Jamie Alexandre Hall's Blog, page 6

Off My Shelf: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) - **SPOILERS**

Since I wasn't doing this blog when I saw Guardians of the Galaxy, it's probably worth saying that I was kind of neutral to it. It wasn't terrible. I thought it was a nice-looking, shallow, lightweight adventure film with characters that were only semi-likeable. (In fact, the characters might have been the main issue I had with the movie -- I just didn't LIKE anybody. Except "Drax"; he was the best part and the only one who was actually funny, because his character is sincere.) (BTW, there are SPOILERS throughout, so beware!)



So, my expectations for Guardians 2 were -- if not "low", at least, neutral. I figured it would be a nice-looking movie that I ultimately wouldn't care about too much.

The Plot: The Guardians are up to their normal hijinx (escaping from problems of their own creation and trying to capture relatives of Gamora's to turn in for the bounty), when they encounter a mysterious man known as "Ego" who claims to be Star Lord's father. The team is separated (Drax, Star Lord and Gamora go with Ego, while Baby Groot, Rocket and their captive -- Gamora's evil sister -- stay behind to try to repair their damaged ship). A group of space pirates is closing in on team Rocket, while team Star Lord is trying to figure out whether Ego is who he says he is...

The BIGGEST Problem: I was not engaged with probably the first half of this movie . Honestly, I was kind of bored. Oh, it was colorful and light and vaguely amusing -- but you must have tension to keep the audience interested. Tension is created by stakes (i.e. "serious problems"). If there are stakes -- but the heroes easily surmount them -- there is no tension. I was not worried about what might happen to the heroes of our movie for at least the first half, if not longer.


Second Biggest Problem: Jokey-situations were in overdrive during the first half or so of this movie. I understand that's one of the gimmicks of the Guardians movies; that this is one of the "fun" movies and "fun = jokes", but, seriously. They could have pulled it back a little bit. There is a particular type of joke that the writer of this movie seems addicted to -- the "inappropriate digression". They are in a tense situation, and suddenly our heroes start talking/arguing about something they shouldn't be arguing about (i.e. an inappropriate digression).  An example: let's say, our heroes are trying to outrun enemy ships and their own ship is being blasted all over the place. Let's say - Gamora starts yelling at Star Lord for not wearing his seatbelt. Star Lord: "You're showing concern! You're in love with me!" Gamora: "I am so not in love with you! You have brain problems!" Star Lord: "You're showing concern for my brain! That means we're in love -- just like Bogie and Bacall!" Gamora: "The what and the who, now?" Star Lord: "Bogie and Bacall! They're this pair of actors mentioned in a song called 'Key Largo' -- Bertie Higgins, 1981. Really bad song. It's on my new 'Not Awesome' mix tape..." (Not an actual example of dialogue, but you see what I mean? Their spaceship is being blasted up, but they're taking the time to argue about their relationship and other pop-culture-related items...?)

It is a bad song. It really is.And it seems like every second line of dialogue is the "inappropriate digression" joke; they go off on an unrelated discussion tangent, or start arguing about some minor issue at a tonally inappropriate moment. It gets to the point where it seems like every single one of our characters has attention deficit disorder because nobody can focus on anything for more than a couple seconds -- not even their own impending doom.

For the record, the second most overdone joke in the movie was "Baby Groot doesn't get it!" -- which was fine, except that the iterations of this joke went on for a really, really long time. They completely ignored the Rule of 3. It could have been reined in. Just a bit.

Third Biggest Problem: Every character seemed to have their own little plot in this movie... which isn't necessarily a problem. However, the weakest of these stories, which (to me) felt shoe-horned-in-there, was the "Gamora's sister" plot. It started out as an "I need to kill her" thing, and turned into a ham-fisted "we're sisters and we love each other" thing. I don't even remember Gamora's sister from the first movie, and now I'm supposed to care about their relationship? Unnecessary emotional filler material. We know Star Lord's story was the steak of this meal -- while the Gamora's sister was the side-salad that you didn't really want, but it came with the steak so now you feel like you have to eat it -- and you do so, and you and pretend you like it, because salad is supposed to be good for you and there are people with you who might mock you for not eating healthy if you just leave it on your plate.

Gamora's sister. I forget her name. Yub-Nub or
something like that.Question: Would it have been a bad thing if Gamora was just a piece of Star Lord's primary plot in this movie, rather than having to dwell on her own story? That primary plot is about Star Lord and his Dad. Star Lord initially has doubts about this guy while Gamora thinks it should be checked out -- but by the ending, the position has reversed and Gamora is the one having doubts while Star Lord totally bought into it. This could, and should have been played with a little more (helping with the item I list above as "Number One Problem"). Gamora should have spent more time growing uneasy with this situation. Maybe feeling like, "What are we doing here? Why are we wasting so much time? Why is Quill getting so sucked-into this? Who is this Ego, guy, really?" They could even have had Ego make some weird suggestions, like, "And when you're King of this planet, my boy, you can make the green gal your Queen," and have had Gamora like, "Wait, WHAT?! Heck no!" and stormed away, and then Ego could have used that as a way of turning Quill against his friends... Which leads into...

Fourth Biggest Problem: EGO. I both loved Kurt Russell in this movie (because he was in "funny, upbeat Kurt Russell" mode; think, Big Trouble in Little China or Captain Ron -- i.e. a Kurt Russell we haven't seen in some time, as he's been too busy growing out his facial hair and starring in grim cowboy movies) ...and thought there were some issues.

Although he can probably charm you into forgetting those issues.Not performance issues (he gave a wholly admirable performance of the material he was given) -- I thought he simply wasn't given enough. Throughout the first part of this movie, Ego is putting on a show for the characters as far as making himself seem like a great guy... and then, abruptly, goes into total "evil villain" mode at the end. Ego is supposed to be millions of years old, nigh-on immortal, but he folded so easily.

He either should have been a) so practiced that he had a lie for everything and was astonishingly good at manipulating people, or b) so weird and alien to the human way of thinking that he couldn't see anything the slightest bit wrong with any part of what he'd done -- right down to killing his previous children. ("What are you looking at me like that for? I didn't need them anymore. What was I supposed to do -- keep them alive? They would just have been consuming resources at that point. What sense would that make?") So, yeah -- either that, or with millions of years to practice, he simply should have been more conniving. One or the other.

Minor Nitpicks:
* At one point, Ego is talking about his first encounter with human life, and showing everybody a diorama of that experience -- illustrated by young him coming upon a little girl. Then he says something about being immensely unimpressed by life -- at which point, for full effectiveness, the diorama should have showed him killing the little girl. They didn't show this. Why? Probably because these movies, although filled with salty language and implications, are basically aimed at families (and for some reason they shy away from killing children in family movies). But it definitely made the scene less effective. It could have been a nice homage to certain other classic movie monsters who shall remain nameless...



* The CGI plant-thing-goop-monster that grows on earth when Ego increases his power -- looked like a crappy early CGI effect. It was very unimpressive.

