taking away her memories of Elsa's abilities in the process. 

The most glaring issues that Frozen contains, to me, are plot related. They're the kind of problems that children may or may not pick up on but as an adult they stick out like a patch of yellow snow on an otherwise brilliant drift. My biggest gripe is that there's no origin story given to Elsa's powers. We are never told where they come from or why she has them and Anna doesn't, we can only assume it's some sort of supposed curse that befalls an individual every once in a while. As I watched the film I kept saying to myself that she's more or less Ice Man from MARVEL's X-MEN comic books, only she never has the blessing of meeting her equivalent to Professor Xavier.

Therein lies the source of my X-MEN comparisons; Elsa's powers might otherwise be thought of as a mutation in another mythology, not far from that of a character like Iceman. The difference between the two being that Iceman was fortunate enough to be encouraged to hone his abilities by the likes of Professor Xavier and that Elsa's powers appear to be incredibly vast. She's not just controlling ice, she has the capacity to create sentient life - Olaf and the castle guardian are examples of this. The implications of that never get touched upon in this particular narrative, although that's perhaps too deep for what's supposed to be a kid's movie.

In the grand scheme of Disney films, Frozen ranks up there with Beauty and the Beast as well as The Little Mermaid in terms of being captivating stories featuring brilliant vocal performances both in terms of dialogue and in song. It really is a fantastic picture for kids of all ages - if you're an adult, just do yourself a favor by not doing what I did in trying to analyze the thing, nearly forgetting to be entertained in the process.

3.75/5 Professor Xaviers

Saving Mr. Banks

When Walt Disney sought the motion picture rights to Mary Poppins, he wound up confronting author P.L. Travers head on, a woman who was seemingly unwilling to let go of her creation for fear that Disney would tarnish what it meant - not so much to the world, but to Travers herself.

I will be blunt in saying that I am not typically one to watch a film that would be best categorized as a comedy-drama. Likewise, romantic comedies aren't generally my mason jar of sweet iced tea, if you catch my drift. (It's like listening to a Nickelback album - you already know what you're going to get when you turn the thing on because they're all more or less the same.) However, I will be blunt again in saying that a movie like this is worth watching regardless of what your personal tastes may dictate because of the players involved. The combination of Emma Thompson's emulation of P.L. Travers and Tom Hanks' portrayal of Walt Disney makes for a masterful mix of talent. When you throw in the likes of Paul Giamatti and Colin Farrell as accessories, it's fairly difficult to go wrong. They aren't heavy-handed or overbearing in trying to impersonate the individuals they're hoping to represent, rather they all succeed in breathing life into them.

I'm sure that there are those who would look to discredit the historical accuracy of aspects to the plot of Saving Mr. Banks. I can't argue with such criticisms because my knowledge of the history behind this film is slim to none, although I will say that the dynamic tension leading up to the eventual reveal of Travers' reasoning for being so defensive in regard to Mary Poppins treatment by others is a real treat. It's a mixture of storytelling, acting, and editing that make it what it is - a movie that will tug at your heart yet still find a way to make you laugh.

4/5 Mouse Ear Hats

The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey

Long before Frodo, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli set off to destroy the ring of power before the dark lord Sauron could reclaim it, there was another mythical quest across Middle Earth involving elves, Hobbits, and sorcery - only this one involved a dragon and the struggle of a small band of dwarfs hoping to take back their homeland.

Based on J. R. R. Tolkien's classic novel, The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey represents the first act of what will eventually be a trilogy of films.

I am a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I could watch those movies just about any day of the week and be just as entertained as I was the first time I saw them. The cast was so strong for that trio of pictures that I cannot think of anyone I would see replaced in the lineup with other actors. Unfortunately, the cast is one of the biggest problems I have with An Unexpected Journey but its also a reflection of the differences in this story versus that of the Lord of the Rings. There is no Aragorn/Viggo Mortensen here - what I mean by that is there's no primary hero clearly identified, even though some would argue that would be Martin Freeman as a younger version of Bilbo Baggins. (He may be the main character but he's not the charismatic center of the cast; perhaps I'm hoping for too much in expecting to see another similar warrior-type to what was had before.) Instead there's a whole bunch of potential leads none of whom we genuinely get that much of an opportunity with which to bond, and some of whom are almost unlikeable.

