Review: "Crisis"

Writer/director Nicholas Jarecki had the idea to make his drama “Crisis” about the opioid epidemic as three parallel storylines. It’s not a new concept, but it can be an effective one when woven together artfully. Instead, the movie feels like three different tales rather than a gripping whole.

Individually, the pieces work. But two of them only intersect very late in the story and the third one… never does.

Armie Hammer plays Jake Kelly, a gruff, hard-charging DEA agent on the verge of a huge bust after spending a year infiltrating himself into the pill-mill trade. Evangeline Lilly is Claire Reimann, a suburban mom distraught over her teenage son’s death from overdose who decides to take matters into her own hands. Gary Oldman plays Tyrone Power, a scientist who’s been signing off on the big pharma’s studies in exchange for funding but undergoes an attack of conscience.

All three of these have enough narrative momentum, not to mention compelling performances, to merit an entire feature film. Together they are less than the sum of their parts.

It’s part cops-and-robbers, part revenge cycle and part corporate intrigue. I’m guessing the notion was to take a look at the opioid crisis from a variety of angles, but we actually see very little of the end effects on the users. Jake’s sister (Lily-Rose Depp) is an addict, which works to stoke his passions, but she only gets a couple of substantive scenes.

Tyrone is a chemistry professor at a small college that relies upon donations from a huge pharmaceutical company to fund his research, with Luke Evans playing the heavy. They believe they’ve stumbled upon a new form of painkiller that isn’t addictive, which will revolutionize the use of opioids -- not to mention rake in billions. But some lab technicians discover that the drug, Klaralon, is killing off their mice test subjects and needs to be pulled for more study.

He decides to go up against the big powers -- including his friend, the college president played by Greg Kinnear -- and progressively gets chewed up.

Claire insists that her son was not actually a drug user, and with a little digging and the help of a private investigator, she believes he was actually murdered rather than overdosed. She travels to Canada to look into the big pill operation behind it, which has recently moved into the even more deadly trade of fentanyl. It’s mentioned, but only lightly explored, that she used to be a user herself.

Meanwhile, Jake has set up his own front clinics where shady doctors dispense prescriptions to dangerous narcotics like candy (they hire homeless to obtain the pills, then immediately buy them back so they’re not putting more drugs on the street). With his new boss (Michelle Rodriguez) putting the pressure on, he has to set up a multimillion-dollar deal between his operation, the Canadian manufacturers and the Armenian distributors.

If that sounds like a lot of characters, that’s because it is. And I haven’t even mentioned the various supporting characters, spouses, friends, henchmen and so on.

I liked all three main actors in their roles. Claire is fragile but determined, Jake glowers so much he seems to positively steam, and Tyrone’s keening, high-minded oratories about doing the right thing pluck the heartstrings. It’s not enough, though.

“Crisis” is an ambitious movie that I think fails because of a lack of bigger ambition. I can imagine this as a trilogy or limited series that gradually sucks us deeper into an international epidemic, with each story showing the full breadth of every side. What we get feels like a CliffsNotes version of something bigger and better.

Review: "Midway"

What a good old-fashioned rip-roarer war picture. “Midway” is the sort of movie they made 40 to 60 years ago starring John Wayne or Henry Fonda and a bunch of other guys, but with modern CGI effects for the extravaganza air-and-sea battles.

I went in skeptical that famously schmaltzy conductor of disaster flicks, director Roland Emmerich (“Independence Day”), would deliver anything more than another soulless special effects showcase. But paired with screenwriter Wes Tooke, a rookie to feature film scripts, and a solid cast of square-jawed actors of varying fame, I left amazed and more than a little shook.

The aerial combat scenes are just flabbergastingly good. The pilots careen and yaw all over the screen, a concerto of impacts and explosions sounding all around them. There are plenty of dogfights with Japanese Zeroes, with cutaways to how it all looks from the ground.

Best of all are the bombing runs, as the Americans tip tail over nose and dive seemingly straight down vertically, the Japanese aircraft carriers blasting a storm cloud of flak into their faces, pulling up at only the very last moment. Their wingtips kiss the ocean surface before climbing again.

It’s like taking a ride on the world’s longest, deepest roller coaster ridden by yowling demons bound straight for the fiery furnaces of hell.

The story actually sets up the war in the Pacific beginning at Pearl Harbor and all through the important military developments before Midway, including the battle at Marshall Islands and the James Doolittle (Aaron Eckhart) raid on Tokyo. The last hour or so of the movie is the titular battle, which is generally regarded as the turning point of the war.

Like a lot of old-school war flicks, the action flips back and forth between the pilots and ship captains on the front lines with the commanders and intelligence boys back at HQ, and does a good job of seeing how one group played off the other.

Patrick Wilson is Edwin Layton, a dweeby intelligence officer who predicted the attack on Pearl, and now has to pluck up the courage to convince the top brass to rely on the info from his team, which includes military band members turned into codebreakers. Woody Harrelson (!) plays Admiral Chester Nimitz, put in charge of the Pacific effort while most of the fleet was sunken or smoking.

