Penultimate Destination

Year: 2009
Director: David R. Ellis
Cast: Bobby Campo, Nick Zano, Krista Allen
Run Time: 1 hour 22 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

As part of a continuing sibling bonding series with my super cool sister, late last night we watched the fourth entry in what is easily the most high concept and low class slasher franchise there is.

This is a film that is so hard up for audience that it has to pretend that it's something else. "The" Final Destination. I've said it before and I'll say it again: your franchise has really gone down the tubes when you stop numbering them.

In this case however, the title (accidentally) conveys additional meaning about the nature of the film. This film is so poorly made and so divorced from the rest of the series that it acts as somewhat of a palate cleanser preparing one for the rigors of Final Destination 5 (the only FD movie to receive a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes).

Director David R. Ellis returns to helm his second entry in the series (after Final Destination 2, which was actually quite good), and whatever creative spark he once had has obviously long been stamped out. The director's workmanlike attitude behind the camera betrays his years of experience as a stuntman.

The rest of the movie doesn't feel much better. The dialogue sounds more like a spec script that the writers pumped full of cliches to frame the story thinking "we'll fill that in with actual human-sounding dialogue later" and then eventually having it slip their minds. The gore wouldn't feel out of place in a SyFy original movie, and the actors' characterizations are as inert as their inevitably lifeless corpses.

I doubt that I can find room in my heart to call this a "redeeming quality," but there's one part where the filmmakers didn't skimp. The Final Destination gets a lot of mileage out of being unashamedly devoted to showing naked flesh. Especially common is shirtless men, which is rather unusual for a slasher movie (which these films like to pretend they aren't but it's an inescapable part of their DNA).

There seems to be little regard paid to the actual demographics of the film (teen boys who want to see blood and guts and boobs and butts). Although there is a lengthy topless sex scene full of mammaries bouncing all over the place, the film would much rather lovingly stroke the sculpted abs of its male characters, even while they're in the process of getting their insides sucked out by a pool filter.

Side note: Watching this movie in 2010 is 100% responsible for my love of baseball shirts.

Just to drive the point in (and amuse myself), I'm going to scatter shirtless shots throughout the rest of this article to *ahem* exemplify how they are utilized in the film.

Fun Fact: This film was the first Final Destination film to actually be shot in the US (the rest were filmed in Canada). Perhaps this is why the rest of the film feels so overwhelmingly low budget. I've already mentioned the embarrassing gore effects, which are clearly some sort of Walmart brand CGI, but there's also the matter of casting.

Most FD films have some at least marginally famous actor hiding in the wings: An Ali Larter, a Seann William Scott, a Tony Todd. Heck, Devon Sawa was famous for like 45 seconds in the 90's. This movie features not a single person you've seen in any other film in your life, I guarantee it. In that way, it is reminiscent of some of the worst of the worst slasher movies of the 80's, full of nameless actors buried away by time. However, this is 2009. A brief moment of silence for the fizzling careers of these poor young men and women.

Oh no, it seems like I've forgotten to recap the plot at all. Let me rectify that: Race track. Moving on.

Mmmmm, race track.

I've been pretty harsh on this film, but there is some charm buried underneath the crust of bird droppings and dried blood. One scene in particular stands out that plays with our expectations based on years of watching these films. A woman in a beauty parlor is surrounded by a truly astounding array of broken machinery, slippery puddles, shoddy wiring, and the like. It seems like death is setting up an absurdly complex Rube Goldberg death trap, but after a few false alarms, the death is actually quite simple and abrupt. This isn't exactly groundbreaking, but it is the one time that the film feels playful and alive.

Another fun thing about the movie is that you can play the Heavyhanded Symbolism Game. I prefer the point-and-shout method, but it can be made into a drinking game if one is so inclined. Look for references to:

• The number 180 (the flight number from the original movie)
• McKinley (the high school/town from FD3)
• Clear Rivers (Ali Larter's character from the first two films)
• Lucky charms being instrumental in death
• Any reference to death, the devil, or fate (Destiny Towing, Salon Dante, race car 666, the coffee shop "Death by Caffeine.")

This is where the movie feels most at home in its franchise, as all these movies are chock full of foreshadowing and callbacks, kind of like an episode of Arrested Development except with less wit and more intestines.