This totally unrelated shot from the 2001 movie Evolution
has a significantly more impressive CGI goop monster... and it's not even that good. *Stallone was in this movie. This in itself is actually a good thing. However, just having seen this movie, and not having read the comic books, I had no way of knowing that him and his team were the original Guardians of the Galaxy in the comic books. IT REALLY ANNOYS ME to have to do "external readings" to understand what is happening in a movie.



Things that Were GoodYou might think, from the above, that I totally hated the movie. Nay, not so!

*No Connection to Rest of Marvel Universe: Okay, that's not entirely true -- it has some connection to the rest of the Marvel Universe. But it doesn't suffer from it the way most of the solo-Avengers movies did -- where many of their films seem to have been designed solely for the purposes of building up the big "Avengers Movie" group-effort.

*It was a beautiful looking movie. Colorful and visually delightful.

*De-Aging Special Effects: This movie begins with a de-aged Kurt Russell -- and it was basically flawless. I don't know how they did it. Did they just smooth-out and puff-up old Kurt Russell's face with computers, or (because there is ample video footage of young Kurt Russell) did they just lift that and somehow fit it into the film? I DON'T KNOW! And it's very nice to have that "I don't know how they did that effect" feeling -- because one so seldom feels it anymore.

Not a picture of de-aged Kurt Russell from this movie, but
gives you the general idea. THIS, with bigger hair.*Drax is still the funniest character.


*Sylvester Stallone was unexpectedly in this movie. Like I said -- this is a good thing. I always enjoy Stallone.



*They called this movie "Vol. 2" -- rather than something abstract and stupid like, "Into Darkness". This means, when people are retroactively watching these movies, they will actually be able to figure out what order they go in!

*I liked the characters, as a whole, more than I did the first movie. I actually cared about them in this film and wanted things to work out well for them.

*"Fatherhood" was treated as an admirable and important estate (in spite of the two fathers in this movie being a monster and a criminal). This is a nice change from the general attitude of Hollywood, which is that fathers are basically all Homer Simpson.


So, in the end, I must say that I basically enjoyed this movie. It was an overall positive experience, even though it wasn't perfect, by any means. The story structure left a bit to be desired, the dialogue could have been tightened up, and the plot could have been tightened up. But it looked nice and I didn't walk out of the movie theater FURIOUS (as I typically do, these days). This movie exceeded my expectations: I thought it would be a light, harmless, colorful film that I didn't care about very much. In the end, it was a light, harmless, colorful film that I kind of liked.

If you liked the last movie -- you should definitely see this one. You will like it, too. If you didn't like the last movie...  you might still try it out, if you're in the mood for a light, harmless, colorful film. Like I said, I liked this one better than the original film, in spite of its flaws. Which means that I pronounce this film...

RECOMMENDED(with reservations)

Off My Shelf: Why Did You Pick On Me? (1984)

So, I was scrolling through Amazon Prime looking for the next season of Julia Child, when I somehow stumbled across this movie: Why Did You Pick on Me?, starring the enigmatic Bud Spencer. (Alternative titles: Super Sheriffen Slar Till Igen, Buddy Haut Den Lukas, Chissa Capitano Perche Tutte a Me, and Everything Happens to Me.)


Bud Spencer, of course, is the star of Aladdin , which we've already discussed. It's weird and poor-quality -- but strangely engrossing. So, when we see this poster:

Bud Spencer, crushing some guy's skull.... And read this description:

"Bud Spencer is, as always, getting into fights - especially after getting a job as sheriff. He's looking after a small boy who's actually an extraterrestrial with special abilities thus the military wants him. Bud's got his hands full."

HOW COULD WE NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE?

Apparently this is a sequel to The Sheriff and the Satellite Kid -- which is not on Amazon, so we couldn't watch it first. This movie picks up at a weird moment that seems like it's half-way through the story, and gives surprisingly little background as to why the Sheriff lives with a child extraterrestrial. (The kid is played by Cary Guffey -- the little kid in Close Encounters.) He looks like an ordinary child, but he has some kind of an alien device that he can rearrange matter with -- and he doesn't understand when not to use his powers.


Well, the film picks up right as Bud and "Charlie" (the alien kid) are escaping from the feds (again). They then roll into the small town of Monroe, Georgia -- which is apparently insanely lawless. A small amount of time is devoted to the alien child's shenanigans -- and the rest of the movie is devoted to Bud Spencer beating people up (because, in addition to being the inexplicable guardian of an alien child, Bud is evidently the world's strongest man and best fighter).

Take that, cartoonish biker thug!We see a much more animated Bud Spencer than we saw in Aladdin (apparently by the time that film rolled around he just didn't care anymore) and the kid is just as cute as he was in Close Encounters. They had a pretty adorable chemistry, as only a big, bear-like man and a small, cute child can.


I'm not going to talk much about the story or events of this film, because if you want to watch it, I'd like you to go into it knowing more or less as little as I did. I won't say it was Shakespeare by any means -- there are so many things that happen in it that don't make any sense at all (possibly because it's an Italian film made in America). I'd say that the worst parts are exactly two comedy fight-scenes that get so self-consciously goofy that they cross the line into obnoxiousness.

Other than that, though, I thought this movie was hilarious -- totally a harmless, fun movie -- and also a weird, alien-feeling movie, thanks less to the actual extraterrestrial content than to its foreign production team. And it's surprisingly higher-budget, more enthusiastic and better-quality than Aladdin. Definitely worth watching on bad movie night!

RECOMMENDEDFun Bad Movie

Off My Shelf: Inkheart (2009)

Inkheart is one of those movies I had always kind of wanted to check out (because it had an intriguing plot) but never had the opportunity to do so. Then, one day, Mr. Hall was out of town -- and I found Inkheart on Amazon Prime -- and thus arrived my opportunity.



The Plot: Brendan Fraser and his daughter travel the world. No Mom in the picture, as she disappeared some nine years back. He is apparently a famous book repairman (because that's a thing) -- and, it quickly turns out, he has a strange, mystical power: when he reads aloud from a book, whatever he's reading about comes out of the book (but, to balance things, somebody real goes into the book). Well, apparently that's what happened to Mom nine years ago -- while some baddies came out of the book he was reading, Mom got sucked into the book. He would have tried to read her out again, but the darn book (Inkheart) got destroyed, and is stupidly rare and out of print, so he's been travelling the world (as a book repairman, see?) trying to find a copy -- meanwhile the baddies are trying to track him down because they want more stuff read out of books by him. Like, treasure and more baddies.


Isn't that an interesting and promising concept? I thought so. I thought it sounded most intriguing, and went into this movie with high hopes.

Acting: The acting was okay. Although Brendan Fraser has the main spot on the poster (I gave him sunglasses above because his face had been creepily photoshopped by the person who made this cover... There's something just not right about it. Maybe it's just me...) but he's not the main character. His daughter is. And she's fine. Pleasant, not obnoxious. Perhaps just a trifle bland. And I'd say that's the main problem with Brendan Fraser, too -- in spite of his character's amazing magical talent, he's basically "generic man" with zero personality traits, outside vague bravery and fatherliness. Please note, I'm not blaming either Brendan Fraser or the young lady who played his daughter for their lack of personality -- because it was the writing. Ironically, in a story about personalities that come out of a book, in this movie that came out of a book, the personalities just weren't there.
[image error] "Encino Man was such a long time ago..."There were three other notable actors in this movie -- Andy Serkis as "Villain", Helen Mirren as "Outspoken Aunt", and Jim Broadbent as "Bland Grandma Jim Broadbent." Andy Serkis was probably my favorite, if only because, as the villain, he was actually allowed to have a personality. Helen Mirren had a personality -- but only in a sort of two-dimensional "I am the Outspoken Aunt! I'm going to say things loud and complain a lot!" sense. Jim Broadbent was not given any significant acting to do, and was dressed like a grandma.