Ed Skrein is terrific as Dick Best, the prototypical hotshot cowboy pilot who flies like he doesn’t care about coming back. Then he’s placed in command and has to become the shepherd to a flock of green newbies. He’s got a sort of hunched-over, laconic rascal charm. Think Han Solo by way of Jersey.

Luke Evans is Wade McClusky, the by-the-book commander who clashes with Best, and Luke Kleintank is Best’s buddy, Clarence Dickinson, another crackerjack pilot. Dennis Quaid plays Vice Admiral William Halsey, Mandy Moore is Best’s wife, Anne, and Nick Jonas plays a puckish machinist who gets into the action.

Surprisingly, nearly all of the characters are actual historical figures. The Japanese commanders are even given plenty of scenes so we can size up the strategy from their side. Though this isn’t an “equal sides” type of film production along the lines of “Tora! Tora! Tora!”.

There's even a little ode to filmmaker John Ford, who happened to be on hand at Midway the day of attack, producing some seminal documentary footage.

The film’s a bit long at 138 minutes -- so many are these days, it seems. I long for a time when editors were powers in Hollywood and had agency to tighten, tighten, tighten. Today’s movies are like Robert De Niro’s out-of-shape scenes in “Raging Bull.” They still can pack a punch, but the flab is distracting.

Still, a few talkie scenes that run long and some clanky dialogue aside, “Midway” is a terrific piece of throwback entertainment that actually gets the history right.

Review: "Ma"

Screenwriting legend William Goldman said there are only three kinds of movies: those that are meant to be good and are, those that are meant to be good and aren’t, and those that were never meant to be any good.

I’d like to humbly suggest a fourth category: obviously trashy movies that are aware of their own trashiness and have fun with it while still not really being all that good.

“Ma” reminds me of lots of bits and pieces of other movies. “Misery,” with a seemingly normal, unappreciated middle-aged woman who’s secretly bonkers and played by an Oscar-caliber actress -- in this case, Octavia Spencer.

“Carrie,” about a teen girl traumatized by her sexual humiliation at the hands of her classmates, which is due for a hard comeuppance. The usual motley assembly of comely teens from every horror movie ever who just want to party.

Spencer is obviously having a lot of fun with this role, playing the kray-kray baddie in a low-budget scare flick. She fake-smiles her way through interactions, passing as normal while staring daggers when backs are turned. She’s not the most physically imposing cinematic killer, but she is good at lulling people in for a good stab in the back.

She plays Sue Ann, a timid teen who grew into a resentful woman. She has a miserable job as an assistant for the world’s nastiest veterinarian (Allison Janney). When a group of teens beg her to buy booze for them, she tuts and frets about nobody drinking and driving, and then relents.

A few winks later and Sue Ann is now hosting a never-ending party in the basement of her house out in the sticks, passing out shots and dancing the night away in an attempt to recapture some of her stolen youth. Insisting the young’uns call her “Ma,” she pokes through their social media and worms her way into their lives.

Diana Silvers plays Maggie, the new kid who has just moved to town from San Diego and immediately falls in with the cool gang. In this rural enclave, that means getting buzzed and hanging out at “the rock piles,” a pasture full of rubble that has been a party spot for decades.

Juliette Lewis plays her mom, Erica, who’s been through some rough days and is working as a cashier at the local casino in hopes of graduating up to dealer. She loves Maggie and gives her too much rope to hang herself with, making noises about “making good choices” but always too busy to check up.

McKaley Miller is Haley, the brazen girl who likes to impress everyone with her brazenness; Corey Fogelmanis is Andy, a sweet-faced boy who makes moony eyes at Maggie; Dante Brown is the funny, smart black kid; Gianni Paolo is Chaz, the headstrong jock.

Luke Evans turns up as Ben, Andy’s dad, though they never have a scene together so we’re just taking the filmmakers’ word for it. Missi Pyle plays his nasty, drinky girlfriend, who knew Erica back in the day.

Actually, it turns out all the adult character knew each other in high school, leading to gauzy flashback scenes with child actors who don’t resemble the grownups in the slightest. Suffice it to say, Sue Ann craved to be part of the in crowd, who just played her off for jokes.

Director Tate Taylor has made some good flicks, including “The Help” and “Get on Up;” screenwriter Scotty Landes is a TV guy doing his first feature film script. Tonally “Ma” is all over the map, spooky edging into scary and passing through comedy along the way. This creates a lot of awkward transition periods where we’re not sure if we’re supposed to be cowering or cackling.

Some stuff just plain doesn’t work, like a shy girl in a wheelchair (Tanyell Waivers) who is tied into the game very late in the going. Without giving too much away, I’ll just say that she and Sue Ann’s relationship deserved a whole movie of its own, or to be cut out of this one.

I can’t really recommend “Ma,” though I did on some level enjoy it. It would be incorrect to say this movie isn’t trying very hard; rather it’s laboring mightily at unworthy things.

Video review: "Beauty and the Beast"

When “Beauty and the Beast” came out in March, I asked why a live-action remake of one of the best animated films of all time even needed to exist. Since then, the movie has provided its own reasons: 1.23 billion of them, to be exact. That’s the film’s global box office take in dollars as of this writing.