Unfortunately, this film is so eager to hearken back to the old days that it forgets about the present. Side characters are lovingly given one character trait and no name (credits titles include "Mechanic," "Racist," "Racist's Wife," and, my personal favorite, "MILF."), and the film is egregiously short. In an already truncated 82 minute running time, a good six minutes of that are dedicated to the credits.

It's a surprise that a sequel ever got made for this heap of garbage, but if these are the dues we must pay to get a Final Destination film that 61% of critics actually liked, I will gladly pay them.

Body Count: 11 (The most of any film in the series, but it feels like much much less)
TL;DR: The film is cheap, tawdry, and goreless. It also lacks a sense of fun and acts more like a moving walkway by which you can access the next film in the franchise.
Rating: 4/10
Should I spend money on this DVD? There is a movie pack available of the first four FD films, which is totally worth it. But there is a special circle of Hell designated for individuals who bought this DVD standalone.
Word Count: 1101

Reviews In This Series

The Final Destination (Ellis, 2009)

Final Destination 5 (Quale, 2011)

I Think I'm Turning Japanese, I Really Think So

When I was growing up, for whatever reason I thought I was too wimpy to watch horror movies. Never mind the fact that I'd already watched The Exorcist, Poltergeist, The Sixth Sense, The Shining, It, and later Drag Me To Hell with my dad. Side note: My dad is awesome.

Also never mind the fact that I devoured horror literature, was Dean Koontz's biggest source of income in 2008, and at one point owned two copies of The Ruins. Whatever psychosis I was enduring is over now, but it left a glaring gap in my horror consciousness. Once I watched Scream, I discovered late 90's horror and 80's slasher movies, and I'd already seen most of the classics, but there was one genre with not a single entry on my List (this is a real list of movies that I've watched).

See, look!

That genre is J-Horror. Before this summer, I had not seen a single Japanese horror movie (or a single Japanese movie at that) nor had I seen any of the American remakes, due to my foolishness during the Great Dark Period of the mid-2000's.

My boyfriend Sergio, who is somewhat of a savant with these things (He could name each and every movie previewed on my Ring DVD within ten seconds), unwisely agreed to help me erase that gap in my horror knowledge and at the beginning of summer we set out on a grand movie watching spree. As I am wont to do, I discuss these movies to no end with him and, to give him a break, I'll be releasing mini reviews periodically as we go along.

The Great J-Horrorthon: Part 1

Before we begin, a brief history of J-Horror. The 2000's were a bleak time for horror films. By then the slasher genre had died thrice over (revived both times by Wes Craven with A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984 and Scream in 1996). Haunted houses and monster movies? Forget about it. Zombies were on a slow ascent in popularity thanks to the like of Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later in 2002, but fan fervor wouldn't reach a fever pitch until late in the decade and on into the 2010's with The Walking Dead and the advent of zombie chic.

American horror filmmakers needed something to do, so they turned to the misty isle of Japan, which for some time now had been producing eerie, beautiful, and weird ghost stories for some time now. There was a lot of territory to be mined, and after The Ring tested the waters in 2002, it turned out there was a market for it. And thus a movement was born.

Of course the reason is money, right?

Ringu (Ring)

Year: 1998

Director: Hideo Nakata

Cast: Nanako Matsushima, Miki Nakatani, Yûko Takeuchi

Run Time: 1 hour 36 minutes

MPAA Rating: N/A

A young reporter struggles to solve the mystery of a cursed videotape that kills you seven days after you watch it.

I am one of the immensely lucky people who managed to see the original Japanese version of The Ring before watching the remake so I can have no shame in saying... it's really not as good. Don't get me wrong, it's a good movie. I just don't really see what all the fuss is about. 

The haunted videotape concept is killer, but it's less of a horror movie than a mystery procedural. It has a lot of focus on local and family history, which is a very Japanese mindset so I don't blame them, but it feels like it would be better as a book, which, in fact, it is. The Ring series is based on a series of four books by Kōji Suzuki and it very much plays off as an adaptation. 

And one small complaint: Early on in the movie, it is established that you will be told that you are going to die in seven days if you watch the tape. It is somewhat unclear if the woman in the video says it or it is relayed to you by the telephone call you inevitably receive after watching it, and the reason I'm still not sure is because it is never actually said in the film. Nobody tells them they will die in seven days. It just kind of happens.

