Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 46

The Hobbit (1977)

A hobbit is recruited by a wizard and thirteen dwarves to steal back the dwarves’ stolen treasure from the dragon Smaug.

Any cinematic treatment of what’s probably the greatest children’s book ever written isn’t going to live up to the source material, but I will say this dated, all-animated version is much more The Hobbit than Peter Jackson’s recent overblown trilogy. I actually mostly enjoyed Jackson’s treatment…it just shouldn’t have borne the title.

Sure, this 1977 version is a bit campy and the animation values aren’t as high as they could’ve been—this was a made-for-TV deal, after all—but it’s rather true to Tolkien’s intentions. I suppose for TV runtime restrictions, the Arkenstone and Beorn complications weren’t included, but there was plenty of time if this were a theatrical release. The fantasy movie craze that hit the 80’s wasn’t around yet so the all-important butts-in-seats theatrical demand for this stuff simply wasn’t there.

The Lord of the Rings (1978)

To ensure Sauron doesn’t gain total power and enslave Middle Earth, Frodo Baggins travels with Gandalf and the rest of the Fellowship and sneaks into Mordor to destroy the One Ring.

After watching Peter Jackson’s Rings trilogy, no other versions are going to measure up for most of us. The 1978 depiction was already doomed just because of the weird rotoscoping that planted live action film into an animated universe. The totally-not-MKUltra/CIA-fueled drug craze in the 1960s really did a number on how creative types did things, and I think whatever they drank/smoked/ate/snorted/injected made them think what they were making was better than it actually was. There’s a reason why taking drugs at some bands’ performances is a tradition. No one thinks of listening to a Phish album the way through unless they’re high as a kite.

Back to the movie: even just comparing the balrog fight scenes there’s just no question that the non-LSD Jackson version was superior. There were times in the ’78 version when the main characters switched from being animated via tracing over to the live-action filmed counterpart and it really snatched you out of the story. If nothing else it’s a unique technique overall, but I can see why it fell out of favor.

There were planned sequels that never happened, so this film ends after the battle of Helms Deep. There’s a voiceover at the conclusion that made me feel like the writers weren’t sure if they would get to do the sequels but wanted to provide a form of a conclusion. Even the Tolkien-unaware would notice the unfinished story threads: Frodo and Sam leaving for Mount Doom but never arriving, Gollum and his plan to lead the two of them to Shelob, and then Merri and Pippin meeting and traveling with Treebeard, who was looking to roll some orc heads.

V (2009)

Alien spaceships appear over major Earth cities, bringing with them a very powerful, yet human-like alien species with seemingly benign intentions to help humanity.

This series was a remake of the franchise that started in the early 1980’s, a time where I was too young to pay attention or remember anything very well. There’s lots of similarities with the excellent Battlestar Galactica remake (which not a prequel, as I had previously thought) series of 2001, but this V series felt more like a soap opera than science fiction. It was nice to see a Good Shepherd protagonist who isn’t cartoonishly pious or secretly evil. Now if we can only get some nuns that aren’t sexual deviants or demon-possessed.

This got canceled after 2 seasons, so who knows where the story would’ve ended up.

Red Dawn (2012)

A group of teenage rebels in the Spokane suburbs fight back against the North Korean army, who have invaded and commandeered their small town.

Yes, this was the remake of the 1980’s film of the same name. I don’t think this was as good, which is saying a lot because the original wasn’t all that great. At least with this 2012 version there’s a bit more realism with how things would actually work, but not too much. An invading army sending paratroopers into a smallish, densely-populated town is one of the top boneheaded moves I can think of. At least with the 80’s version, the Russians had the sense to land in an open field and not anywhere a large network of powerlines. On the other hand, the Korean army seemed at least to have a form of competence. The Russian army in the 1980’s version was basically a middle-school touch football team running around with guns and rocket launchers.

One of my favorite scenes was when Thor/Jed Eckert was training the late-20s high schoolers in guerilla warfare. There’s no way teenagers would have the tactical awareness to know how to take on an well-funded occupying army without getting killed in their first engagement, and I don’t think the 80’s version ever showed them how they learned to actually fight properly. This remake skips ahead a little too much so that we see the 30-something teenagers becoming fairly effective. That progression would actually be a better movie for me, showing the parallels between the 40-year-old seniors growing up and learning how to recapture and defend their hometown.

