A New Zealand American fantasy written by Guillermo del Toro and directed by Peter Jackson.
In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit. He goes on an adventure with a wizard and 13 dwarves to reclaim a dwarven kingdom from a dragon.
If this had a different title, I would have liked it more because this story was NOT The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I won't go into my standard stuff about how microphones in Rivendell were being used to record whispering at Lonely Mountain, but I will try to communicate what I liked and disliked about these films. Obviously, the starting point for this is that they were about as accurate as a blind man playing darts. Given this fact, most of what I liked was when said blind man hit the bullseye by accident. The Bilbo meets Gollum scene was pretty accurate, down to the individual riddles. There were only 2 mistakes in the wording and Gollum's acting was top notch. He was just as expressive as I came to expect from the Lord of the Rings series. The battle of 5 armies (talking about the war, not the film as a whole) was pretty cool. There were lots of creative weapons, riding animals and orc/troll monsters. I have to say, it's 1 of the 2 battle scenes that I have liked from the whole LOTR set. The other is Legolas and Gimli fighting the oliphants in Return of the King. Smaug looked alright, but was nothing special. Now this blind dart player analogy goes further. He's got his 3 darts and they are good. It's all he needs, but dude starts pulling ninja stars and blowguns out of his pockets. Why are Legolas, Saruman, Galadriel, Radagast, Azog, etc... all in this? What are these extra plots doing here? Why is Tauriel running on walls like the Prince of Persia or Trinity from The Matrix? My point is that what started out as a classic story that any director would give body parts to have his name on a film of turned into this giant monstrosity that was clearly all there just to make money. It was about 90% rewrites and additions, with 10% of the original left so the name could be capitalized on. Apparently, Tolkien's writing is not good enough for Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson. I think my point is clear. I rate this adequate. It would have gotten a better rating with a different title.
A Mexican horror fantasy directed by Guillermo del Toro, starring Ron Perlman, Claudio Brook and Margarita Isabel.
A antiques dealer accidentally discovers that he owns a device made by an alchemist for immortality. A wealthy and sick man has a younger relative trying to track down the device because he owns the instruction manual for it.
This was half in Spanish and half in English. The plot was interesting, but not as I would have made it. The characters were good and the viewer wants the heroes to win. Pacing felt a little odd, possibly too dynamic. The video style started out very clear and correctly exposed, but transitioned to all too dark and underexposed by the end. This did correlate with the main character's condition, but I still didn't like it. Overall, not too shabby. I rate this adequate. You may want to check it out.
An American horror drama directed by Guillermo del Toro.
A young woman falls in love with a visiting business man. Her father objects to this, but when he is murdered, they get married and move to the man's house where he lives with his sister. When the new bride finds living arrangements not to her liking, the real story of the man and his sister emerges.
This was alright. The plot was on the basic side. The pacing and character development were both very slow. I liked the period style complete with wax cylendar recordings and there were quite a few good camera shots. I felt like the ending was a let down and should have had more action. Overall, decent. I rate it o.k.
A Mexican American science fiction directed by Guillermo del Toro, starring Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi and Ron Perlman.
Giant monsters are coming out of a portal in the ocean and people create and drive giant robots to fight them.
Robots fighting monsters? Pretty cool! The plot and characters held my attention between special effects fight scenes. The style was a little too "new movie" for me, with fast camera movements and fast editing cuts. The robots were alright, but the monsters were amazing. The 2 hour duration seemed a little long to me. Overall, watch it for the monsters. I rate this good.
A fantasy directed by Guillermo Del Toro. A girl must complete a series of perilous tasks in order to regain her place as a princess in another world. Meanwhile, her mother is married to a war captain who is fighting stray bands of rebels in the countryside. I always talk about how bad CG is and how I don't like it, but it turned out to be good in this film. The fantastic CG beings were actually the best part! It was in Spanish with English subtitles. The style was very good and it gave a good impression of the fantasy world being connected to the real world, but not entirely the same. Overall, I think it was cool. I'm rating this good.
A science fiction directed by Guillermo Del Toro.A genetically engineered insect is released to kill cockroaches which are the cause of a disease. The new insects mutate rapidly and decide that humans are their enemy.This was just your standard "B" science fiction/horror flick. The characters and plot were decent, but the "monsters" weren't all that impressive. I'm rating it o.k. for blending in with the crowd.