High point: The little boy Yôichi is the most well-adapted child in the universe. He dresses himself, stays on top of his mother, and he even has a briefcase.

Also the way you are pronouncing the title is wrong. I looked it up, and it's pronounced with emphasis on the first syllable like "REENG-uh". I'm disappointed too.

Rating: 5/10

The Ring

Year: 2002

Director: Gore Verbinski

Cast: Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, David Dorfman

Run Time: 1 hour 55 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

A young reporter struggles to solve the mystery of a cursed videotape that kills you seven days after you watch it, but this time in America.

I've said this already and I'm still ashamed to admit it, but this version of The Ring is marginally better. The concept of the tape is explored a lot more, whereas in the original it is limited to basically just one scene. While it's still mainly about a couple solving the mystery of the tape, there's more of a sense of urgency as things get worse and worse for the main characters as the story progresses.

This film also had the advantage of coming out after the release of the original's sequel, and it combined scenes from the two movies to greater effect, further fleshing out the story of the devious Samara Morgan (née Sadako Yamamura) and sprucing it up with some darkly beautiful imagery. While this film still isn't fantastic, it is easy to see how it made a splash in the bland horror landscape of 2002.

Rating: 6/10

Ringu 2 (Ring 2)

Year: 1999

Director: Hideo Nakata

Cast: Miki Nakatani, Hitomi Satô, Kyôko Fukada

Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

MPAA Rating: N/A

The girlfriend of the dead professor from the first film seeks the truth from his ex-wife and is haunted by Sadako, the girl from the tape.

First things first, this movie isn't technically the original sequel to Ringu. Ringu was released in tandem with its sequel Rasen (Spiral), which was based on the next book in Suzuki's series. However, the sci-fi direction it took did not fly with fans of the original and they demanded something else. So the producers decided to pretend Rasen never existed and brought back Hideo Nakata to helm a direct sequel incorporating the original characters. [Rasen is coming up on my marathon list, so you'll be hearing more on that soon]

Evidently that wasn't enough. Every single review of Ringu 2 that I've read since watching it has panned it, and it got a 0% of Rotten Tomatoes. And who am I to question the great gods of movie wisdom? How dare I question years of scorn and derision? Who am I to do such a thing?

Alright, I kind of loved this movie.

I'll readily concede that maybe it was context that made me enjoy it so much more than its predecessor. During Ringu, Sergio was doing his utmost to distract me from the film so I would pay attention to him, but during Ringu 2 he was sleeping peacefully by my side.

In my defense though, there was a much higher frequency of truly bone-chilling scenes, including a couple that gave me Stage 3 Heebie Jeebies. It has that on Ringu, but it also has this: it's freaking insane. I'm talking Crazy Go Nuts University here. Truly barmy stuff that only the Japanese could have come up with that the movie all takes in stride.

Yôichi has psychic mind powers? Yeah, OK.

Major plot points received out of nowhere through hallucinations in a train station? More please.

Sadako is a manifestation of angry energy that can only be defeated by turning her into a swimming pool? How is this not already your favorite movie?

Seacrest out.

Rating: 7/10

The Ring Two

Year: 2005

Director: Hideo Nakata

Cast: Naomi Watts, Simon Baker, David Dorfman
Run Time: 1 hour 50 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Rachel and Aidan have moved to a small town, but Samara Morgan is after them once more.

Water pouring out from somewhere it shouldn't is kinda scary. Water pouring out from somewhere it shouldn't 19 times in two hours is just exhausting.

And there is no better word to describe this film. A two hour slog that really doesn't revolve around the cursed videotape which was basically the only compelling draw to the film in the first place. The original Japanese director returns for his least effective Ring film yet.

The film opens with some nails-on-a-chalkboard forced exposition: "We're here in a house in Oregon, Aidan. Isn't it sad that your dad is dead?" and goes downhill from there. I'm just gonna leave a list of the succeeding scenes without commentary and let you judge for yourself:

• Aidan gets gum on his hand, so he goes to wash it off... in the toilet. Which then attacks him.
• Their car is attacked by horrible looking CGI deer.
• Naomi Watts can't seem to pronounce her son's name. "Aidon! Where are you?!"
• Naomi Watts' onscreen driving wouldn't pass muster in a 30's film. Leftrightleftrightleftright.
• Aidan gets backed into a corner... by water on the floor.
• Two words: Haunted Toaster
• Somehow the visual effects are worse than they were three years ago.