The Prototype (2022)

A government agent stumbles upon an alien conspiracy to conquer Earth. Using a blue liquid created by the aliens to make soldiers stronger, he becomes The Prototype-the only hope for mankind.

I put that summary in a blockquote because this movie was so incomprehensible. I can usually get past bad acting and special effects, both of which were in spades here, but I can’t get past something I can’t understand. I almost bailed at the 30-minute mark but I am a sucker for the sunk cost fallacy*, so I powered through to the very bad ending.

There was a small gem in here, with the backstory of why one of the alien factions invaded Earth. They wanted Earth’s resources to shore up their military and use the planet as a staging area for the next part of their battle with some other alien species. A good, practical, believable reason for aliens to invade Earth, if the writers work it correctly.

I laughed out loud at one point. There was a scene where three guys were conversing with someone via hologram, and the hologram guy says to the protagonist, “I’ll send you the coordinates.” Immediately the hologram shot out a G.I. Joe gun laser right into the protag’s forehead, and in reaction, protagonist yelled out and collapsed onto the floor. A guy in a Halloween hazmat costume—I think he’s the cult leader in the story—turns to the other guy, who was understandably freaked out, and waved a hand, and made a “It’s alright, it happens all the time” sort of expression. The hazmat cult leader was probably the best actor in the whole movie by leaps and bounds.

* I first encountered this fallacy in macroeconomics class in college, via a particular lecture. It was early in the year and we didn’t have our textbooks (e-books weren’t around). In my mind, because I heard it instead of read it, I made an eggcorn of the concept and thought it was the Sunkost fallacy, probably named after some economist. Thankfully, it was cleared up in the next class later that week when the professor wrote it on the chalkboard, and I didn’t get the chance to mildly embarrass myself by showing my misinterpretation of the phrase in class.

Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone

A irresponsible bounty hunter attempts to rescue a trio of women stranded on a desert planet.

Watch for Spacehunter free, here. Mad Max meets Waterworld, but on a planet with little water?

There’s only one brief scene in the beginning that showed something happening in space, and that could’ve been removed or the whole scene rewritten without affecting the story at all. I have a theory that they wanted to tie this movie to space, because Star Wars, and this was the straightest line to that destination. They could start it with the escape ship landing and the three women in the spacesuits with the ridiculous Mayor McCheese helmets emerging and very little of the story would need to change to explain it.

It feels like Wolff was meant to be a Han Solo character, but there’s no competing with Solo’s suave confidence. The shallow-water dragon and the bloated bat people with deflated sumo suits could’ve been built less wonky. The vehicles, aside from maybe the hanggilders, were nicely junky and evoked the rusty cargo cult culture the planet supported. Molly Ringwald’s Niki’s pidgin-lite dialogue stole the show in terms of sheer volume and world-building.

There was a nice twist in Wolff’s assistant, Chalmers, dying early, to set up the need for Wolff to replace her with someone, and provide a reason for him to really fight past Niki’s teenage antagonism. On the other hand, I found Chalmers character fascinating, since there’s no reason for these movies to show women being so subservient to a man in the manner Chalmers was. She explicitly remedied Wolff’s incompetence and impatience, making all the housewives in the audience nod in annoyed recognition, but what will they do with that annoyance when it’s revealed Chalmers was a robot?

Zombieland

At the tail end of a zombie apocalypse, a fussy nerd travels across America with a Twinkie-loving tough guy and two scheming sisters.

Good use of Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” in the opening credits, which is one of three instances where early-career Metallica tracks were used in modern movies. The second was “Four Horsemen” in X-Men: Age of Apocalypse, and the scene where it’s played took place (1983) was the year the song’s album, Kill ‘Em All, was released. That scene was weird because the song wasn’t overlaid film audio—Archangel’s character was actually listening to the song. A little too on the nose if you ask me. The third song was “Creeping Death,” played during the firstborn massacre scene from Exodus: Gods and Kings. That actually didn’t happen, but imagine how badly everyone would be taken out of the story if a metal song played during a period film like that?

You know what’s interesting about the “firstborn male” massacre in Exodus. It wasn’t just the youngest generation firstborn in the household that were killed…firstborn fathers and grandfathers were killed as well. So a household could lose multiple males in one night, and this goes for the Hebrew households as well, if they ignored the Passover lamb command. Thanks to Ed for clarifying some that for me.