It’s a well-crafted film, bright and engaging and full of vivid characters. No doubt there is a new generation of moviegoers who experienced this timeless tale for the first time, since the 1991 animated version now falls into “classic film” category, as strange as it may seem.

I can only hope they experienced as much joy and thrills I had when I first saw Belle and the Beast dance together for the first time.

But I bet not.

Let’s start with the fact that Emma Watson has many wonderful qualities, but a singer she is not. Her frail little voice just can’t carry big Broadway-style show tunes (by lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken). Her Belle doesn’t have that sense of hesitation we admired, existing more as a latter-day proto-feminist.

I also didn’t care for the look of the Beast (Dan Stevens), who can’t help looking like a dude in a fur suit. It seemed like the filmmakers were trying to turn him more into a classic romantic figure than a tragic, magically cursed prince.

The story is well-known: inquisitive young girl comes to be the prisoner of the Beast, who is trapped in his castle along with his entire staff of servants by a fell hex placed on him a decade earlier. If he doesn’t find someone to love him soon, the curse will remain forever.

Luke Evans plays the villain, martial hunter Gaston, who covets Belle for himself. Josh Bad is his right-hand henchman, LeFou, who does some pining of his own.

Rounding out the vocal cast are Emma Thompson, Ewan McGregor, Audra McDonald, Ian McKellen and Stanley Tucci. Kevin Kline plays Belle’s (live-action) father.

There are four brand-new songs in addition to all the originals from the animated movie, though only one, “Days in the Sun,” is memorable.

Billion-dollar payday or not, there’s just very little magic in seeing a virtual shot-by-shot remake of one of the most beloved films ever.

Bonus features are truly wondrous, though you’ll have to buy the Blu-ray version to get nearly all of them. The DVD contains only a music video.

There are about 10 minutes of deleted scenes, as well as an extended version of “Days in the Sun.” A sing-a-long version lets you jump straight to all the songs.

Perhaps the neatest feature is “Enchanted Table Read,” in which the cast carries out an elaborate table read of the film, including singing, dances and set pieces.

There is also a making-of documentary and several featurettes focusing on the people in front of and behind the cameras.

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Review: "Beauty and the Beast"

Time passes for us all, and for the movies. Since “Beauty and Beast” came out in 1991 and became regarded as one of the greatest animated films of all time, an entire generation has been born, grown up and started having babies of their own. Though it might make some of us feel old to say, it’s passing into cinematic antiquity.

I walked into the 2017 live-action remake with but a single word of question on my lips: “Why?” I left without grasping any kind of answer.

The new movie, starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens, is almost a shot-by-shot remake of the animated film, with a few extra flourishes and minor changes. They reuse the Oscar-winning musical score by lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken, with four new songs by Menken and Tim Rice that don’t measure up to the old stuff.

Most of the cast spends the movie in CGI form as enchanted clocks, teapots, harpsichords, wardrobes, candelabras, etc. Directed by Bill Condon (“Mr. Holmes”), it’s a beautiful, colorful film with energetic musical numbers, distinctive characters and an ageless love story.

And it has no reason for existing.

I’m not a purist on remakes and sequels. If you can make something that adds to the mythology of a film, or extends the characters and their individual arcs, then you’ll get no arguments from me. Disney has launched a number of live action remakes of its classic animated flicks, including “Cinderella” and “The Jungle Book,” and I’ve liked almost all of them.

But this one feels different… hollow, somehow. The tragic love story of the Beast (Stevens) and Belle (Watson) lacks the gut-churning emotional wrench of 1991. The best thing about the animated movie was its unexpected dramatic heft. That had the tone of “Romeo and Juliet.” This new one is the TV sitcom version.

It’s not helped by Watson’s singing voice, which is unequal to the task of carrying songs. That’s become a thing lately: casting non-singers as the leads in musicals. (See “Land, La La.”) Maybe it’s time to reconsider.

Stevens’ portrayal of the Beast using a mix of costume, makeup and CGI doesn’t exactly work, either. He looks like a smaller, softer, prettier version of the animated Beast. Even his leonine nose swoops down appealingly toward a modest snarl. I liked the cartoon Beast’s busted, crooked honker and every-which-way fangs. The new one looks like he got Jenny Craig and a plastic surgeon.

You know the story: village bookworm Belle stumbles into the castle of the Beast looking for her lost father, Maurice (Kevin Kline, changed from inventor to artist here). The master of the house and all his servants have been hexed with a terrible curse, which will become permanent if the magic rose loses its last petal before he finds true love. Belle agrees to become his prisoner in exchange for dad, and antagonism gives way to blooming romance.

The heavy is again Gaston (Luke Evans), the swaggering musclebound hunter/soldier who desires Belle for himself. Josh Gad, as the flunkie LeFou, adds notes of jaded longing for his longtime companion. Some people are upset about having a (more or less) openly homosexual character in a Disney movie, but I was more perturbed he falls into the weary cliché of gay man pining for an unavailable straight.

