They Shall Not Grow Old

Colorful three-dimensional updates to archive footage stand in stark contrast to otherwise mundane treatment of World War One. Jackson simultaneously personalizes and distances soldiers by focusing solely on them without ever emphasizing any particular one in voice or image. Feels more like a tour through a museum than a movie.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Hobbit: Worst of Six Movies has pacing problems of a battle where everyone has different length legs.  Overly simple de-Smaugging followed by over-complex and under-featured impromptu battle over nothing.  Jackson forgets most series characters (and G-rated tone) and executes the others.  Meanwhile a bearatrooper drops in while Legolas gets stoned/high.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Next 90 pages gains Legolas, love story, and load of steaming gold garbage.  Peter Rabbit eats carrot and strikes perfect blend between barrel-riding book’s cartoonishness and Laketown’s Lord-of-the-Ringsy epicness, but gets greedy for gold with bloated, ridiculous last act.  Also suffers trippy Necrosauron zoom and go-pro shots of orcish hideousness.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Peter Jacksoff with this gigantically extended 90-page novel excerpt.  Struggles to trudge through nearly three hours (and 486,720 frames) while trapped in the mountains between LotR grandeur and source material childishness.  Freeman’s baby Bilbo feels a bit BBC and previous cast appearances are far less seamless than countless prosthetic noses.

The Lovely Bones

Jackson attempts return to Heavenly Creatures roots and succeeds in relevance to title, but not in quality. Continuity maintained between poorly shot Earth scenes and poorly digitally rendered heaven scenes through use of poor music video-esque editing. Tucci is sole saving grace with a performance that cuts through the editing.