This is a movie review, right? Here we have a slice of life zombie apocalypse story, if there ever was one. I’m sure there’s plenty of them, but I mostly dislike zombie-based storylines so the particulars escape me. I went into this thinking, not at all seriously, that the title referred to a zombie-themed amusement park as a setting, which turned out to be accurate, given the final scenes.

Zombieland: Double Tap

After making a home of the White House, Little Rock escapes with a neo-hippie named Berkeley and the “family” chases after her.

Another Metallica song in the opening credits…this time it’s “Master of Puppets.” If they make a trilogy of this series, I’m hoping they will go a selection off the next installment of their discog. “Blackened” is the obvious choice since it’s about an apocalypse, and with a small reference to zombies (“whipping dance of the dead”), it maybe feels a bit too appropriate.

This wasn’t as highly rated as the first film, but I think I liked this a little more. Zombieland was in many ways a first act for the characters to find their footing and set roots into their identity via Family of Choice, a common trope of late. In Double Tap, there’s lots of opportunities to see the family interact with outside characters, to see how they’ve matured (or at least changed) since the first movie. Wichita’s backhanded sarcasm towards the ditzy Madison was notable.

My favorite micro-exchange of dialog:
“But I have Native American blood coursing through my veins.”
“Like, right now?”

Season of the Witch

In the midst of the Black Plague, a duo of ex-Crusaders travel to deliver an accused witch for trial at a monastery.

An escort mission in Lord of the Rings-styled Medieval Europe, even though LOTR was already something of an escort mission. This could almost happen in the Last Witch Hunter universe, though the supernatural element of the witches here in Season is understated.

I should point out the set and costuming design, while probably not historically accurate, delivers on the gritty feel of a rustic land wrecked by disease. There’s a nice series of subversions—real ones—near the end where the second act starts to resolve in ways I didn’t expect. I was set to tap out early and save myself 90 minutes if the opening scene concluded the way I was expecting, with the “Catholic church mean, witches innocent” theme, which the rest of the movie mostly avoids. Like The Last Witch Hunter and a lot of these movies, though, the Christian side of the conflict ends up just being a clandestine spell-casting sports team playing a real-life version of Magic: The Gathering, rather than a global religious organization.

I thought there was a missed opportunity in the ending. I would’ve kept Behmen alive after the fight with the demon, along with Anna and Kay, so that he could bury Felson back in his home village. It would’ve given Kay a nice continuation of his growth by setting him on a path to become Felson’s replacement and the keeper of the magic-prayer-whatever book. Anna’s interest in the man (formerly “men,” because Behmen is alive in my version) who died to help save her could still be served through Behmen’s memories. Felson only mentioned his village once in the movie, so to make this ending more impactful you would need to plant the seed early on and water it throughout the movie: “Yes, these wenches are fine but have I told you about the women from my home village?”—or—”When the Crusades are over, I’ll take you to visit my home village where the beer flows like like a waterfall after a thunderstorm.” You could even have him talk the village up with supernatural qualities, and you’re left wondering if he’s just exaggerating in the way men tend to do with each other, and when they finally go to bury him, it turns out the village really is a supernaturally-protected area, untouched by the plague. I should really write for a living.

Warcraft

To escape their desolate homeland, an army of orcs invade a planet and discover unexpected enemies and allies.

Although you don’t need to know the lore from the games (I didn’t), there’s probably a lot of references that pass notice. Despite that, I thought this was handled well. It could’ve been heavily Marvelized or Tolkienized, but it had the rapid pacing you sometimes get from police procedural shows.

It’s common for these movies to start off with an action-centered prologue. Warcraft had that but as you can see, it was quick and very understated; not even a minute long. It doesn’t do much except provide something to look at while the voiceover, which does have a function, does the voiceover-ing. The scene after that, though, I thought was excellent as a study of establishing a ton of elements in just under eight minutes.

Rather inconsequential, but I liked the mechanics of the portal magic. Usually with portals in fantasy or science fiction universes, you simply step through the threshold and there you are on the other side. Having an intermediary realm you have to imprecisely traverse through before the final destination paradoxically adds a realism to the universe’s physical laws.