The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012, U.S.)

I hate to say it, but yawn. I was kind of expecting it, to be honest, but it was still disappointing anyway. It started out so well with the arrival of the dwarves, invading Bilbo's home and pantry, cheerfully singing their clean up songs and mournfully singing their treasure songs. I was pretty excited then, because those early scenes in Bilbo's hobbit-hole were perfect. It was all downhill from there.

Mainly the problem is that a book, essentially a children's fairy tale, that should have been made into one movie is being stretched painfully into three. "Like butter scraped over too much bread," if you will. They drew out things that hadn't happened in the books, bringing characters on screen that were simply mentioned by other characters, namely Radagast the brown. Him and his stupid bunny sled were ridiculous. The book is mostly from Bilbo's point of view, and I certainly don't remember any description of what the dwarves were doing while he was lost in the dark in the Misty Mountains, and the giant fat albino goblin type thing that they encountered was just stupid. Also as much as I love them, I could have done without Elrond and Galadriel. Ugh, huge parts of it were just frustrating.

I'm being generous and giving this a 3.0 because of course Middle Earth was as beautiful as always and the casting of Bilbo and the dwarves was great and the early scenes were so enjoyable, but honestly it was just boring for huge parts. Very sad. Should have been one movie only. Duh.

Rating: 3.0

The Lovely Bones (2009, U.S.)

The novel that this movie is based on is a beautiful examination of death and life grief as seen in the eyes of a young girl who is raped and murdered by her neighbor. It is one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read, and some of the best parts of the film were the passages lifted directly from the novel.

It felt like they tried to cram a bit too much suspense into a story that was supposed to be more thoughtful. On the other hand, Saoirse Ronan is a great young actress (see Atonement for further proof) and played the dead girl with a very nuanced performance.

Peter Jackson's touch was obvious in Susie's CGI heaven. It was beautiful, with a forest in summer blending into mountains in winter, all with a slowly disintegrating gazebo in the center. (The gazebo is a duplicate of one in the mall where she was supposed to meet a boy on her first ever date.) From here, Susie watches her family and friends grieve and her murderer reliving his crime.

It could have been done better, but it was still quite good.

Rating: 3.5