The Hobbit - The Movie

I didn't race out to the cinema when The Hobbit was first released.  In fact, I waited a full year, and watched it on DVD.  This was not because I'd read bad reviews, in fact I don't think I read any.  Nor was it lack of interest.  I loved the book when I was a child, and enjoyed all of the Lord of the Rings films as well. I'm not normally one of those people who wants to book to make an exact picture image in my head either.

However, there was something suspicious about them splitting what was a rollicking tale of some 95,000 words into more than one movie. It didn't feel like a decisions born of a desire to do the book justice (as would have been the case with the TV series they should have made out of the recently released Ender's Game), but felt as if the project had been taken over by either accountants wanting to squeeze every last cent out of the franchise, or nerdy Tolkien types who weren't ready to let go of Middle Earth yet and who knew they would never get the opportunity to make anything from the Simarillion. Or perhaps both.

The War Horse

Gone with the Wind must be writing to ask for it’s closing scene back. The sunset return of the prodigal son and schmaltzy, sentimental, silent reconciliation summed up the film quite well for me. If I had seen that scene first I would likely not have bothered with all that preceded it.

It’s a story of a forgettable farm boy and his horse, separated by the advent of World War I, poverty and poor parental judgement. It had a very Black Beauty feel to the plot as the noble horse meets an alternating string of dastardly and noble characters as he works his way through Europe and back to his boy. As you would expect the majority of the evil deeds performed in the film are carried out by the German soldiers, with an attempt to keep the balance by allowing some of the lesser Germans to be kind and gentle souls as well.

Not a film I would recommend to anyone, and the number of award nominations it received diminishes any respect I had for those institutions.

 The War Horse 

Sour and Sickly Sweet