Video review: "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot"

It crashed and burned at the box office, but “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” is a wry and disturbing look at the underbelly of wartime journalism.

Tina Fey plays Kim Baker, a trepid reporter sent to cover Afghanistan in the years after the American invasion. At first put off by the threatening surroundings, alien fundamentalist culture and hard-partying ways of her fellow expats, she eventually learns to “embrace the suck” until the insane feels normal.

Very loosely based on a memoir by Kim Barker – I’m not really sure what the one-letter name change accomplishes – it’s a dark comedy with some surprisingly dramatic notes.

(If you’re wondering about the title, it’s NATO phonetic alphabet as used by the military; take the first letters of each word to obtain an all-encompassing acronym.)

Kim is a struggling cable TV news producer of a certain age who finds her life stuck. On a whim she accepts an assignment to Kabul, intending to stay three months but eventually signing on for the long haul. She struggles to adapt to life here, where foreign journalists all live in the same compound, drinking, dancing and sleeping together.

Tanya, a stunning veteran played by Margot Robbie, helpfully informs Kim that while she may be a “5 or 6” on the attractiveness scale in New York, here in the macho male-dominated “Kabubble” she’s at least a 9. Kim resists the urge to fall into people’s beds and instead racks up some impressive scoops with the help of Fahim (Christopher Abbott), a smart and sensitive local man who acts as her interpreter and “fixer.”

There is also a charming scamp of a Scottish photographer (Martin Freeman) offering his services, both professional and personal; a powerful Afghan official (Alfred Molina) trading in similar wares, though he wants to trade his for hers; and Hollanek (Billy Bob Thornton), a severe Marine general who views Kim as another annoyance but eventually develops something resembling… grudging tolerance.

“This war is like f***ing a gorilla,” he offers, when asked about the state of the conflict. “You keep going until the gorilla wants to stop.”

It may not be as smart and sharp as, say, “Broadcast News,” but “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” provides a funny peek behind the curtain of those foreign reports we see on television – usually just for a moment before we change the channel.

We’ve cheered and wept aplenty about our foreign adventures over the last decade and a half, so here is a welcome chance to laugh a little, too.

Video extras are quite good, though you’ll have to spring for the Blu-ray upgrade to get them: the DVD contains exactly zero.

With the Blu-ray you get deleted and extended scenes plus a comprehensive making-of documentary, “All In.” There are also featurettes on the real Kim Barker, how the military embeds journalists, Afghan weddings and the vices foreign correspondents use to cope with the threat of constant danger.

Movie: B
Extras: B+

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.

Video review: "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"

Too much or too little? When it comes to Tolkien screen adaptations, there seems to be little agreement in how much material to stuff into these movies.

The choice by director Peter Jackson and his team to divide “The Hobbit” into three films may be a bridge too far for many viewers. There certainly is enough story in J.R.R. Tolkien’s slim novel (273 pages in my paperback version) to justify splitting it in twain. But the filmmakers chose to go further, layering in all sorts of material from extended Tolkien lore to pad out what was a simple children’s tale into something as grand -- and grim -- as “The Lord of the Rings.”

The result is languidly paced and overstuffed. The iconic “Unexpected Party” dinner that opens the tale, with meek hobbit Bilbo Baggins being invited by dwarves to go on a great adventure, overstays its welcome by at least 10 minutes.

They also bring in all sorts of figures who weren’t in the book, including Galadriel and a flighty colleague of Gandalf named Radagast. It sometimes feels like a “Greatest Hits” retread of “LotR.”

I still enjoyed the movie, while recognizing that people less enamored with Tolkien’s dense fantasy mythology won’t like it nearly as much. And several sequences, such as Bilbo’s deadly game of riddles with the creature Gollum, are positively thrilling.

“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” shows it is possible to have too much of a good thing.

It’s being released with a decent amount of extras, including 10 making-of videos that cover a broad range of production topics, from initial conception to the decision to shoot in 3-D with a special frame rate of 48 fps (which reportedly turned off some viewers).

If Jackson & Co. hold to form, though, expect to see a special edition come out in the next year or so with even meatier goodies and possibly an extended version that pushes the run time past three hours. For some hardcore Tolkienites, more is never enough.

Movie: 3 stars out of four  
Extras: 2.5 stars

Review: "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"

Let me say right up front that I quite enjoyed "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," but I don't expect most other people will. At unless they're hardcore Tolkienites like myself.

Director Peter Jackson and his creative team have more or less abandoned the modest children's book by J.R.R. Tolkien that acted as a gentle precursor to the grander, grimmer "Lord of the Rings." In its place, they've given us something like "LotR 2: The Prequel."

In tone and in story structure, the first triad of the "Hobbit" adventure feels like a further extension of the trilogy from 2001-03. There's a big fight in the goblin mountain home that visually owes much to the Mines of Moria sequence in "Fellowship of the Ring." Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen), the wandering wizard do-gooder, again whispers into a moth's ear to summon giant eagles to save the day. Andy Serkis, the digital acting god who brought the tortured Gollum to slithery life in "The Two Towers" and "The Return of the King," is back to play the ultimate riddle game with wayward hobbit Bilbo Baggins.

In stuffing "The Hobbit" with all sorts of elements from Tolkien lore not contained in the book -- and inventing a whole bunch of new stuff entirely on their own -- Jackson and his cast and crew take a major risk. Splitting the 300-page book into two movies seemed like an obvious move, given the carryover of ambition from the "Lord" trilogy.

But in choosing to make it into three flicks (and not short ones, either -- "Journey" clocks in at 169 minutes), they may have crossed the proverbial bridge too far. This movie seems overstuffed and languidly paced. The iconic "Unexpected Party" that opens the tale just seems to ramble on and on, like ... well, an uninvited dinner guest who overstays his welcome.