Ewan McGregor takes over the Lumiere role of rapscallion candelabra; Emma Thompson is Mrs. Potts, and does a reasonably good job warbling the title song; Ian McKellen is unctuous butler Cogsworth; Audra McDonald is the operatic wardrobe; Stanley Tucci is a new character as the wardrobe’s musical and marital accompanist.

Originally they were going to weave some of the songs from the stage musical version into the movie, but instead went with four new ones. Two are just short trifles, while the Beast’s “Evermore” is a bland Broadway hollerer. Though “Days in the Sun,” sung by Watson with help from the supporting characters, more adequately explores the dilemma of the servants caught up in their master’s curse.

I think the lesson is if you’re going to remake a beloved classic, you need to let it evolve. Take some risks, change it around and see how audiences react. They may not like it as much. But there’s no magic in mere repetition.

Video review: "The Girl on the Train"

The most important aspect of a potboiler movie is that the pot has to keep boiling, gaining in intensity rather than losing it. “The Girl on the Train,” despite having some strong story elements and a very good performance by Emily Blunt, loses steam to the point the plot congeals.

Blunt plays Rachel, a woman who’s seemingly lost everything -- her career, her marriage, her sobriety, her hopes of having a baby. She spends her days in an alcoholic stupor, riding the train into the city for the job she lost a while ago. This allows her to glide past her old house, where her ex-husband (Justin Theroux) has remarried to the woman he was cheating on her with, and they’ve just had a gorgeous baby girl.

While she’s pummeling herself with this vision of what could have been, Rachel also becomes curious about another couple living a couple of doors down (Haley Bennett and Luke Evans), who tend to have a very, um… vigorous romantic life, which they engage in without apparent regard to the trains passing by their very unobstructed windows.

When this woman goes missing, Rachel becomes a prime suspect, since she had one of her frequent blackouts on that day and woke up confused and bloody (not hers). Nonetheless she undertakes her own amateur investigation, befriending the grieving husband and signing up for therapy sessions with their shrink.

Slowly, she starts to emerge from her self-induced fog -- just as the dangers grow to confront her.

Based on the novel by Paula Hawkins (unread by me), “The Girl on the Train” loses momentum as it goes rather than gaining it. Director Tate Taylor and screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson give us their own mediocre version of “Gone Girl,” which accomplished almost everything this film does not.

It’s too bad Blunt’s haunting performance got wasted with such inept plotting.

Bonus features are pretty good. They include deleted and extended scenes, a couple of making-of documentaries and a feature-length commentary track with director Taylor.

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Film review: "The Girl on the Train"

“The Girl on the Train” feels like it wants to be the next “Gone Girl,” but it doesn’t quite have the same twisted pretzel of emotional anguish and expertly boiling plot. That film constantly raised the stakes, but this one often wanders in a self-medicating daze like its heroine.

Did I say heroine? The best-selling novel by Paula Hawkins actually has three, all of whom share the first-person perspective at points. Emily Blunt is the clear star here, so director Tate Taylor and screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson take the curious route of telling the story through her eyes, then pulling aside to reveal stuff she couldn’t possibly have seen or known.

The result is a confused and confusing psycho-sexual thriller that plays like a “Roshomon” that wanders deep into a thicket of shifting perspectives it can’t sort out itself. Then it rescues things through conventional plot devices it dusted off from other movies.

The movie’s one saving grace is Blunt, who goes deep into her character of Rachel, who’s an utter mess. Her marriage cratered because of her alcoholism and their inability to have a baby – not to mention her husband Tom’s (Justin Theroux) philandering. Now he’s married to the woman he was cheating on her with, Anna (Rebecca Ferguson), and they’ve just had a gorgeous daughter.

They’re living in Rachel’s old house next to the rail line in Ardsley, a quiet upstate New York commuter town. Every day, Rachel takes the train into the big city, ostensibly for her job but also so she can spy on them and dissolve into a pool of resentment and self-pity. Constantly sipping from a CamelBak water bottle she’s secretly filled with clear booze, Rachel is perpetually stumbling around and experiencing blackouts.

She’s also become fixated on another woman who lives two doors down, Megan (Haley Bennett), a blonde goddess with a hunk of a husband, Scott (Luke Evans), whose amorous attentions toward her are fervent. (Jeez, buy some window shades, folks.)

But there’s more to each woman’s tale than meets the eye, and the strain becomes more intense when Megan goes missing. The cops (Allison Janney plays the chief detective) come sniffing around Rachel, who seems like a top suspect. She had a blackout that day and doesn’t remember much, but was seen chasing Megan and shouting insults at her. And Rachel woke up that night covered in blood.

Blunt really grunges herself up for the role – hollow eyes, ragged lips, tangled hair, even a bit of mustache. She dresses one step up from a bag lady and talks about the twin delusions of rage and envy she has toward the other women. “She’s what I lost. She’s everything I want to be,” she says.

At least early on, much of the appeal of “The Girl on the Train” is exploring such a broken character and contemplating the prospect that she may actually be guilty of some horrendous crime. Flashbacks show her being capable of violence, and even once stole into Anna’s house while she was asleep and carried the baby off into the back yard.