With this story, we have a crew of characters in the dwarfs who are almost always together. While they each appear unique in terms of their style, none of them truly have a chance to stick out from the rest aside from Thorin Oakenshield played by Richard Armitage. (I am not lying when I tell you that I could not recall a single one of the dwarf's names other than Oakenshield.) The problem with him is that he comes off as a giant prick right up until the end of the film. By that point, I had pretty well lost interest in anything he had to say; the sudden recovery seemed too forced, at least for me.

My wife & I watched An Unexpected Journey on Blu-ray at home and we're hoping to see the Desolation of Smaug before it leaves theaters. While I may not have enjoyed this film as much as I have some of director Peter Jackson's other offerings set in Middle Earth, I am looking forward to seeing what comes next as I hope the inclusion of Orlando Bloom who returns as Legolas will be a nice shot in the arm to invigorate the story.

3/5 The Preciouses

The Lone Ranger

The concept of a solitary sentinel fighting for justice isn't a novel one, especially not these days where it seems as though every superhero could be described as such. But where did that ideal begin? Probably with an actual member of society who was so inspired at some point in human history if you really want to try and nail it down, but in terms of popular culture the roots of such characters go back to one man, that being the Lone Ranger who first appeared on American airwaves back in 1933 and who has been an iconic figure ever since.

Unfortunately for modern audiences, the Lone Ranger's legacy isn't what it once was thanks to this mess of a film.

Disney and director Gore Verbinski had been on an amazing "winning" streak thanks to the overwhelming success of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies they assembled. With over $1 billion made at the box office, it seemed like the combination of Disney, Verbinski, and star Johnny Depp could do no wrong. Apparently all it took to break the streak was to have Depp play a Native American with a dead bird on his head.

In all honesty, the aesthetic choice of how to represent Tonto in this iteration of the Lone Ranger mythology is about the least troublesome aspect of the overall production. (Depp, to his credit, is his usual over-the-top self here; he's entertaining, I just wish the material he has to work with had been better.) The plot is so tremendously bloated and unnecessarily complex that it's at times difficult to follow but still horribly campy in what it tries to accomplish. To make matters worse, Armie Hammer is tasked with playing a heroic and vivacious action hero even though Armie Hammer has the personality of a loaf of white bread. Then to make matters even more worse, the action sequences are as over the top as any I've ever seen. They're not quite 28-mile-long-runway stupid (as was the case with Fast & Furious 6), but even so I cannot get out of my head how the state of movie-making seems to be that it's required to take anything plausible pertaining to action and throw it out the window.

I imagine the creative meetings for The Lone Ranger went something like this...

Writer: Okay, we've got an idea for a sequence where Ranger, Tonto, and some guys are fighting on a moving train.
Producer: That's not good enough.
Writer: What do you mean?
Producer: That's too simplistic, it needs more...More of everything.
Writer: Alright, what if the train is speeding out of control?
Producer: Not bad, still too vanilla though.
Writer: Um, how about the fight takes place on a speeding, out of control train that gets split into two sections and weaves back & forth between a pair of tracks causing the actors to have to do stunts that no human being could possibly survive or even logically perform?
Producer: Yeah, yeah...Add some explosions and a bridge, now we're talking!

If this movie had a giant mechanical spider it would be Wild, Wild West all over again. Disney had a real opportunity to make what could've been a great western, a real revenge tale involving classic characters. All it would've needed is a more serious tone and a better angle of how best to depict the origin of the Ranger. Instead we're left with this schlock-fest that has very few redeeming qualities.

1.5/5 Loaves of White Bread