Rating: 2/10

Ju-On: The Grudge (Click here for our Scream 101 episode about this film.)

Year: 2002

Director: Takashi Shimizu

Cast: Megumi Okina, Misaki Itô, Misa Uehara
Run Time: 1 hour 32 minutes

MPAA Rating: N/A

A rage curse kills anybody who steps inside a house where Kayako Saeki and her son Toshio were killed.

This film has an alarmingly perplexing pedigree. To my knowledge and understanding, this film and its sequel (Ju-On: The Grudge 2) are remakes of two direct to video movies from 2000 (Ju-On and Ju-On 2) that are only available in Japan, Germany, and Scandinavia. I'm doing my best to find a way to access them for my marathon. 

But not only this: Apparently the original Ju-On is a sequel to what seems to be two short films presented in a Japanese television anthology movie in 1998 (Gakkō no kaidan G), Katasumi and 4444444444. I haven't been able to find a lot of information on these, so they could be anywhere between 2 minutes and 19 hours long for all I know.

Almost as annoyingly confusing as its history is the film itself. No, it's not confusing in a "I just don't understand those Japanese" way, nor is it confusing in a "This movie is far too complex for me" way. It's a continuity-busting, timeline-jumping, total mess of a film that cares far too little about making any sort of narrative sense. Just about the only coherent plot point is that at one point, the man who lived in the house in which the film takes place went insane and murdered his wife and son before commiting suicide, and their rage spirits have been imprinted on the building.

Yes, that is the only part that makes sense.

The plot is episodic: Character enters house. Character is stalked, scared, and eventually killed by ghost. New character is introduced.

This isn't done for any sort of meaning to be drawn from the parallel story lines, but merely as a way to set up even more scare scenes. In this way it is reminiscent of my beloved slasher films' body count padding, but it just kinda gets boring after a while.

It's a real shame, because the scare sequences it sets up when it gets around to it are very good, even great. In fact one scene near the finale of the film affected me so much I shook Sergio awake (he's not as devoted to the whole marathon thing as I am) and replayed it for him, then replayed it for my friends Henri and Shannon next time I saw them.

On top of all that lies the film's biggest problem: There are no rules governing the ghost's behavior. Sometimes it is confined within the house, sometimes it stalks people to their offices or apartments. Sometimes it kills you, sometimes you go insane. Sometimes it's the mom, sometimes the son, sometimes the dad, and one time a trio of zombie schoolgirls. It's a bloody mess is what it is, and I hope against hope that some film along this movie's tangled family line is capable of correcting these mistakes.

That said, I do love the burping ghost.

Rating: 3/10

The Grudge

Year: 2005

Director: Takashi Shimizu

Cast: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr, William Mapother
Run Time: 1 hour 32 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Buffy Summers is an exchange student in Tokyo who is haunted by the ghosts of Kayako and Toshio Saeki.

Wow, I tore right into Ju-On, didn't I? I'm a bit too fatigued from that travesty to really muster much anger against its American counterpart.

Directed by the same man, with the same actors playing the haunted family, and taking place in Japan, this movie shares many of the flaws of the original with the added wrinkle of trying to make sense of the "every main character is white" angle in a Japanese setting. 

However, this film is much more coherent, if only because they wanted to keep Sarah Michelle Gellar onscreen for as much as possible so they dropped the whole episodic thing and had mostly all of it happen to her. 

Rating: 4/10

It's been a fun ride so far, I can't wait to see what's in store. I leave you with an observation. These films contain a haunted videotape, a haunted landline, a haunted cell phone, a haunted apartment buzzer, and a haunted security camera. Next week's crop features a haunted answering machine and a haunted camera.

The Japanese are freaking terrified of technology.

And little boys.

