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 New Zealand adventure written and directed by Taika Waititi, starring Sam Neill.
A misbehaving boy is adopted by a man and woman living in the mountains. Just as he is becoming comfortable with them, the woman dies. Child services states that they will be picking up the boy and the man is going to live in the forest. The boy tries to fake his own death by burning down a barn and gets lost in the forest. The man finds him and they try to live together. They then find that they are being hunted by child services.
Plot and characters with a sense of humor. The plot held my attention and was very clearly communicated. The characters were likeable and deep. The humor was mostly dry, with deadpan delivery, but with an absurdist flavor that suited me quite nicely. The video was done very well. There were some special effects, but they were part of the story, showing what the characters were thinking or doing clearer than it could without effects. The audio suffered from too large a dynamic range. I turned it up to hear the dialogue, but the music was far too loud. Overall, this is the type of thing that I look forward to watching. Unfortunately, that happens very rarely. It had a very similar style to the other Taika Waititi film that I reviwed, What We Do in the Shadows. I rate this awesome. WATCH IT!!!
A New Zealand American mockumentary directed by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi.
A group of vampires who live together have a documentary crew follow them. Their interactions with humans, werewolves and other vampires are shown.
This was really funny. The plot was like a reality TV show, but with vampires. There were arguments and dramatic situations revolving around interactions between groups and within the main group. The characters were comical and very likeable. The video looked like a documentary or reality TV show with special effects. These effects were done quite well. We had vampires flying and turning into bats, werewolves transforming and some amazing shots with mirror tricks. Because the vampires do not reflect in mirrors, they actually ended up playing with this for comic effect. The audio had audible dialogue and appropriate soundtrack music. The music was along the lines of Gogol Bordello. Overall, a good mockumentary comedy for fans of horror films. I rate this awesome. WATCH IT!!!
A New Zealand comedy horror directed by Jason Lei Howden.
A high school metalhead boy moves to a new town where he befriends the dungeons and dragons dorks as well as a local miscreant, fellow metalhead. They form a band and shortly after, break into the house of a heavy metal cult celebrity in hiding. He gives them a record with papers in in before a mysterious man arrives to kill him. This man is tied into an organization looking for the papers because of their occult content. The band learns and plays the song written on the papers and all hell breaks loose.
Not too shabby, but not very consistent. High School drama just doesn't fit with the metal elements exactly right. One minute kids are getting beaten up for being nerds or worrying about teen romance, the next someone is imagining mountain top metal god status or mutilating zombies with a chainsaw. I liked the good parts and there were plenty of them to like. Some sections just did not fit into the cohesive whole. Plot was pretty standard for comedy horror, but with teen drama characters. The video varied as I described above. The soundtrack, however, was one of the best I've heard in a while. The only audio that was unclear to me were the demons' dialogue. I'm pretty used to black and death metal lyrics, but what they were saying was incoherent. Subtitles would have really helped there. Overall, Pretty cool. Despite the irregularities, I liked it and rate it good. Just so you know, Haxansword is a fictional band.
A New Zealand Canadian adventure directed by Francois Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell, starring Michael Ironside.
A teenage boy rides through a post-apocalyptic wasteland on his BMX bicycle. He befriends a female robot and a one-armed arm wrestler and together, they struggle against a ruthless gang leader who controls the local water supply.
This was pretty bitchin'. The friend who recommended Kung Fury told me to watch it, so I knew it would be a positive experience. The plot held my attention and I really grew to like the well-developed characters. The video was all nicely done with special effects out the wazoo. The audio featured audible dialogue and a 1980s synth-pop soundtrack. If you like '80s nostalgia done in a 2015 style, this is for you. Overall, marvelous. I rate this awesome. Watch it!
A New Zealand horror comedy directed by Peter Jackson.
A man falls in love with a grocery store clerk. While his mom is spying on them at the zoo, she is bitten by a mutant animal and becomes very sick. She infects other people and the man tries to hide the zombies from his girlfriend, but the truth ends up being exposed when a money grubbing relative tries to get the mother's house and money.
This was cool. Peter Jackson has a twisted sense of humor that I really appreciate. The plot held my attention, but the characters were slightly underdeveloped. The main focus was on special effects here. They did that pretty well. The monsters were disgusting and the blood flowed like a river. It's no secret that the ending of the film is a total bloodbath. A blood shower even! I'm not spoiling that in any way because if you watch this, you knew what you were getting into. The technical aspects were well executed. I liked the scene where the guy hides behind a trolley, then a car until it drives away. That was well planned and showed some thought with camera-work and acting. Overall, creepy, disgusting and funny. Just what I wanted. I rate this good. Watch it!
A New Zealand musical comedy directed by Peter Jackson.
Basically, an R rated version of The Muppet Show. A variety show staffed by puppets has problems including a drug deal gone wrong, overweight star, sex scandals and tabloids.
This was great. I like the Muppets, but this was better. All of the jokes were filthy, there was violence, etc. There was a drug addict frog knife thrower, a rabbit worried that he might have an STD, the hippo woman takes off her clothes, I could go on and on. You get the picture. I thought it was really funny and enjoyed watching it. I rate this awesome. Watch it!