Brendan checks to see if Jim's woman-y pink
scarf is really as soft as it looks.Concept And This Film's Main Problem: In a nutshell: this film has a really promising concept... on which it consistently fails to fully deliver.  When the stakes start getting high, they deflate them. And for having the power to bring any mystical, magical, wonderful creatures to life... it just doesn't seem like we see a lot of mystical, magical, wonderful creatures. Oh, I could name you a handful that turn-up... but when you're watching it, you're just not overwhelmed. Not even whelmed.
Not a photo of actors sitting around between scenes doing nothing -
an actual scene. Of characters sitting around doing nothing.You can name a lot of separate parts of this movie that ought to be interesting. There's a guy who carries a weasel and can juggle fire. One of Ali-Baba's forty thieves becomes a main character. There are flying monkeys and unicorns. THERE IS A GIANT SMOKE MONSTER AT THE END OF THIS MOVIE. And you know what? It's just not exciting and I can't entirely tell you why. Maybe it's just that there isn't enough of that stuff? Or that it's treated in too blase a fashion by the main characters? Or maybe it's just that too much of this film is spent with the main characters just travelling from place to place and not actually experiencing interesting things. Then there's the problem that certain characters do things that simply don't make sense from a motivational standpoint. And we're told about many interesting situations -- that we never actually see.

This is an exciting scene. Maybe the only exciting scene.But probably the main problem with this movie is that the main plot issue is easily resolved, rather than being drawn out for tension. I'm going to spoil it for you: remember how I mentioned that the Brendan Fraser's wife, the mother of our main character, got read into a book nine years ago, and they didn't know whether she was alive or dead? WELL, LESS THAN HALF WAY THROUGH THE MOVIE, we discover that she's already been read out of the book by somebody else, and is safely back in the real world! Granted, she was read out in a crappy fashion without her voice -- and she's basically being held as a kitchen servant by the villain.

But think about this: somebody tells you that your Mom is trapped in a horrible place, and nobody knows if she's dead or alive. How does that make you feel, compared to, "We don't know where your Mom is... but she's basically fine and I'm sure we'll track her down eventually." THAT is what this movie gives us. It stops the main tension in the movie dead in its tracks needlessly. If they had revealed at the end that she was out of the book and okay -- that would have been fine. It would have felt a bit on the overly convenient side -- but at least we would have had that tension throughout the movie. Instead, we're treated to an overly convenient resolution right in the middle of the movie. It simply kills the film!

Speaking of fantasy movies like The Labyrinth -- Jennifer
Connelly is in this movie. This still picture is her entire scene.I wanted very badly to like this movie. I've been on a fantasy-movie kick recently, watching The Hobbit and Neverending Story and Labyrinth and the like -- and I wanted another movie in a similar vein. But despite a good cast, this movie falls drastically short of being a success. Oh, I won't say it's a terrible film, because it wasn't vile, it wasn't obnoxious -- it wasn't the type of film that I would be ashamed to show to my child. However, if I put this movie in, my child is probably going to get up and leave the room about halfway through, because this movie is just plain dull.

I can't in good conscience recommend this movie. But it's not terrible enough to tell you to avoid. In the end, yet again, all I can say is...

On My Shelf: The Labyrinth (1986)

The Labyrinth is one of those movies that I totally should have watched as a child -- but didn't. I had never even heard of it. So, I watched it as an adult... and, as a result, I'm able to view it without the rose-colored glasses of childhood.



Which is not to say, Christina, that I hate this movie. There are several things I like, and several things I don't like, and I'll talk about them all in turn.

Plot: It's more or less Alice in Wonderland in the 1980's, with David Bowie music and some vaguely mature undertones. Jennifer Connelly's a spoiled brat teen who throws a big fit when she's asked to babysit her infant brother. She recites some stuff from a random play about Goblins stealing babies (because, who doesn't have one of those Goblins-stealing-babies plays lying around) and, to her (marginal) surprise, an actual Goblin King (David Bowie) appears and steals the baby. She's like, "Oh, hey, I didn't really mean it," and he's like, "Well, if you want him back, you have to travel through MY WEIRD LABYRINTH FULL OF WEIRD STUFF." And then she does. The End.

Things I Like: I can give you four good reasons to see this movie: music by David Bowie, puppeteering, visual design, and David Bowie. David Bowie is one of those performers who isn't an especially good actor (he comes across as a little self-conscious at times) but he's charismatic and a lot of fun to watch.

The visual design is wonderfully fantastic (designs by Brian Froud), and the puppeteering is superb. (...And, for the record, Jennifer Connelly is fine, too. You would think a kid playing a spoiled brat would be harder to watch, but she's pleasant enough as a character [she gets over being a brat pretty quick] and was going through a very cute phase.)

If you don't think she's cute as a button in this movie, then I
just don't know what to say.Now let's talk about the less good things.

*UNDERTONES /WRITING QUALITY: Now, as I said, the plot itself is pretty basic, and it's more or less Alice in Wonderland at many points... but there's some weird undertones going on there that I'm not quite sure what to do with. I mean, it's clear that Sarah and the Goblin King are "interested" in each other... yet this ostensibly romantic relationship is never really discussed, nor acted-upon, outside a single ballroom dance. (Which is good, because the Goblin King is an adult David Bowie, and Sarah appears to be about 13.)


Is this a young girl's coming-of-age story? Would the situation have been clearer if David Bowie had been a stronger actor? There is one (kind of out of the blue) scene where Sarah suddenly decides she doesn't need all her childhood toys anymore... but it's hardly a theme explored throughout the film. Or is the ballroom scene just a canny attempt by the filmmakers to do some wish fulfillment for pubescent girls (and appeal to that market demographic? I mean, I'm not going to say it didn't work).

Well, I've spent quite a while thinking about it, and in the end -- I just don't think there are clever, subtle things going on here. I'm of the opinion that what we are actually seeing here is just the clunkiness of a not-fully-fleshed-out-idea in a script.

* ACCENTS: This might just be me, but Hoggle, our main goblin-type creature, has a voice that only works when his patently false British accent slips. When he's trying really hard to do the British accent, it sounds like an American (without much of an ear for such things) doing a British accent. He's got the words down but not the inflection, so it sounds phoney. In the end, he just sounds like a muppet, which works in a five-minute long muppet sketch, but not in a full-length movie. Hoggle's voice always gets on my nerves.

* INAPPROPRIATELY PYTHONIC: This movie was written by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame...