Word Count: 2219

Reviews In This Series

J-Horrorthon Part 1 (June 15, 2013)

J-Horrorthon Part 2 (July 16, 2013)
J-Horrorthon Part 3 (August 15, 2013)
J-Horrorthon Part 4 (April 1, 2014)

Archive: March 3, 2013

Warm Bodies

Year: 2013
Director: Jonathan Levine
Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, John Malkovich
Run Time: 1 hour, 38 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13

It’s poor blog etiquette to keep apologizing for long hiatuses (hiati?), but I’m a little bit ashamed of myself that I haven’t been producing content for a while. I could say I’ve been busy with schoolwork and whatever, but that’s never really stopped me before. To be completely honest, this January-February season has been so weak that I’ve had very little to say about any of the films that have been released, and am even actively sickened by a few of them (*cough cough Identity Thief cough*).

However bogged within the mire of this travesty of a season is, well I wouldn’t call it a gem, but a movie pleasant enough to watch that it seems like a masterpiece in comparison to the likes of The Last Stand, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, and yes even Mama (And it pains me to say this, as devoted as I am to the horror genre, Jessica Chastain, and the 2-minute Spanish short film upon which it is based, but Mama just didn’t deliver for me.).

But let’s dive into the real meat of the business, shall we? Warm Bodies is a simple story (based on the 2010 Isaac Marion book of the same name) in which R (Nicholas Hoult), a zombie, and Julie (Teresa Palmer), a human girl, fall in love in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Their love starts to have repercussions - namely the humanization of the previously incurable walking dead.

Their love is forbidden. If Julie’s warlord father (John Malkovich, who is given absolutely nothing to do here) finds out that his daughter’s new boyfriend is an undead corpse, he will be none too happy. And for good reason - R is kind of a bad influence, having just hours before eaten her ex-boyfriend (Dave Franco)’s brain.

So here we have the tragic tale of two star-crossed lovers from warring families - um, factions. Their love, born from an ancient grudge, breaks the world into new mutiny and undead blood makes living hands unclean. For never was a story of more woe than this of Julie, and her slowly rotting Romeo.

This balcony scene seems famila- Ah, I see what you did there.

The biggest problem with this movie is that there’s really no actual conflict. It plays like a shallow work of theater. The plot zooms along and hits all the right points but doesn’t really seem to connect to anything on its way there.

While this movie was enjoyable, I’ve had dreams that better explore the implications of love after the zombie apocalypse, and if dream logic beats your screenwriting, we need to talk.

There is some business with the bonies - horrific CGI monstrosities (the CGI is horrific, not the monstrosities) - who, although this is never adequately explained, seem to be undead zombies that have given in to their animal instincts and are completely remorseless, incapable of the magical self-curing by love thing that the other zombies seem to have going on.

I’ve seen better special effects in an elementary school production of Alice in Wonderland

Once the zombies start to humanize, their hearts begin beating again and they become prey for the bonies, who devour any living thing. Well, in theory. You see, the bonies don’t actually seem to be much of a threat because not once did they kill something onscreen in the entire 98 minute run time of the movie. This may have been a ploy by the creators to reduce the gore in what is primarily a paranormal romance, but it greatly diminishes any sort of suspense these creatures might have generated.

Another serious problem is how inconsistent the zombies are with the rules of their own universe. In the beginning, it is stated that zombies can only talk in grunts or, rarely, drawn-out single words. Also in the punchline to an early scene, the fact that zombies can only move at a slow shambling pace is established. But whenever it’s convenient, our zombies are running around like all of a sudden Danny Boyle is directing the film or forming completely coherent sentences even before they even start to humanize.

But enough complaining. The movie delivers enough charm, especially in the form of Hoult’s performance to endear itself to the audience. And with its tight little 98 minute span, it zips along merrily, never really going anywhere profound, but also being profoundly aware that it doesn’t really need to.

Take a gander at zombie Nick Hoult. You could just eat him up.

TL;DR  Warm Bodies is a harmless little nothing of a movie that doesn’t do a lot with its core concept but is redeemed by its sweetness and charm.

Rating: 6/10

Should I spend money on this? It may not continue to be in theaters for very long, but it is still the best date movie out there at the moment, at least until James Franco: The Great and Powerful comes out.

Word Count: 865

Archive: December 24, 2012

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Year: 2012
Director: Peter Jackson
Cast: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage
Run Time: 2 hours, 49 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13

Sorry I haven’t been posting a lot recently, I’ve been super busy with finals and extremely important Netflix commitments. Not that you can complain, this is free and I don’t owe you nothing.