And yet I did not mind the extravagance, because I'm such a big fan of Tolkien's various works. The real appeal to people like me is the expansive mythology that the British author spent a lifetime building. Reading his books always felt like we were exploring an entire world, but only seeing a small glimpse of it any given time.

As a result, I did not mind the inclusion of another wizard character named Radagast the Brown (Sylvester McCoy), despite the fact that he gets a mere one mention each in "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings," and never plays any kind of significant role. Here, he more or less takes over the movie for a small stretch.

The one thing I find most questionable was the choice by Jackson et al to raise the stakes of the story. The novel starts off as a simple adventure yarn about 13 dwarves determined to kill the dragon who drove them off their mountain kingdom long ago, and gradually snowballs into important events that affect the entire world of Middle Earth.

This movie appears to lose patience, adding to and twisting around the plot so it seems like all the great powers of the land -- wizards, elves, orcs, a mysterious Necromancer occupying a dark corner -- have their entire attention bent toward this little misfit band.

Bilbo (Martin Freeman) acts as our eyes and ears, the proverbial normal person recruited to go along on the adventure at the behest of Gandalf. Purportedly a professional burglar, Bilbo is a timid soul who seems to possess no discernible skills other than writing letters and taking long walks. But he soon shows his true stuff, helping the dwarves battle three lumbering trolls and conniving his way past the murderous Gollum when he's cut off from his troupe in the bowels of the Misty Mountains.

Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), the leader of the dwarves, gets the Aragorn treatment by being gifted with all sorts of backstory and inner turmoil that's only hinted at in the book. Armitage is a commanding presence, and helps us see why others would follow this beggar prince on his outlandish journey.

Having other actors from the "Lord of the Rings" films thrown in haphazardly quickly grows old -- Elijah Wood as Frodo, Ian Holm as older Bilbo, and Hugo Weaving and Cate Blanchett as elf lords Elrond and Galadriel, respectively. The latter pair show up to fret and scowl at Thorin's trouble-making ways.

"Every good story deserves embellishment," Gandalf tells Bilbo at the beginning of the film, and Peter Jackson appear to have taken this up as their motto and mantra. Personally, I mostly welcomed the copious add-ons. But my guess is that casual fans of the "Lord of the Rings" will be turned off by what they may regard as an unnecessary reboot.

3 stars out of four

Review: "The Pirates! Band of Misfits"

 I'm an unabashed fan of stop-motion animation. It is in some ways the purest form of movie-making, since it requires the arduous frame-by-frame photography of still figures blended into the illusion of movement. Compared to that, sitting at a computer screen drawing with a laser stylus seems positively wimpy. It's also the reason why there simply aren't a lot of stop-motion feature films -- they're so darned hard to make.

I give respect to "The Pirates! Band of Misfits" for being one of the best-looking movies of this animation style, combining crisp, exaggerated puppetry with computer-generated backgrounds woven together so smoothly you probably won't even notice where one leaves off and the other begins. Compared to even the wonderful "Coraline" from just three short years ago, "Pirates" registers as a major evolution visually.

But the story just isn't quite there. Considering the painstaking method in which these films are made, the screenplay has a slapped-together feel to it, like the animators started shooting before the script was fully realized.

Based on the first two books of a series by Gideon Defoe, who also handled the screenplay adaptation, "Pirates" appears to pluck disparate story pieces and toss them carelessly into a gumbo. There are a lot of great elements there, but this one needed more time to cook, and maybe a more considered recipe.

 As if you couldn't tell from the title, it's about the wacky adventures of a group of seafaring pirates circa 1837. Now, pirates in 1837 were about where buggy-whip makers found themselves in 1920 -- on their way to history's dustbin.

And it isn't helped by the fact that these particular pirates are third-tier swashbucklers at best. Their haul of booty is less than bountiful lately, the ship's parrot isn't even a parrot, and the only thing the crew really has to look forward to is Ham Nite.

Heck, the captain doesn't even have a name -- he's known simply as The Pirate Captain. A decent chap with a bit of a preening nature, the Captain is vexed that he's never won the Pirate of the Year Award after more than two decades at sea.

He wavers on the edge between pomposity and self-defeat, trying to put on a good show for his crew but secretly fearful that he's a lame pirate leader (despite having both his original legs). Hugh Grant provides the Captain's voice, and the best compliment I can give him is that I never would have guessed it was him until I saw his name in the credits.

Other actors providing voices include Brendan Gleeson as a gouty older pirate, Martin Freeman as the noble first officer, Al Roker as a gentle giant and Anton Yelchin as an albino pirate. There's also a crew member who's obviously a woman (voiced by Ashley Jensen) disguised behind a terrible beard; it's pretty much openly acknowledged that she's way too curvaceous to be a pirate, but no one makes much of a fuss about it.

After being mocked by the front-runners for Pirate of the Year -- Jeremy Piven and Salma Hayek included -- the Captain and his crew bump into Charles Darwin and get into all sorts of unlikely adventures involving snooty scientists and Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton), whose hatred of pirates is obsessive.

Director Peter Lord's last credit behind the camera was 12 years ago with the jaunty "Chicken Run," and I think that's the tone he and co-director Jeff Newitt were going for here: fast and loose. There's a lot of great throwaway jokes -- Darwin's monkey manservant is a hoot, communicating through silent-movie-style title cards.

But the pacing is off, as "The Pirates!" seems to speed up and slow down so we often feel like we're either missing the action, or waiting around for it.

2.5 stars out of four