...And you can definitely see his influence. There are scenes and sections of dialogue that really feel as though they were written mainly for the humor value and not because they particularly fit in a girl's pseudo-coming-of-age in a fantastical dream world. Let me pick out just two:

*Hoggle First Appearance: The first time we see Hoggle -- he's peeing. This is a terrible introduction for a character from a film standpoint (assuming that his pee isn't going to be a major plot-point. Spoiler: It's not). So, when we first see him, his back is turned and we can't see his face, and the first words out of his mouth are something to the effect of "Oh, excuse me," -- all of which tells us nothing about the type of character that Hoggle is. A moment later, he goes back to what he'd apparently been doing before he had to stop for a pee break -- killing fairies with a flit gun. Him doing that would have been a better introductory image of Hoggle (showing from shot one that he's a potentially cruel and rather unpleasant little man), rather than a cheap potty-humor laugh.

Pee!*The Bog of Eternal Stench: Is ten minutes of fart sounds from a swamp full of anuses. Granted, I can't gripe about this from a structural standpoint as there's nothing structurally wrong with its inclusion... and it's also going to get plentiful laughs from the 5-9 year-old demographic -- so, I guess I can't complain too much about its presence in what is ostensibly a children's movie. (And yet, I do. If Wizard of Oz didn't need poop jokes, why does this movie?)

Swamp anus.I think the main problem with The Labyrinth is that it feels uneven. One moment it's all magically mystical and weird fantastic stuff is happening -- and the next scene is a solid wall of fart jokes. It's tone is all over the place. Not to mention that the film's major selling-point is that it has David Bowie in it -- and there just isn't enough David Bowie!

It's not a terrible movie, but it's not a great movie, either. All and all, I can recommend that you watch it if you haven't seen it yet (if only so you'll get all the pop-culture references to it) ... but it's not going to be a wholly flawless experience. That said, many people can wholly overlook the faults in favor of its good points...


... So, really, it's up to you. In the end, I'll just say that it's...
RECOMMENDED(with reservations)

Off-My-Shelf: Rifftrax Presents "Samurai Cop" (2017)

I suppose this needs a bit of background. "Rifftrax" is the comedy project of Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett (all three of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame). If you know Mystery Science Theater 3000, then you can probably guess what Rifftrax is -- a website featuring these three guys doing comedy commentaries over bad movies. (Or even not-so-bad movies; you can find their audio-only commentaries to play over most of the big Hollywood releases).



Occasionally, though, these guys broadcast a "live" riffing event to various movie theaters across the country through Fathom Events. I've been to a few, but not for several years... So I came to last week's live broadcast of Samurai Cop (1991) with relatively fresh eyes to the experience. (For comparison, I've seen four out of their first six shows... and now there have been twenty something. There's clearly been water under the bridge since I first went, as it feels like a more polished experience.)

Samurai Cop itself is a hilariously bad movie, so I had no doubts about that part of the experience.

The most famous moment from Samurai Cop. If it lookslike a fake movie... it kind of is.
The evening opened with a Rifftrax standard; rather than having to suffer through the normal, interminable movie theatre "pre-show" commercials and uninventive trivia, Rifftrax beams in a lineup of goofy, made-up "movie facts and trivia" to a soundtrack of Rifftrax-produced (or approved) music that plays for about twenty minutes prior. (So, definitely arrive early).


Their opening "credits sequence" has upgraded a bit from the last time I experienced it; they now have a whole cartoon intro that explains exactly what Rifftrax is (for the uninitiated. For you more experienced folks, it's similar to the CGI-animated opening they created for the "Shake Hands with Danger" short a couple years back, but doesn't go as deep into the uncanny valley).

Behind Mike -- CGI "Balloon Animal" Bill and "Popcorn" Kevin.
Unsettling, to say the least. I think it's their dead eyes.Then, Mike, Kevin and Bill gave a short introductory monologue, followed by riffing over an educational short about how not to be rude at school. (Quite funny). This was followed by the only part of the show that I somewhat disliked -- they forced us to watch the trailer for the new Mystery Science Theater 3000 series. I've been rather disappointed by what I've seen of that, and didn't particularly appreciate being forced to watch it; especially because it wasn't like this was an exclusive, never-before-seen trailer or anything -- it was just the same old trailer that's been floating around the internet for a couple weeks. It felt a bit forced.

In protest, I'm not putting a link to the MST3k-revival trailer. I refuse.However, that was the one sour note during the show -- after that, they immediately launched into the main event, the showing of Samurai Cop. As I said previously, this is a hilariously bad movie anyway. As far as a "Can I take my kids to this?" goes -- with Rifftrax, it seems like the rating of the commentary usually matches whatever the rating of the film would have been. This film is unrated, but I'm guessing would have been a hard PG-13, for violence, minor nudity (boobies) and some rather graphic language. It's a fairly typical 1980's action movie in that respect (clearly trying to be a Lethal Weapon-type experience). This is another movie that feels like it was written by non-Native-English speakers (because it was) -- so be prepared for some rather nonsensical dialogue with nonsensical cursing.

And nonsensical fight scenes.Rifftrax did an admirable job adding to the already-funny experience of watching this movie. My only other complaint is that the show felt like it ended very abruptly after the film ended. Granted, they're not obligated to do a closing set, especially not after talking through an entire two-hour movie plus short subject -- but it just feels like they should have some ending remarks there, outside of "Thanks for coming -- goodnight, folks!" ...even if they were just briefly plugging their next show. (Might have been a better place, too, to cram in the MST3k-revival commercial). Granted, over the credits they played the delightful "Samurai Cop Rockin' Action Theme" (as sung by Kevin Murphy) -- which was pretty darn hilarious.


How does this compare to other Rifftrax Live shows? Well, like I said, I've seen four of the their other 20-or-so live shows, and this one was slightly less funny than the funniest one I've seen ( Jack the Giant Killer ) and much funnier than the least funny one I've seen ( House on Haunted Hill , which I thought suffered from having been a recycled solo-Mike riff from the early days of Rifftrax).

I definitely don't think that you need to have seen other Rifftrax shows in order to enjoy this, or other Rifftrax live broadcasts. It might be helpful to already be a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, but if you go into this having only having the barest understanding of that show, I think you would still enjoy yourself.

All and all, then, the Rifftrax version of Samurai Cop was an enjoyable evening out with a lot of laughs. It was solidly hilarious, with only the most minor of stumbles. Now, obviously, you won't be able to see this particular event live again, but you can buy a recording of the non-live version from the Rifftrax website. And, as this seems to be the standard quality of their shows, I can safely recommend future Rifftrax Live events.

RECOMMENDED

On My Shelf: Gymkata (1985)... It's Everything You Heard It Was, And More.

I'd heard many pop-culture references to the movie Gymkata before, but had never seen it. A couple years back I randomly bought Mr. Hall a copy, and since I was doing everything a few weeks ago avoid watching the copy of Journey to the Center of the Earth that I got from the library, I thought we better watch Gymkata.



Let me start by saying this. Gymkata is a bad movie. A very bad movie. The story is bad, the casting is bad, and the acting is bad. And yet, I'm still going to recommend that you watch it, and here's why.

