The Theory of Everything (2014) REVIEW

“Smart, funny and truly charming”.

SPOILER FREE It’s about this time of year where are the films come out to impress us and have a huge impact in today’s culture as well as taking lots of awards at the Oscar’s and BAFTA’s. The Theory of Everything, I would believe, takes a look into the life of Stephen Hawking from a biased approach based on the book written by his first wife – tragic but beautiful. It’s strongly written and believable like not much else – I was constantly thinking throughout the film that Eddie Redmayne isn’t playing Stephen Hawking – he is Stephen Hawking! He really throws himself into this role like nothing I’ve ever seen him do before, wonderfully acted and the chemistry between he and his wife is riveting and powerful. One of the mistakes a lot of romantic comedies make, is the character’s not being likeable or interesting – how many times have we seen the same romantic chemistry that doesn’t really work; time and time again. What I loved about The Theory of Everything was how both the characters worked so well. The feeling you get when the two are in each others company is nothing but a longing for the chemistry to continue.

Through great tragedy and incredibly upsetting events, the film still finds its ways of being positive and uplifting – a lot of the ways that characters related to each other took me back to Danny Boyle’s masterpiece: ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. Through tragedy comes something that we can look up to and smile at. By no means does it lessen the effect of the terrible events that take place, but it gives the audience something to hold on to. A film has to do well to juggle tough subject matter, but still have its audience coming out feel uplifted, not depressed. The film felt educational as well as entertaining, offering advice to us on how to deal with tragedy and tough situations – not to turn away from them but to tackle them head-on. It’s remarkable that throughout the difficult circumstances that Stephen and his wife Jane still contain their sense of humour – in fact Stephen seems to make more jokes the worse his condition gets.

All in all, it’s rather stunning work. Eddie Redmayne owns the role like no other before him – to see him in interviews and walking around seemed such a shock, just because his performance was so believable. Felicity Jones is also wonderful and interacts with Eddie beautifully. The acting is all-round excellent and everyone seems to have his or her place without being overbearing. It’s wonderfully shot, and for something that tackles very difficult subject matter, you come out feeling positive and uplifted. Stephen may have no faith in God, but I have faith in this film.

★★★★

Night At The Museum: Secret Of The Tomb (2014) REVIEW

“A rather sweet, satisfying conclusion (hopefully) to the franchise.”

SPOILER FREE I remember seeing the original film in the cinema with my parents from what seemed a lifetime ago – I remember laughing and enjoying it very much through the eyes of a child, but my parents weren’t particularly impressed, it was this image that I went into, just before a screening of the 3rd instalment. I was waiting to be very unimpressed and rather bored through a children’s film and not open to the idea that it could in fact be for families and not just for children… I have to say I was slightly more impressed… I have to say, when I first saw Robin Williams on-screen I almost cried, one of my favourite childhood actors is not around anymore, but he always played the character of Theodore Roosevelt very well, as he seems to in anything. I was first struck at how much the film was making me laugh – I had seen the trailer almost 100 times previously in the cinema, but there were plenty of gags that took me off-guard and actually surprised me!

I had a brief check-up on what happened in the 2nd film since I hadn’t seen it, but it didn’t take much to understand where the film was going. Like all good family films, it was very easy to follow, and its narrative was simple and well explained. As seen in the trailer, the Night at the Museum gang (as it were) travel to London to stop the tablet from decomposing; if it completely corrodes, then the characters will be turned to wax forever. It’s essentially very similar stuff to what we’ve seen before, the only thing here is whether you enjoyed the other instalments or not.

I’ve never been a fan of Hollywood doing the same thing over and over again like they seem to do so frequently, but this time the ride seemed to be enlightening and enjoyable. Even though I think the monkey ‘Dexter’ is extremely irritating, some of the scripting slightly dodgy, and many unnecessary characters that only delay the narrative, there’s much worse you can be seeing this Christmas. It made me laugh and the film didn’t overstay its welcome by having a ridiculously long duration. It won’t change the world and after a while the kids will maybe forget they watched it, but nonetheless it’s a rather sweet, satisfying conclusion (hopefully) to The Night at the Museum franchise.

★★★

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) REVIEW

“There And Back Again…Again…Again…”

SPOILER FREE I can remember feeling so excited when first reading that Peter Jackson was taking on-board the project of ‘The Hobbit’ and turning it into a film. After his critically acclaimed trilogy: The Lord of the Rings and afterwards directing King Kong, Jackson was on a roll – what I have now realised was that he was on a roll, rather a roll downhill into a dark hole. After growing up with The Lord of the Rings and being such a huge fan of all three films – they still remain in my top favourite films of all time to this day. In terms of character development, epic scale, emotional heartache and stunning storytelling; The Lord of the Rings is almost impossible to beat. Despite my excitement for The Hobbit, I knew that Peter Jackson’s job was going to be a lot harder, because the original resource is very different to The Lord of the Rings. Say whatever you like about The Hobbit trilogy, but there’s no denying that it is a children’s book taking itself rather seriously.