But things spin sideways. We’re introduced to a therapist (Edgar Ramirez) who was treating Megan and may be complicit. Rachel undertakes an amateur Nancy Drew act, befriending Scott and then signing up for her own sessions with the therapist. Just when it feels like the story should be building toward something, it just seems to devolve.

I won’t belabor the clunky maneuvers of the plot, other than to say you’ll probably figure out the true villain long before they’re revealed. It’s never a good thing when the audience reaches the final stop far ahead of the train.

Video review: "The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies"

With the final film in the “Hobbit” trilogy, the Tolkien train has finally rumbled to its last cinematic stop -- assuming, that is, that director Peter Jackson & Co. aren’t intending to turn the barely readable “The Silmarillion” into a 57-part television series.

(Shhh… don’t give them ideas.)

I’ve appreciated the scope and splendor of this 13-year enterprise to turn one of my most beloved literary touchstones into movies that have been, by and large, magical. But if I could give a two-word review of “The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies,” it would be “too much.”

There are too many secondary characters and side plots, most of them greatly expanded from things barely whispered at in author J.R.R. Tolkien’s slender tome -- or simply invented out of whole cloth by the filmmakers.

As you can guess from the title, the tale of a band of dwarves trying to reclaim their mountain kingdom from a dragon usurper ends with a massive war wherein the various races of Middle-earth squabble over the spoils. Humble hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) is literally caught in the middle, and his choices have an outsized effect on the course of history.

Other key players include Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), heir to the dwarven throne and ensorcelled by the foul magic of the dragon’s gold; Gandalf (Ian McKellen), wise wizard and counselor to the adventurers; Bard (Luke Evans), the stout warrior who brings down the beast; Thranduil (Lee Pace), the headstrong elven monarch; Legolas (Orlando Bloom), Thranduil’s son and carryover from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy; Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), a totally invented and unnecessary female elf warrior; and Azog (Manu Bunnett), the fearsome albino orc leader.

The battle scenes are epic in scope, but the gentle story of a hobbit’s journey there and back again gets swallowed.

Bonus features consist of five making-of featurettes: “Recruiting the Five Armies,” “Completing Middle-earth,” “The Last Goodbye: Behind the Scenes,” “The Last Goodbye Music Video” and “New Zealand: Home of Middle-earth, Part 3.”

As with the previous two movies, in a few months they will release a special extended version of “The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies” with an expanded cut of the film and better extras. Though what they could possibly add to this overstuffed meal, I can’t imagine.

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Review: "The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies"

Unlike the triumphant finale of the three “The Lord of the Rings” films, the last movie in “The Hobbit” trilogy feels more like the grateful collapse at the end of an overlong marathon.

With regards to “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies,” the audience won’t exactly be exclaiming, “Thank goodness that’s over!” But like an overambitious runner who found they’d signed up for a more grueling race than anticipated, the series concludes with quite a bit less enthusiasm and energy than when it started.

As I’ve said in my reviews of the previous two movies: the Middle-Earth of author J.R.R. Tolkien is perhaps my most treasured mythological playground. I grew up adoring these books, dreaming of hobbits, orcs, magical rings and dragons. You could set pretty much any story in this realm and I’d be first in line to buy a ticket.

But director Peter Jackson and his co-screenwriters have so twisted, changed and augmented Tolkien’s straightforward tale that it barely even deserves to have “The Hobbit” in its title. They’ve expanded slender storylines into major themes; turned behind-the-scenes events barely hinted at into full-blown subplots; and in many cases, just plain ol’ made a bunch of crap up.

It’s still a rousing picture after a slow start – things don’t really get going into the titular battle is joined.

In case you don’t remember, humble hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) had been plucked by deposed dwarven heir to the throne Thorin (Richard Armitage) and meddling wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) to help reclaim the Lonely Mountain taken over long ago by a fearsome dragon.

As this movie opens, the great wyrm Smaug (voice by Benedict Cumberbatch) has been roused from his slumbers and is attacking Lake-town, the tiny fishing village built on docks into the lake next the mountain. Dutiful bowman Bard (Luke Evans) takes up arms against the dragon and brings him down.

But Thorin, driven mad by a lust for gold from “dragon sickness,” refuses to share any of the great wealth of the mountain with the refugees of Lake-town. And he certainly wants nothing to do with the elven king Thranduil (Lee Pace), who previously kept the company prisoner and now wants his own slice of the pie.

It seems likely to come to a nasty conflict, but meanwhile the Orc armies led by the terrifying Azog (Manu Bennett) are bearing down on them all. The last half of the movie or so is essentially just a bunch of swordplay.

In the book Bilbo got knocked unconscious at the start of the fighting, and thus everything that transpired went undepicted. Jackson & Co., of course, couldn't do that with a big-budget spectacle, so we get a whole raft of CGI beheadings and splatterings (though curiously bloodless, to keep the PG-13 rating intact).

The best of the "add-on" material involves the effort by Gandalf and other powerful sorcerers -- including Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) and Saruman (Christopher Lee) -- to force out the evil force that has invaded the fortress of Dol Guldur. As we know, it turns out to be the shade of Sauron, who will go on to cause more trouble down the road. It's a brief but thrilling side excursion.