The set-up: The country of Parmistan (somewhere in Eastern Europe?) has a weird national death game, where -- if you compete in it, and avoid dying -- you are allowed to make one request of the King which will immediately be honored. (The US government is interested in this because Parmistan is a highly strategic place to put a missile, and if one of our own competes and wins, he can have the missile put there before Russia does the exact same thing.) They decide to recruit Olympic Gymnast Jonathan Cabot (real-life Olympic Gymnast Kurt Thomas) to compete in the game. (I guess they assume, because he's a gymnast, he will be good at running and jumping and avoiding arrows.)
Poor Kurt Thomas. He just didn't quite have an air of
"leading man" about him.Johnathan Cabot is recruited because his father competed in the game (and failed) -- and the US attempts to avoid a similar fate for Jonathan by hiring ninjas and a couple other random folks (who are never introduced at all) to train him. This part of the movie moves along really fast (and is very confusing) because they cut out all the stuff you generally put at the beginning of a movie -- like introductions for these multiple characters and character development for our leads. So, the beginning it's kind of a "This is Jonathan Cabot! Now he is training! Now he is done training! Now he and this girl he just met are in love! Now he is going to Parmistan to compete in The Game!"

And that's kind of how the movie goes on. There are quite a few spots where new characters just kind of appear, without any establishing shot or introduction whatsoever -- or, when they are given an introduction, any follow-up dialogue that might tell you about their character is pretty much completely edited out of the film. There's a point later on in the movie where we suddenly cut to our heroes clustered around a table, listening to some random guy (whose face we can't even see) explain the "game" route... And then this guy puts on a hat with a jewel and walks out of the room and we (the audience) suddenly realize that this was the King (i.e. a highly significant character) -- and we were never even TOLD that in his introductory scene!

Let's talk a little about the casting, while we're on that. Poor Kurt Thomas -- he was definitely very athletic, and very good at gymnastics... but he just doesn't have the charisma to make this kind of a movie work. Nor are his line reads anything to write home about. The King is played by character actor and former body-builder, Buck Kartalian. Buck Kartalian was described by Cinematic Titanic as, "From the neck downward, Charles Atlas. From the neck upward, Mel Brooks." And he sounds about as Eastern-European as your average guy who grew up in New York in the 1930's -- in other words, he also sounds like Mel Brooks.)

"It's good to be the King!"And King Mel Brooks' daughter is played by this Asian lady:


... And, besides anything else, I think this is genetically impossible.

So, the casting is questionable, to say the least.

Getting back to the plot, "Jonathan Cabot" goes to Parmistan and is attacked by random thugs, who he fights off with gymnastics moves.

Yes, he conveniently finds gymnastics equipment in this 3rd world,
Eastern European country that he can use to execute "gymkata" with. At this point, it gets a bit weird, as "The Game" includes having to survive a run through a "cannibal city" amongst other things -- and that's where the movie gets hypnotically weird. It's positively surreal at that point...


So, never mind the fact that this movie pretty much avoids establishing characters, or pausing for expository dialogue, or explaining really any background on almost anything.

Never mind the fact that the whole concept of a hero whose main thing is combining karate and gymnastics is ridiculous. Never mind that the whole concept of "The Game" is pretty poorly thought out and confusingly explained.

But the film also gets bat-poo crazy about two-thirds of the way in. It just makes no sense. And then, some other very abrupt and random stuff happens, and the movie very abruptly ends.

After watching this, Mr. Hall did some research and discovered that this was based on a 1950's novel called "The Terrible Game" -- which had nothing to do with gymnastics. Therefore, I'm guessing, some movie producer saw Kurt Thomas during the 1984 Olympics and thought, "This gymnastics stuff seems really popular... I bet could make a million dollars off it!" and hastily hired Kurt Thomas to make a movie. However, they didn't spend the time to write and develop a gymnastics movie for him that made sense -- no, they looked through old scripts they had optioned, and hastily threw gymnastics into the first one that seemed to have some action elements.



So what is my final say on this movie?

YOU SHOULD WATCH IT.

Although the casting, acting, and story are terrible -- this movie is full of hilarious action, unexpected plot twists, and it moves along really speedily (since it doesn't pause for sensible dialogue or character development). Not to mention, right after we watched it, I realized that I'd been missing out dozens of weird pop-culture references to this movie!

This is a perfect "watch with a group of friends to make fun of" type of movie. It was hilarious to watch, and a lot of fun. Definitely a keeper.

RECOMMENDED!Good Bad Movie

On My Shelf: Journey 2 - The Mysterious Island (2012)

Remember how I didn't want to watch Journey to the Center of the Earth because I thought it would be bad? "...That it would be as obnoxious as any other modern kids' movie -- full of gut-clenchingly bad jokes, lame gross-out humor, and the shallowest, one-dimensional characterization imaginable." Well, guess what... Journey 2: Mysterious Island is EXACTLY THAT MOVIE.



The Story: The kid from the first movie is now slightly older, and his mom has married The Rock (I guess she won the new husband lottery). The film begins with the kid being chased by the police and thoroughly upsetting his parents and other people -- and getting no comeuppance. The kid then goes on to explain that he's figured out some code and received some kind of radio call that leads him to believe that his never-before-mentioned adventurer grandfather, Michael Caine, is alive and well and living in Jules Verne's Mysterious Island. After thoroughly failing as an authority figure, The Rock decides that maybe he can bond with his awful stepson by taking him on an adventure to find the island. They charter a helicopter from a father-daughter (Horrible Comic Relief/Teen Love Interest) who fly them out there and immediately wreck on the island. Sure enough, our team finds an obnoxious old Michael Caine, and have adventures and see various CGI vistas (which are attractive, but not attractive enough to save this movie).

Let's just get a few things out of the way:

The Story Structure: ...Was a feeble excuse to get them to Mysterious Island -- but, granted, you don't typically need a lot of plot in this type of movie (action-packed adventure). You just need an excuse for a group of clear personality-types to go somewhere adventurous, they go there, they have adventures. That's what this plot was, so, ultimately, the plot itself wasn't terrible, any more than Journey to the Center of the Earth was. So, just looking at the structure alone -- divorced from the casting and the dialogue -- it was okay.

Adventure-having.The Casting: The casting was acceptable... for the most part. The kid was obvious because he was in the previous movie. Michael Caine looked like he was enjoying himself a lot more than he typically does these days (even when he was riding on a giant bee. In fact, particularly when he was riding a giant bee). Young female was perfectly acceptable. Over-the-Top Comic Relief Guy was super obnoxious -- but that was mainly due to the writing, not his casting (which I found no fault with).

BUT, (and this is a big but), you don't cast a person like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson to play "ineffectual Step-Dad"... because he's seven feet tall and built like He-Man. It just doesn't work...

"Ineffectual Step-Dad"... And it makes the situation nonsensical when characters in the film are treating him like a bumbling idiot; everybody in this film takes one look at him and assumes he's incompetent at everything up to (and including) walking. Which simply makes no sense when you cast someone who looks like The Rock. Why would you look at this guy and assume he can't do anything? Really, in a life-or-death situation when you have to cross a mysterious island covered in giant monsters and mysterious traps -- isn't The Rock the one person you would definitely want to have on your team?