Onto The Battle of the Five Armies; we come in pretty much at the same place The Desolation of Smaug left. Smaug is terrorising and destroying Lake Town, and it’s up to Bard to slay the beast – of course we have a battle between dwarves, elves, men, orcs and a shape shifter near The Lonely Mountain as well, so everything is pretty much full-on. As predicted, it’s all too much for its own good. The greatest difficulty I have with this instalment of The Hobbit is the little attention the film has to characters. The film is all about battles, scenery and great events, but not really about what the characters are going through. There’s some rather sweet moments once again between Kili and Tauriel that I hate to say, work rather well – it was nice to actually feel something for once and not just be placed in the middle of a battle with little feeling for the protagonists or any of the good characters. As much as I disliked the appearance of Legolas in The Desolation of Smaug, his presence in The Battle of the Five Armies, worked better than it previously did – however I’m still unsure of whether that merits his appearance in the first place. We have this constant throw-around in the film’s narrative between Gandalf at Dol Guldur, Bilbo with the dwarves in the Lonely Mountain and the people of Lake Town. The shift back and forth isn’t necessarily a flaw in the film’s narrative, but neither does it encourage the audience to take particular interest in either one of these storylines.

What I dislike about The Hobbit in general, is its inability to take any risks. What was so wonderful about The Lord of the Rings was the way it took you by surprise and kept you so interested in the film’s characters. I thought An Unexpected Journey did well at developing the character of Bilbo and many other of the characters; such as Gandalf, Thorin and Gollum. As much as the film was bloated, long and rather boring – it’s characters were pretty up to scratch. I have felt that The Desolation of Smaug and The Battle of the Five Armies just completely forgot about character development. As if to say “An Unexpected Journey has already defined the characters, lets just focus on the events in parts 2 and 3”. No!!! Keep working on those characters, I felt something for Bilbo in the first instalment, but where on earth has he gone? The Desolation of Smaug (apart from its ending) pretty much forgot about Bilbo – The Battle of the Five Armies does a better job at keeping us attached to him, but if only we could have been with him for a longer period of time. The joy on Gandalf’s face when he sees Bilbo in the previous instalments is the similar expression on your face when you see him; you love to be in Bilbo’s presence but there isn’t enough of him on-screen.

What I found so disappointing about this instalment of The Hobbit was that it seemed to completely forget about the reasons of its own existence. The first two instalments seemed to build up Smaug, so much to the point where he wasn’t revealed until very late in the story – whilst we were anxious to see what really lay in the Lonely Mountain. The film’s were really about the company of dwarves, reclaiming Erebor and taking back the Lonely Mountain from the tenacious Smaug; but The Battle of the Five Armies is really only about exactly what the title suggests. I appreciate its honesty… but it doesn’t match up to what the last two films were leading it up to be. In some way, it’s good that Peter Jackson didn’t call the 3rd instalment ‘There And Back Again’ because the film takes bloody ages to finally get back again. The film has its moments of keeping you gripped and focused, but they are few and far beyond. When I think of The Hobbit Trilogy, it actually makes me sad. The film’s themselves aren’t terrible films… they’re just okay. But that is such a shame. From the director of The Lord of the Rings, I would have expected so much more, but it’s lack of strong characters (apart from Bilbo in An Unexpected Journey) and emphasis on events that have nothing to do with the heart of the story, only leave me with disappointment and sadness.

I’m a strong believer in not judging a film unless you’ve seen it in its entirety. This also applies to films that are split into parts, such as The Hunger Games and Harry Potter. I can now judge The Hobbit as being a trilogy of disappointedly bland proportions. It has it’s moments of greatness and heart, but absolutely nothing compared to The Lord of the Rings. The character of Bilbo fills me with such glee, but alas he is little to be seen. The Battle of The Five Armies, I would argue to be the weakest of the trilogy – one that opens in wonderful scale, but after the first 10 minutes; forgets it’s real existence. The bottom line is: If you love The Hobbit, you will love this one, if you think that they’re nothing special, like me; you’ll feel the same about this instalment. I could praise its shorter running time, but it still felt very long and in places; rather boring to me. There are a couple of gems here that maybe you’ll want to revisit again, but the true Arkenstone lies with the films that first introduced us to the wonders of Middle Earth.

★★