The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

When last we left Peter Jackson's three-part cinematic adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, Smaug was swooping down upon the burgh of Laketown with desolation on his dragony mind. 

Smaug the mighty. Smaug the fire-bringer. Smaug the invincible. 

Or so he thinks. 

As the winged wyrm torches the tinderbox town, the man known as Bard nocks arrows to fell him. Smaug mocks. Smaug laughs. And Smaug dies. Bard's last projectile pierces the lone point of vulnerability in the dragon's otherwise impenetrable hide, slaying the hated and hateful beast. 

It should be a time of celebration. Of emancipation. But devastation is all that remains in the wake of the firedrake's conflagration. So the now-homeless denizens of Laketown turn their eyes toward their only nearby refuge: the crumbling walls of Dale near the gates of Erebor, the fabled mountain redoubt of the dwarves lately devoid of the scaly interloper that had slumbered there for six decades. 

The fallout of Smaug's downfall is not lost on the band of dwarves who plotted his eviction. Led by Thorin, they watch Laketown smolder from Erebor's heights. With Bilbo's burglaring help, they'd achieved their quest against long odds, vanquishing the dragon and reclaiming their ancestral fortress. 

It should be a time of celebration. Of emancipation. But more devastation awaits. 

That's because Erebor is home to the most fabulous treasure in Middle-earth … treasure all the races believe they're entitled to. The dwarves. The elves. The bedraggled refugees of Laketown, whom Thorin had promised recompense if they helped. 

But that was before Thorin saw it. 

All. That. Gold. In all of its blazing, beautiful, corrupting, corroding luster. Having seized Erebor's inestimable fortune, and having been seized by its seductive allure, Thorin has no intention of sharing any of it. 

"By my life," he vows, echoing Smaug's own declaration before he perished, "I will not part with a single coin, not one piece of it." 

Even if it means hardening his heart to the downtrodden survivors of Laketown. Even if it means going to war with an elven army led by their king, Thranduil. Even if it means spurning the friendship and counsel of Gandalf, Bilbo and all the other members of his company. Even if it means abandoning an army of dwarves (led by Thorin's cousin Dáin) that arrives at Erebor hours after Thranduil's bow-bearing elven battalion does.

"Will you have peace or war?" Bard asks Thorin on the threshold of a cataclysmic conflict. 

"I will have war," the dwarven leader spits. 

And that's when the orcs and the goblins and the wargs and the trolls and all manner of other misbegotten adversaries join the fray. Led by Thorin's lifelong nemesis, Azog, these creatures have still another claim in mind: the would-be dwarf king's head.

GENRE

Drama, Action/Adventure, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, War

CAST

Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins; Ian McKellen as Gandalf; Richard Armitage as Thorin; Ken Stott as Balin; Graham McTavish as Dwalin; William Kircher as Bifur; James Nesbitt as Bofur; Stephen Hunter as Bombur; Dean O'Gorman as Fili; Aidan Turner as Kili; John Callen as Oin; Peter Hambleton as Gloin; Jed Brophy as Nori; Mark Hadlow as Dori; Adam Brown Ori; Orlando Bloom as Legolas; Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel; Cate Blanchett as Galadriel; Christopher Lee as Saruman; Sylvester McCoy as Radagast; Lee Pace as Thranduil; Luke Evans as Bard; Manu Bennett as Azog; Lawrence Makoare as Bolg; Mikael Persbrandt as Beorn; Benedict Cumberbatch as the voices of Smaug and Necromancer

DIRECTOR

Peter Jackson (The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Lovely Bones, King Kong, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring)

DISTRIBUTOR

Warner Bros.

IN THEATERS

December 17, 2014

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Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb

It's been quite an adventure for Larry Daley. Who woulda thought he could've risen from being a frowned-upon night watchman at New York's famous American Museum of Natural History to almost being in charge of the place? Or at least he's in charge of the museum's amazing animatronics display that everybody's raving about.

Of course, the truth of it is that there's no animatronics involved in his presentations at all. No wires, strings or well-devised 3-D images either. It's all brought about by the golden Tablet of Akmenrah—a long-ago unearthed magical artifact from Egypt that can somehow bring statues, figurines and T. rex bones to life every night with its mysterious powers.

But now the supernatural tablet is beginning to corrode for some reason. And Larry's in a panic about what to do. With each new inch of gold-gobbling rust, his cast of moving and talking historical characters and big bony buds seems to be losing its collective life force.

Time to go back to the beginning. Not his faltering start at the museum two movies ago, but actually the start of the tablet itself. He's going to have to find out more about the archeological dig that first uncovered it. And that will likely entail taking it to the British Museum of Natural History, home of Akmenrah's mummified parents, Merenkahre and Sheoseheret. If he can magically bringthem to life—along with every other artifact and fossil in that vast building—maybe he can get some good answers to his bad problem.