The role of "ineffectual Step-Dad", as written, called for someone like this:


...Somebody benign and well-meaning, who could never-the-less be convincingly pushed-around by a child and an 80-year old man. Or, you could go as far as one of these guys:


...A type who clearly is a doofus, but well-meaning and can convincingly be pushed around by a child and an 80-year old man. In fact, this might have been the best possible route to go, because then you cut out the need for the extra comic relief character. OR, you could even have cast someone well-meaning, benign, good at the action stuff and good at comedy...

Just sayin'.Ultimately, then, this movie has the same problem that Jingle All the Way  had in spades; The Rock is literally the main draw to see this movie, because he has charisma and people enjoy seeing him in things -- and yet, he's crammed into a script that was written for a completely different kind of actor, so the dialogue and the way the other characters relate to this guy just doesn't work. They needed a major script revision that gives him more adventuresome, proactive things to do... which, sadly, did not happen.

SO MUCH HATE: I hated this movie so much that I was making a list of things I hated while I was watching the movie.

For a start, this movie features:


* ZERO Brendan Fraser! Completely wrote out the hero of the previous movie with NARY A REFERENCE TO HIM. Not even a picture on someone's desk. (I understand that there was some kind of real-life scheduling conflict/issue with the director that resulted in Mr. Fraser not being in this film. These things happen. HOWEVER, you can't just ignore that he was the entire focus of the previous film! And it would have been so easy to neatly write Brendan Fraser's character out, if they had even bothered. You could have used a line like, "Look, I know that your Uncle Brendan Fraser being away for this past year has been hard on you..." SOMETHING. But no.) Lazy scriptwriting.

* An obnoxious child main character who breaks laws, constantly talks back to adults, acts like he knows everything and learns no lessons about being a better person! Characters like this used to be included in movies so that you could demonstrate this character learning something -- you know, like, learning to consider other people's feelings, learning that he shouldn't break laws and treat his parents like crap... you know. The closest they came to this was having him tell the Rock not to abandon him because he feels like he's been abandoned too much in his life... Which isn't him learning a lesson. No, it's just him still relating to people only as "things that benefit me, personally, in some way." So, ultimately, at the end of the movie he is still a jerk.

* Enabling adults who allow said child to act like a jerk without ever calling them on their behavior! Now, I don't need to see The Rock beat up a child... that would be overkill. I don't even need to see him spank a child. But his character was totally emasculated by not allowing him to even do any TOUGH TALKING with to this jerk child. And it's not like they wrote him wimpy on purpose to humorously play against the fact that he's a great, big, bulging man -- no, it doesn't come across that way at all. He's acting like normal, tough Rock in a role that has wimpy lines and behaviors. It just doesn't work at all.
I don't need this man to be sensitive.*An obnoxious comic-relief character who constantly either gets pooped ON or references pooping on himself. I don't have anything against this actor, but his character was HORRIBLY WRITTEN and I spent every moment he was on screen wishing that he wasn't. (Maybe I shouldn't pick on him, though. I felt that way about nearly every character.)
This guy = comedy gold. Oh, did I say "comedy"? I meant shame.* An obnoxious older person (Michael Caine) who constantly berates the middle-aged adult for no good reason! I've seen Michael Caine play adulterers, murderers, con men, smugglers, idiots -- and yet, have never before hated a character of his. The entire time I was watching this movie, I wanted to punch him in his 800-year-old face. (And, it must be said -- in his inexplicable, unjustified berating of The Rock, he comes across as a touch on the racist side.) Again, I don't think the problem was Michael Caine, the actor -- it was the writing.

Indiana Jerk.* Female body exploitation - OF A CHILD - in a children's movie! There is a scene in this movie where the camera SPECIFICALLY pans down to, and dwells on, our jail-bait heroine's boobs. It was blatant. Now, I don't have a problem with boobs in general, or even boobs in movies -- but when your heroine physically appears to be about seventeen years old, WE DON'T NEED TO FOCUS ON THE BOOBS. Especially in a movie that's ostensibly for children. It's just plain wrong.

I couldn't find a picture, so here's the same thing in Batman and Robin.*AWFUL "COMEDY"... RIGHT BACK TO "BAD SCRIPT". A good example of the "comedy" we get "treated" to in this film is an inexplicably long scene of The Rock flexing CGI berries off his pecks. (So, yeah, we had to spend a long time looking at male boobs, too. Granted, the Rock Executive Produced this movie, so he probably suggested this scene in the first place... but it was just really embarrassing). Also, I'd like to point out, they were CGI berries. CGI, 99% of the time, KILLS COMEDY. And it certainly did in this case!


But CGI was the least of this film's comedy problems. The comedy in this movie simply doesn't work at all from any perspective. The bad fit between The Rock's character and everybody else threw off the entire dynamic of the film -- so even attempts at comedy that should have worked just didn't.

IN CONCLUSION: The special effects were fine -- except that many special effects were set up in bad ways (again, lazy-script writing). I've talked a bit about the scene where they ride giant bees... Well, if this had been set up in a scene where The Rock and Michael Caine rangle the bees, battle them, and finally figure out they can hop on them and ride them -- it would have been fine. It would have been a good chance for some character development, and a chance for Michael Caine to realize that The Rock's character isn't useless. That would have been an appropriate adventure scene in this movie. But NO, Michael Caine just ducks behind some foliage and then pops out riding a giant bee, and essentially says, "It's easy! Just sneak upon them from behind and hop on!" Because I can think of nothing less easy than sneaking up and hopping from behind on a creature that has a THREE FOOT LONG STINGER ON ITS BEHIND. So, the failure to set up the special effect scene in the script rendered an otherwise fine scene absolutely stupid.

The Rock, and sidekick covered in poop, on bee = comedy?Ultimately, then.... the main problem with this movie was the script. When they cut Brendan Fraser and picked up The Rock, they should have done a complete re-write that fixed the dynamic so that The Rock was a more assertive character. Either that, or they should have made him even more wimpy and passive to make his hugeness a visual joke. Neither was done, rendering the movie stupid, confusing and extremely un-funny.

Do I recommend this movie, even for fans of The Rock, or people who like stupid popcorn movies?

NO! I HATE THIS MOVIE!! PLEASE NEVER WATCH IT!!
I'm really torn about what to do with my copy of this film... because I really don't want to own it anymore, but neither do I want any small children or other impressionable people (.... or just anyone, really) to watch it. I might need to find someone who can drop it in a volcano or sink it to the deepest part of the ocean for me, or something like that.

On My Shelf: Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)

I've had this copy of Journey to the Center of the Earth on my shelf for some time now, and I've avoiding been watching it because I thought it would be unwatchably horrible.

Why do I have a movie on my shelf that I don't want to watch? Well, because for Christmas I was gifted a copy of Journey 2: The Mysterious Island -- and if I'm going to watch that, I guess I have to have watched the first movie, right?

So I got this copy of Journey from the library and it's been sitting on my shelf for a while now, while I watched other movies to avoid watching it. But then I ran out of other movies, and had to watch this. Grudgingly.