Other new material is less successful, especially a contrived romance between one of the dwarves and an entirely concocted female elf character (Evangeline Lilly). This results in a love triangle with familiar friend Legolas (Orlando Bloom), plus his daddy issues with the king, and a journey up north that appears to serve no narrative purpose at all.

I was thrilled with what this team of filmmakers did with the "Lord of the Rings," occasionally altering the navigation but keeping the terrain intact. Here, though, they seem like they weren't content with the tale Tolkien spun, and decided to supplant it with their own.

It's still a decent fantasy flick; it's just not "The Hobbit."

Video review: "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug"

"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" is now the fifth film to be spun out of the books of J.R.R. Tolkien, each tipping near or over three hours, so it's no surprise if casual fans of the sword-and-sorcery universe of Middle-Earth are growing a bit fatigued by now.

If you dismissed the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy as a whole bunch of walking with too many endings, then you might well be put off by the prospect of director Peter Jackson finding three movies worth of material in Tolkien's earlier, slenderer tome.

I still enjoyed the movie quite a bit, though they've ratcheted up the action set-pieces considerably over those in the book, and introduced or expanded a bunch of other characters. The net effect does tend to diminish humble hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) as the central figure of the story.

As the second film in the trilogy opens, Bilbo and his troupe of dwarves have survived a deadly trip over and under goblin-filled mountains, and must now face the daunting Mirkwood Forest rife with giant spiders and less-than-friendly elves. At the end of their journey lies Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch), the fearsome dragon who usurped the dwarves' homeland long ago.

Jackson and his screenwriters tend to skip over some of the best stuff in the book and substitute it with concoctions of their own that aren't nearly as compelling -- such as a made-up elven she-warrior (Evangeline Lilly) who strikes up an unlikely flirtation with one of the dwarves.

Your interest level for this movie will likely fall in line with your ardor for Dungeons & Dragons-type of stories. If you deem it all a bunch of adolescent silliness, best to steer clear. For those (like me) who let their geek flags fly proudly, "Smaug" is essential viewing.

As with previous iterations of Jackson's Tolkien movies, video extras are just ample enough to leave you hungry for better stuff that will likely come out later along with an extended version of the movie.
You get a making-of feature, "Peter Jackson Invites You to the Set," along with some short videos short throughout production. There's also a travelogue of New Zealand where it was shot, plus a music video.

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Review: "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug"

The sort of people who slavishly read fantasy novels in general and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien in particular (like me) also tend to be the sort who play video games, especially the role-playing variety. (Again, me.) These overlapping constituencies are no doubt familiar with the concept of the expansion pack.

This is when the creators of a successful game issue a supplement that keeps the basic architecture in place, and just adds new elements -- extended storylines, new characters, new monsters, fresh hardware and so on.
There isn't nearly as much work involved in churning out an expansion pack as an original game, so they tend to be handsome going concern for game-makers.

In blowing up Tolkien's modest novel "The Hobbit" -- 287 pages in my ancient Ballantine paperback edition -- into a trio of movies tipping near three hours each, director Peter Jackson and his cohorts have essentially applied the M.O. of the expansion pack to moviemaking.

Oh, Tolkien's delightful children's story is still there, about an unassuming hobbit named Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) who gets recruited to accompany 13 dwarves and a wizard on a journey to faraway lands to slay a dragon and win back a stolen kingdom. But it's been "augmented" to such a ridiculous degree that keepers of the original flame might have a hard time recognizing the quaint little tale they remember so fondly.

I still liked the final product, which is a rip-roaring, action-packed good time, because as I said this sword-and-sorcery stuff is totally in my wheelhouse. But in giving it the grand, elongated "Lord of the Rings" treatment, I fear casual fans may feel Tolkien's tender prequel has been burgled of much of its charm.

At the outset of the second film of the triplet, "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug," Bilbo, dwarven leader Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), sage wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and their companions have successfully crossed through the Misty Mountains and escaped the clutches of a horde of goblins and orcs who want their heads.

They still have a long way to go to reach Erebor, the lonely peak where the eponymous dragon lies sleeping under a mountain of treasure. To get there, Bilbo & Co. must brave the suffocating Mirkwood Forest, battle giant spiders and encounter some woodland elves who aren't so sprightly in their attitudes toward dwarves.

For me, this section contains some of the most rapturous portions of Tolkien's novel, as the wayward adventurers are forced to navigate both treacherous terrain and tricky political/racial territory. For some reason, though, Jackson and his co-screenwriters (Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Guillermo del Toro) decided this is precisely they area where they must economize the story down to bare bones.

Thus, the party's encounter with fearsome "skin-changer" Beorn (Mikael Persbrandt) is over almost before it begins. Likewise, the claustrophobic taint of the Mirkwood isn't allowed time to settle in. And Bilbo's comedic-yet-scary rescue of his compatriots at the hands of the spiders, employing his new magic invisibility ring, stinging sword and a bit of clever poetry, doesn't summon up the scares or the laughs it ought to.