(The first thing they teach you in Blogging 101 is to alienate your audience within the first paragraph. Let’s see how this goes.)

However, now that I am on winter break, the boredom of no longer living in the city has led me to spend more time on two pursuits: namely, watching movies, and using the computer. Both of which are conducive to writing blog posts.

Now it’s time to tackle what is undoubtedly the pillar movie of this holiday season, The Hobbit. And don’t question me on that. I work at a movie theater and I’ve cleaned up enough BP-level popcorn spills in Hobbit theaters to prove that beyond all reasonable doubt.

Contrary to popular belief, that’s a broom in his hand.

For those of you unversed in cinematography, it is worth pointing out that Jackson (and select theaters near you) has made the choice to film the movie at a rate of 48 frames per second. The standard in modern cinema is 24 frames per second because, quite frankly, that’s pretty much all the eye can handle. The Hobbit holds the distinction for being the first movie to ever use this new and improved frame rate. It’s all part of Jackson’s innovative filmmaking experimentation (see: gimmickry).

The effect of exposing the eye to twice as many frames at a time creates a sort of hyperreality in which characters seem to be moving on fast forward while at the same time carrying on at a normal pace. It is about as disconcerting to watch as it is to write. Luckily, it’s pretty easy to get used to, and it is to tell the truth an incredible thing to watch.

In addition, the high frame rate has the effect of making the actors and sets seem much more immediate and real, in essence converting the film to have somewhat of the feel of a stage play, with the actors right there in the room with the audience. It is an absolutely intriguing technique but it out and out has no place in The Hobbit.

The Middle-earth of Jackson’s Lord of the Rings is all about spectacle, epic wonder, and the sheer scope of the land. However, the hyperrealism of the high frame rate allows a make-up spot here, a visible contact lens there, and some thoroughly unconvincing CGI everywhere to take the audience out of the fantasy.

Look at that. Just embarrassing, isn’t it?

On to the plot, insofar as it exists.

The film follows Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), a homebody hobbit from Bag End who is reluctantly dragged on an adventure across Middle-earth by the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) to help some dwarves reclaim their captured kingdom.

That’s it. They don’t even make it. That’s for the next movie to cover.

With so little real meat to work with, the grotesquely bloated run time seeks to compensate for lack of material with an overabundance of antagonists. Two of which, the Necromancer, and the dragon Smaug are only briefly touched upon due to their commitments to the sequels. Even with those threats to deal with, our intrepid gang still has quite a task on their hands. Among the ranks of their enemies include a Goblin King and his army, the Pale Orc and his minions, a horde of trolls, massive rock giants, and the inimitable Gollum.

With such a group to face, the plot follows a “meet-defeat-on to the next one” pattern that is more suited for a video game than an actual narrative.

So, yes, this film has its flaws. But what Jackson Lord of the Rings film doesn’t?

The Hobbit offers enough action-packed sequences and canned movie wisdom to keep the audience entertained and enough knowledge of the Middle-earth universe to appease the hardcore Tolkien fans.

It also features a cameo appearance by Lee Pace, one of my favorite people ever, as the elf king Thranduil. The sight of his unsurpassable eyebrows appeased me, as did his comically over-the-top elf wig.

Also worth mentioning is Bilbo Baggins’ encounter with Gollum, by far the most entertaining, suspenseful, and well-composed scene of the film and that which makes the entire price of the ticket worthwhile. Is it bad that I think Gollum’s adorable?

Look at those big ‘ol eyes.

Andy Serkis surpasses himself with a pitch perfect rendition of one of the most beloved scenes in the novel. The man can do no wrong. Please, even if you are asleep until his scene and leave right after, at least come see the film for him.

TL;DR  The Hobbit is overlong, bloated, and features some unbelievably tacky CGI effects, but is redeemed by some strong actiony moments and Andy Serkis’s superb reprisal of the role of Gollum.

Rating: 6/10

Should I spend money on this? Yes, if only for the novel experience of the 48 fps and having Gollum blow you away. Did I mention Gollum?

Word Count: 896

Reviews In This Series

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Jackson, 2012)

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Jackson, 2013)
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (Jackson, 2014)