GENRE

Comedy, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Action/Adventure, Kids

CAST

Ben Stiller as Larry Daley; Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt; Dan Stevens as Sir Lancelot; Rebel Wilson as Tilly; Ben Kingsley as Merenkahre

DIRECTOR

Shawn Levy (This Is Where I Leave You, The Internship, Real Steel, Date Night, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, Night at the Museum, The Pink Panther, Cheaper by the Dozen)

DISTRIBUTOR

20th Century Fox

IN THEATERS

December 19, 2014

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Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World

Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World is essentially a rehash of the original. Man messes with nature. Things go wrong. People get eaten. The major difference is in the last part which is quite sophomoric and not at all fitting of Steven Spielberg.

It is four years after the horrific disaster that happened at Jurassic Park. Again, we meet the good doctor, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), no longer at the head of his company but still pulling a few strings behind the back of his son, Peter (Arliss Howard). The original base camp of operations set up by Hammond on Isla Sorna, Site B, still exists and there are living colonies of dinosaurs there. Hammond, who has gone from capitalist to naturalist, wants to observe the creatures in their natural habitat and put to rest years of speculation about the lives of the great animals.

Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) is asked to come on board the team sent to scout the island where the dinosaurs live. He refuses until he learns that his girlfriend, paleontologist Dr. Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) is already alone on the island. He then becomes part of a rescue mission including himself, photographer Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn), equipment specialist Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff), and his daughter Kelly Curtis (Vanessa Lee Chester) who stowed away in the back of the van.

Besides the animals who would like to have humans for din-din, Malcolm's team has to cope with Peter Hammond and Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite). Tembo's goal is to kill a Tyrannosaurus Rex to prove man is the greatest hunter. Peter wants to capture the animals and bring them to the mainland to create "Jurassic Park, San Diego". Bad idea.

Spielberg and company, clearly realising they had a winning formula the last time around, don't deviate very much from it. By the time the Tyrannosaurus Rex gets to San Diego, I couldn't help but thinking I had just seen Jurassic Park again.

What is missing in this movie compared to the original is the intellectual aspect. There's no talk of chaos, no background about how the animals were bred and raised, no delving into evolution about how the animals could overcome their lysine deficiency, and no "this is Unix, I know this stuff!" Viewers are simply expected to have this knowledge, and this means more time for bone crunching effects. As a result, we have a movie that is darker and gorier than the original.

The movie is entertaining and has some interesting messages about cruelty to animals and leaving nature alone to do as it will. See it for the matinee price but don't spend the big bucks on this one.

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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

The second Harry Potter film is better than the first, not because it is true to the book's story, but because it is true to the book's atmosphere.

The first Harry Potter movie was very good, but it stayed so close to the book that it spread itself too thin trying to get at every single detail. This adaptation of Joanne Rowling's second book (which I think is the weakest among the entire series) does indeed have all the good parts but focuses primarily on the main storyline. The film skips a lot of the background details, which makes for effective pacing, while taking liberties with the story to fit the big screen.

Here Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliff) and his friends, Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) once again encounter Voldemort (Christian Coulson) as a memory that has the power to become real. Voldemort opens the Chamber of Secrets freeing a fearsome Basilisk, an Alien-like snake that can kill with a glance. The snake's attacks threaten to close down Hogwarts School and Harry must stop them or be sent home to live with his foster parents (you can understand his motivation when you meet them at the introduction of every book/film).

The film is darker than the first, with scenes that are definitely creepy: Harry's encounter with a strange hand in Diagon Alley, Ron and Harry getting stuck in a willow tree that attacks them with its branches, Harry and Ron escaping from the giant spiders, and Harry's final battle with the Basilisk. There are also some Orwellian themes touched upon here, including Dobby the Elf's masochism and slavery, the ideal of some of the "Purebloods" to cleanse Hogwarts of the "Mudbloods".

The familiar high-profile cast do a fine job, with the newcomers, Kenneth Branagh as the pompous (and hilarious) new Dark Arts teacher Gilderoy Lockhart, and Jason Isaacs as an evil-oozing Lucius Malfoy, particularly standing out. While the child actors carry their roles well, some of them do tend to overact. The score does a great highlighting the suspense, which there exists a lot of.

The set design and accompanying cinematography and production deserves a paragraph of its own. The integration of computer generated images and the actors is very seamless. The Hogwarts school, the surrounding countryside, and the brief Quidditch match are all rendered with amazing reality.

If the first film was the setup, this one's definitely the payoff. Even though I know what happens next, I can't wait to see it.

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