Love & Friendship

Though crisp whitty dialog moves story along, the staging and editing make it feel rather still, despite wacky Wes Anderson music and character intros. Sevigny and Beckinsale perform well but seem out of place in Last Days of Austen. Overall, an amusing effort that might fare better as a play.

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.

V for Vendetta

Wachowski’s shine from behind their producer’s mask in this alternative dystopia. What’s worse than machines taking over? The British. Dramatically shifts the focus of source material but improves on plot and produces a better story. Agent Smith begins transformation into voice acting, and Portman proves that she really is Keira.

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

‘Alice in Narnia’ marks Disney’s third failure to shoot a compelling epic and proves that digital effects haven’t evolved far enough to fix bad writing. Depp’s schizophrenic performance oscillates from Pee Wee to Braveheart while Burton’s creepiness drowns in a shallow effects orgy. Highlights are big-headed Bellatrix and floating Puss-in-Boots.