The Plot: Brendan Fraser's brother went missing ten years ago. Brendan Fraser and his nephew discover some clues that lead them to believe that just maybe the brother discovered a secret world-within-a-world with the help of the book Journey to the Center of the Earth. The nephew just happens to have his passport with him, and they just happen to have enough money to fly to Iceland where this supposed hole is, so they go. There, they meet love-interest Icelandic woman, who helps them find a hole. (That sounds kind of bad now that I've written it, but it is what it is.) They go down the hole and have implausible adventures. The end.

*implausible adventure having*Long story short... IT REALLY WASN'T AS BAD AS I THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BE. As an early film cashing in on the "3-D" revival craze, I figured that was all it had going for it, and that it would be as obnoxious as any other modern kids' movie -- full of gut-clenchingly bad jokes, lame gross-out humor, and the shallowest, one-dimensional characterization imaginable.

But it wasn't that.

Of course, it wasn't that great of a movie, either. The best action sequences were cribbed from Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park -- the special effects were increasingly-crappy-looking CGI -- and the plot wasn't exactly complex. "We want to go here. Now we need to go here. Now we need to go here," ... is the plot in a nutshell.

I can't think of any other movie where the heroes have
a high-speed minecart chase. (Oh, except for one of the
greatest adventure movies of all time. Yeah, except for that.)But the characters weren't obnoxious -- not even the "obnoxious teenager" (who did have the cliche "Welcome to the 21st century" line, which is invariably said by insufferable people, but in this case that sort of thing was kept to a minimum.) I expected the female lead to be an awful "I AM A STRONG, INDEPENDENT WOMAN AND THEREFORE HAVE TO BE A JERK ALL THE TIME"-type... but she really wasn't. She was strong and independent, but didn't have to comment on it (commenting on it weakens a character, ironically) or accuse both guys of being sexist pigs.

As for Brendan Fraser as "benign mild-mannered professor" -- he was pretty benign and mild-mannered, so it worked. Not the most exciting performance I've seen him give, but not my least favorite, either.

All and all, then, it was a pretty simple, harmless movie. Not bad, not great... just harmless. If you're in the mood for a "deep" movie... ironically, Journey to the Center of the Earth this isn't one of those... but watching it didn't hurt me, and -- if I needed a movie to hold a child's attention for an hour a half, or if I needed some background noise that features Brendan Fraser -- I would probably select this movie again.

RECOMMENDED*Harmless*
(For the record, the sequel, Journey 2, does not feature Brendan Fraser. It features the same kid, and The Rock as his new step-Dad [which is already the most implausible thing in the film] More on that next week).

Off My Shelf: Beware! The Blob (1972)... A Mystifying Experience.

So, I've got this copy of Journey to the Center of the Earth on our shelf that I don't want to watch. To delay watching that movie, we flipped through Amazon Prime until we found a truly puzzling offering: "Beware! The Blob" (1972).


Directed by Larry Hagman (of Dallas fame). His one and only directorial exploit. Featuring Burgess Meredith and a handful of people whose names you don't know, but you'll probably recognize if you watch a lot of 1970's-era TV.

In case you're wondering who shot J.R. -- IT WAS THE BLOB!I like the original film, The Blob -- it's a very simple movie, but enjoyable. It very much set up the framework for what "giant monster" movies were going to become. But, oddly, I had never ever heard of this film -- Beware! The Blob.

So, we gave it a try.

The plot involves a guy (just "a guy") who accidentally brings back a sample of the original blob from the frozen tundra where it had been taken. (Although, I suppose it isn't really the original Blob, because at one point one of the characters in this film is watching the original film version of The Blob on TV. This...doesn't make any sense. Is this a sequel or not?! Unclear). The Blob sample unfreezes and menaces this small town (eating a kitten and some hippies along the way. And yes, this is the first horror movie I've seen where the first victim is a cute kitten.)

LOOK OUT, KITTY!I think this film is supposed to be a horror-comedy, but I can't go any further without saying this: I've never seen a movie that felt so completely improvised, nor a movie that felt improvised so exceptionally poorly.

There are films like Waiting for Guffman that are almost wholly improvised, and improvised TV shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm, too; the big difference between those offerings and and this one being that those types of stories are improvised around a "framework" that basically tells the cast exactly what was going to happen, who they are and why they were doing things. That's why Curb Your Enthusiasm feels like a real TV show -- why the stories seem to have plots and why they move from one logical place to another.

In this film, it feels like two actors showed up for a scene, are told, "Okay, waste ten minutes of time... and then the Blob kills you. GO!" ("Can I put on a gorilla suit?" "Yeah, sure, whatever!")

The man in the gorilla suit (no, I wasn't kidding) is played by
Gerrit Graham ("Beef!") of Phantom of the Paradise fame. 
(I need to talk about that movie at length some other time...)That's how you get three scenes where our hero describes to our heroine the avocado-and-sprouts sandwich that he wants to make for her. (One version has bacon, one does not.) That's why we have an lengthy scene of a man getting a bizarrely sensual scalp massage at the barber shop. That's why there's a scene of a man removing flowers from a vase and then pouring beer into it to make a mega beer. That's why there's a long scene of two hippies sitting in a drainage ditch, smoking weed and yelling incomprehensibly. That's why there's an entire sub-plot about our heroes accidentally knocking a man's beers over on different occasions.

Uh oh.... I see some beers about to fall over! HILARIOUS!Even more confusing, this movie features involvement by famed improvisation teacher Del Close. ("Del P. Close was an American actor, writer, and teacher who coached many of the best-known comedians and comic actors of the late twentieth century," -Wikipedia).

Did I mention Dick Van Patten is also in this movie for about
a minute and a half? He seems to know our heroine, although
I'm not sure how. And I don't know what happens to him... I assume he was
eaten by the blob off-screen.And somehow he's involved in this film that features some of the lamest improvisation I've ever seen in my life. Del Close even appears in a single scene where he, Larry Hagman and Burgess Meredith improvise a trio of farmhand-hoboes who have some weird exchanges about booze. It makes no sense.

In the end, Beware! The Blob doesn't feel like a real movie. For that reason, then, I basically couldn't stop watching -- I kept thinking that it would start making sense, or that it would start feeling like a real movie at some point.

That never happened.
There is nothing that I can say that will explain how extremely strange, disjointed or bizarre Beware! The Blob is. But in a weird kind of way, I actually enjoyed this movie. I found it engaging, laughed at how terribly bad and unfunny a lot of things in it were, and liked the rather cheesy special effects. And the very end of the film was MASSIVELY DUMB -- so there was a lot of laughing (although not for the reasons the filmmakers intended). 
This is another film that I would recommend you to watch with your friends on "bad movie night" -- but, please, DO NOT watch this film if you want or need a competent or coherent film experience!
RECOMMENDED!Good Bad Movie 

On My Shelf: The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug (2013) and Battle of the Five Armies (2014)... The Nail in the Coffin

I really didn't want to spread this discussion over another two whole posts -- so I'm just going to be as concise and succinct as possible in this one to register some specific concerns about The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies.