Instead, we're treated to a whole bunch of byplay involving elven king's son Legolas (Orlando Bloom), brought back from the "LOtR" movies for another go-round, and Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), a badass warrior elf woman who's completely invented out of whole cloth. We also get to know a lot more about the internal power struggles of Laketown and its would-be hero, Bard (Luke Evans), than is really necessary. Plus an expanded look at Gandalf's investigation of a mysterious Necromancer down south.

And, most bizarrely, the stirring of an interracial romance 'twixt elf and dwarf. Yes, really. The way Jackson and the gang are building this thing up, I think we're in store for the full Romeo/Juliet entanglement in the third installment.

I couldn't help noticing that  nearly every time the film deviates significantly from the book, it's to diminish Bilbo as a character. Instead of being the center of the action and the doer of deeds, he becomes merely the person who sets in motion events that others take full advantage of.

So for example, instead of single-handedly rescuing the dwarves from their elvish captors using empty wine barrels, he's a bit player in a big action set-piece starring Legolas and Tauriel. And rather than being the one who notices the not-so-proverbial chink in the armor of the mighty Smaug (captivatingly voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch), here he merely confirms what others have told him.

I still enjoyed the second "Hobbit" film. But in piling on so much extraneous other stuff, we feel less like we're watching a movie than playing it on our game console. Consequently, it's less consequential.

Review: "Fast & Furious 6"

Here's the thing about the "Fast & Furious" movies: they're cartoons.

I would think this is fairly obvious to anyone who's watched even five minutes of the series -- the high-speed chase sequences that flaunt the laws of physics, the muscle-bound lunks strutting and blustering, the emaciated hoochies with incongruous combat skills.

The whole enterprise is garish and bogus, like sun-tan lotion smeared over plastic surgery scars.

There's nothing inherently wrong with cartoonish movies -- when they recognize and accept their just-for-kicks nature. But "Fast & Furious 6," like all its predecessors, takes itself way, way too seriously to allow any fun.

At least a half-hour too long at 130 minutes, it interrupts its infrequent car chases with lots of scenes where Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson growl their dialogue, usually at each other. We also have a new villain, Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), who's so busy telling everyone how much smarter he is than them he keeps making obvious mistakes.

Oh, and Michelle Rodriguez, who was pretty definitively offed earlier in the franchise, somehow is brought back with that ol' standby of the lazy screenwriter, amnesia. It's not a very convincing device, nor does it explain away the fact that leader Dom Toretto (Diesel) had already replaced his dead girlfriend with a new one.

Director Justin Lin, who has now helmed all the "Fast" movies except the first two, appears to have simply grown bored with car chases. There's more hand-to-hand fighting than driving, and what road action that remains is muddled and over-caffeinated, like a yippy little dog that barks so furiously it chokes itself. Screenwriter Chris Morgan, also back for his fourth go-round, hasn't improved with experience.

If you'll remember from the last movie -- and why would you? -- Dom and his team of racer-thieves had successfully heisted $100 million in cash. As the story opens they're living the quiet life of luxury as expat criminals. Then their nemesis lawman, Hobbs (Johnson), shows up with proof that Letty (Rodriguez), Dom's old squeeze, is alive and working for Shaw.

Shaw's exact motivations remain a mystery ... something about stealing computer chips from the U.S. government worth billions. He's got his own crackerjack team of tech specialists, plus some cool low-slung cars that can act like ramps for pursuing vehicles, sending them hurtling.

Brian O'Conner, the former cop-turned-criminal played by Paul Walker, is largely shunted to the side in this outing, other than a set-up about being a new daddy and therefore less wild than the old days.
Also returning are Tyrese Gibson as comic relief Roman, Ludacris as hacker Tej, and Sung Kang and Gal Gadot as crime couple Han and Gisele.

Dom & Co. have plenty of cash and little reason to help out the feds, other than finding out if Letty is really alive. It's the familiar claptrap about sticking together.

Diesel does that strange thing he does where he turns his head sideways to the camera, not looking at the person he's talking to while spouting some heavy-sounding gibberish. Like, "You don't turn your back on your family. Even when they do."

The movie occasionally finds the right gear with some particular piece of roadway mayhem -- a sequence where the good guys take on a tank comes to mind. But whenever the movie detours into characters just standing around talking, it's a complete wipeout.

Review: "The Raven"

Just a quick review; Nick is handling the main review over at The Film Yap, so make sure to swing over there to get the "official" take.

"The Raven" takes a bold and innovative concept and does a good, not great job of executing it onscreen. It's a fictitious account of poet Edgar Allan Poe's final days, mixing lots of plots and dark imagery from Poe's writing with an entirely modern-feeling whodunit involving a serial killer. The murderer is acting out killings from Poe's own stories, to taunt the writer into pursuing him.

Think "Seven" or "In the Line of Fire," with lots of poetry quotations.

The result is a Gothic thicket of black cloaks, pecking birds with blood on their beaks, R-rated gore and scowling men shouting at each other in Victorian lilt. It's all quite absurd, but certainly engaging, and features John Cusack in one of his best roles in years.