In a nutshell:


The Desolation of Smaug is about our heroes running the last stretch to the mountain, and then dealing with the dragon (Smaug. Pronounced "Smawwoog".) The Battle of the Five Armies is about five armies battling about the results of the last movie, and wrapping up the story.
It's interesting, though -- I actually began to feel a bit more favorably towards these movies in the middle of the second part, The Desolation of Smaug. I'm not saying I suddenly thought they were great movies -- just, somewhere in the middle there, I began to feel like they were passable. Maybe because this part dealt more with the ACTUAL STORY OF THE BOOK and needed less padding -- or, maybe, just because the extended footage gave us a bit more time with the characters and one actually began to feel that one knew them and maybe -- just maybe -- cared about them. (Also, Gollum is in this part, and his CGI is the best in the entire series of films, including LOTR. Some of the best CGI I've seen in recent years. Although I'm not sure how much can simply be ascribed to the fact that a) CGI always looks better in dim light, and b) Andy Serkis [the guy behind the CGI] just really understands the art of motion-capture.)

Conversely, it's also in the second part that I began to somewhat wonder if, maybe, Martin Freeman was a small part of the overall problem with this series of films. Although I do like Martin Freeman, and more or less felt he gave a sound performance -- in the second part of this, I began to feel like his more "realistic" style of acting was just, not, perhaps, the right level for this story. Perhaps his performance is just not quite theatrical enough to seem like he fits in a world full of elves and dwarves and magic bear people? Or maybe I should just blame Peter Jackson for not instructing his actor to take it to the next level and be more over-the-top and presentational in his style.
Not "next level".I mean, it's not like Martin Freeman could just make up dialogue that wasn't there. (BECAUSE THAT CERTAINLY NEVER HAPPENED ELSEWHERE IN THE FILM. NOBODY WROTE IN DIALOGUE THAT WAS GROSSLY INAPPROPRIATE. Sarcasmmmmmm.)
And if we're going to start talking about things that shouldn't have happened -- when you're watching the second part of this series, you also can't help but think about the fact that, underneath the crappy CGI dragon, somewhere, this is happening:
Benedict Cumberbatch, noted actor, rolling around on the floor
and pretending to be a dragon. WAS THIS NECESSARY?!
You CAN'T TELL ME that this helped anybody animate anything!So, I guess what I'm getting at is that, even at this series' best points, there were still major problems with the infrastructure. But never mind infrastructure -- let's talk about stuff RIGHT OUT IN THE OPEN, like dialogue and situations completely unfaithful to the original story. There were a heinous number of characters who were not in the book that made an appearance in these films (including Legolas from Lord of the Rings, who had no business AT ALL being here). There were lousy double-entendres, smatterings of suggestive dialogue between the sexy dwarf and the "not-in-the-books" elf lady ("Aren't you going to search me? There could be anything down my trousers..." *suggestive eyebrow waggle*) And we also get introduced to the most disgusting character in the entire series (and yes, I am counting the troll who snots all over our hero as less disgusting): Stephen-Fry-with-red-comb-over.

Just pretend that coin in his mouth is a gravy-covered testicle. Because, yes, we have a character specifically eating testicles in the extended cut of this movie. Because that's not at all something that would make J.R.R. Tolkien roll over in his grave. (I would really like to know what Stephen Fry thinks about these movies. I'm not as much of a Stephen Fry fan as I used to be, but I appreciate the fact that the man is exceptionally well-read -- and I don't see how, or why, anyone who liked the original book would agree to be in these films. Well, then again, maybe he doesn't like the original book. Or maybe he just really needed the money.)
Oh, there's also this "not-in-the-book" Most-Obnoxious-Character in the entire series:
Alfrid I'm-Clearly-A-One-Dimensional-Villain-Because-
I-Have-A-Unibrow."Alfrid Lickspittle". I'm not even sure why this guy was in the movie. I guess they felt they needed more villains in the human realm than just the greedy and gross Stephen Fry-character -- or maybe they were seriously just killing time. Confusingly, though, in the theatrical cut, I think Alfrid just disappears at one point and never gets a comeuppance for his excessive, Dr. Smith-level evil-cowardice. In the extended edition, he does get some comeuppance. (It's not that exciting, but it is something. It might have been nicer if the character redeemed himself somehow... You know, give him a little bit of depth. But, depth was the last thing the writers of this film were concerned with, so Alfrid Lickspittle is accidentally catapulted into a troll's mouth, who then chokes to death on him.) I'm not even kidding.Now, I will give you this. In the third film, The Battle of the Five Armies, there is a rather more battling for our characters, and this is a good thing. As I recall, in the theatrical cut, the final battle was edited into complete nonsense. In the extended cut, at least it makes sense -- we had a clear sense of where people were going, why they were going places, and who was going places. However, in both the theatrical and extended cuts, there is also this scene, where Legolas (who also shouldn't even have been in The Hobbit) defies both gravity and physics in the most brain-paining way possible:

... a scene that makes me want to start punching some computer-animation majors in the mouth.
Not to mention that this film introduces us to this character -- a foul-mouthed Scottish dwarf played by Billy Connolly:

...Who was so ridiculously over the top, he might as well have been played by Mike Myers. I mean, seriously? WHY NOT, if you're going to have a character in The Hobbit calling other characters "b*stards" and telling them to "sod off" -- why not just freaking have Mike Myers? He would have done just as good a job and been just as wildly inappropriate in a story by mild-mannered university professor and theologian, J.R.R. Tolkien.
"Hmmm.... I should have put more wee-wees in the book."Okay. Moving on: After the conclusion of the battle, when (despite sad losses) we should be having some fun and rejoicing, ala this section in another climactic movie in a series that shall remain nameless:
"Yub yub!"We are instead treated to this: 
*sobbing*...A SLOW-MOTION FUNERAL SCENE, with all our friends crying. For a long time. And, no, it's not then followed by a joyous feast -- "Yay! The Dwarves are finally back in their ancestral mountain! The dragon and the evil White Orc are dead! Our dead friends would have wanted us to be happy! Joy and gold forever!" No, it's followed by everyone still being pretty sad, and Bilbo going home. THE END.

Except, NOT QUITE THE END, because Bilbo goes home and finds his good-for-nothing relatives raiding his house. Then, we foreshadow the Lord of the Rings events with some grim music, implying that Bilbo then more or less lives in scary, psycho misery for the next sixty years or so, thanks to a certain ring he picked up on the trip. THE ENNNNDDDDD! (Hooray.)
The ending of this movie is so heinously sour and unsatisfactory, I wanted to ask for my money back. AND I WAS GIVEN THIS SET FOR FREE! 
Really, I just want my time back. I invested what felt like about eight thousand hours in re-watching this series in in its extended edition, and what was I treated to? Drastic improvements? NO, I was treated to extremely mild improvements that pushed sections of the film up to "watchable" -- and yet, still had an overall unsatisfactory experience.
If you're a glutton for punishment and you want to give the series another try -- give the extended editions a shot. At least there are sections of it that aren't entirely horrible. But if you really didn't like the theatrical cut, I don't think you would be any worse-off in life if you skipped the extended editions and never, ever watched these movies again. Just watch Lord of the Rings and pretend these movies don't exist. That's what I'll do.
NOT RECOMMENDED. PERIOD.