Cusack plays Poe as a mordant, bombastic man frustrated that his amazing talents -- he'll tell you how amazing they are -- have left him penniless and alone at the age of 40. He presents an aura of pure confidence to the rest of the world, but privately he laments "the dark and morbid melancholy that has followed me like a black dog all my life."

If you like that sort of dialogue, you'll get plenty more of it from the screenplay by Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare, which piles on the brooding mood with a frenetic plot of twists and turns. Plenty of them don't make much sense, but director James McTeigue ("V is for Vendetta") keeps things tripping along at such a brisk pace the audience won't have time to contemplate the film long enough to spot the holes.

Some other standout lines: His editor (Kevin McNally) says of Poe: "I believe God gave him a spark of genius and then extinguished it in misery." Poe quips that if he'd known his writing would have inspired such a terrible admirer, "I should have devoted more time to eroticism."

A fellow writer and literary adversary of Poe's who is captured by the killer and forced to face the swinging pendulum bellows, "I'm only a critic!!" And as things really get tense, Poe fumes of the killer, "Even his prose is barbaric!"

The mysterious killer abducts Poe's lady love, Emily Hamilton (Alice Eve), whose wealthy father (Brenda Gleeson) is none too happy about the attentions from the fantastically failed writer. The murderer leaves a wake of clues, and bodies, with the requirement that Poe write his version of the story as it's being created and publish it in the Baltimore newspaper where he works itinerantly.

"The Raven" is a semi-smart mashup, undeniably entertaining even as we realize that it is, at its core, entirely goofy.

3 stars

Review: "Tamara Drewe"

"Tamara Drewe" is a story about writers, and does a lovely job of depicting the interior worlds they inhabit, and the fragile egos that often accompany a lifetime spent mostly inside one's own head.

It's a comedy, but in that distinctly British mode that always involves a generous ladling of misery. It succeeds as a comedy of manners and observation, though it errs in presenting us with a wide array of interesting characters, and then selecting the least compelling among them to drive the story.

The film is based on a comic strip by Posy Simmonds that is essentially a modern take on Thomas Hardy's fourth book, "Far from the Madding Crowd." The screenplay by Moira Buffini even gifts us with a Thomas Hardy scholar, one of a half-dozen or so authors living at Stonefield, a writer's retreat in the idyllic (and fictional) village of Ewedown.

An inside joke is that the Hardy expert, who's been toiling away on a book about him for two years, spends much of his time convincing others that Hardy is not a dreadful bore.
"Tamara Drewe" is anything but dull.

Stonefield is the demesne of Nicholas Hardiment, a successful writer of crime novels all featuring the same hero, and his long-suffering wife Beth (Tamsin Greig), who manages the farm and the writers-in-residence, while bearing his numerous affairs. Nicholas is played by Roger Allam in a spot-on performance as a man who holds nothing but condescension for those around him, including his fans, but is smart enough to conceal it.

Storytellers are really liars and thieves, Nicholas sermonizes, and seems intent on proving his own platitude.

The guest writers are mostly would-be and wannabe authors, and one suspects Nicholas only keeps them around for the extra income. Glen, the Hardy scholar, is the only American in the group, and seems more interested in sticking his nose into Stonefield's ongoing passion plays than finishing his book. Glen is played by Bill Camp in a wondrous turn that lets the audience see him thinking.

Things are shaken up with the arrival of Tamara Drewe (Gemma Arterton), a local girl who was mostly known for her impish sense of humor and huge nose. She's since had the nose bobbed into a cute lightly-freckled button, and has become a thriving columnist for a London newspaper.
The ostensible purpose of her return is to fix her family's old home up for sale, but there's clearly some puckish pride in showing off to the yokels how luminous she turned out.

All the men at Stonefield are instantly transfixed the moment Tamara climbs over the neighboring fence wearing short-shorts -- none more so than local handyman Andy Cobb (Luke Evans), who had a fling with her when they were teens. She hires Andy to renovate her home -- which used to belong to his family -- and maybe measure her personal drapes.

Things spin sideways when Tamara falls for Ben Sergeant (Dominic Cooper), the drummer and songwriter for a famous rock band, Swipe. Soon the tiny town is atwitter over a famed musician residing in their midst. Andy, meanwhile, can't believe he lost out to a guy who wears makeup.

It's around this point that the plot takes an unexpected, and for me unappreciated, turn. Two 15-year-old girls (Jessica Barden and Charlotte Christie), who had been acting as sort of the local Greek chorus commenting on the comings and goings and trystings of the main characters, suddenly jump into the driver's seat and speed off.

Things eventually get righted, but I kept yearning for the focus to return to the flighty Tamara, the drolly narcissistic Nicholas and the self-deprecating Glen. Instead, we spend an entire reel of film with the screechy, whiny, manipulative brats at the fore.

I don't hold it too much against the film, though, because director Stephen Frears ("The Queen") has such a great touch with his actors, that everything that comes before or after that wrong turn is such a delight. These characters are so vibrant, flawed and alive, I just loved spending time with them.

3 stars out of four