The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King

The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King (2003) – Movie Review

Director: Peter Jackson

Screenwriters: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson

Based on the Book by: J.R.R. Tolkien

Producer: Barrie Osborne

Studio: New Line 

Production Companies: WingNut

Top Billed Cast: Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortenson, Andy Serkis, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, Cate Blanchette, Bernard Hill, David Wenham, Miranda Otto, Karl Urban, Liv Tyler, Karl Urban, Hugo Weaving, John Rhys-Davis, Orlando Bloom, John Noble, Bret McKenzie, Ian Holm, Martin Csokas, Sean Bean, Christopher Lee

LOGLINE: As Frodo, Sam and there ever more unstable Gollum approach Mount Doom, Gandalf, Aragorn, Theoden and others must fight to save Gondor from an army of Orcs and beasts and Nazgul.

VIEWING CIRCUMSTANCES: Originally on opening day with a sold out cinema at 9am with my mum, dad, brother and girlfriend (now wife), after a long line up to ensure god seats. Since then many times on DVD at home and at friends. (I once even watched every single frame of extra footage and commentary for all three of the special edition films, which adds up to well over 100 hours, in just under 2 weeks, whilst I was studying for uni exams)

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Epic Climax to the greatest story ever told made into the greatest film series ever made.

STORY: Such scope and such detail. Such a great film! And for those that don't like the multiple endings, tough titties! It is aloud at least three and is it is ending three films.

PRODUCTION: Peter Jackson took his already breakthrough techniques to another leven of quality and quantity with this installment.

PERFORMANCE: All brilliant, business as usual on the LOTR set.

OVERALL: I watch FOTR more than ROTK which I watch more than TTT, but really the best way to watch them is to watch the extended editions back to back or at least on sequential nights.

MEETSLINE: Lord of the Rings meets Awesomeness

FAVOURITE QUOTES:
"My lords, you bow to noone"


"I am no man"


"Share the load"


"My Precious"

RECOMMENDED ACCOMPANIMENT: Cherry tomatoes!

LINKS: 

Check out my review of LOTR FOTR here:
http://reviewflix.blogspot.com/2011/09/lord-of-rings-fellowship-of-ring.html

Check out my review of LOTR TTT here:
http://reviewflix.blogspot.com/2011/09/lord-of-rings-two-towers.html

Check out my deconstruction of LOTR FOTR here:
http://filmdeconstructions.blogspot.com/2011/09/lord-of-rings-fellowship-of-ring.html

RATING:

5 out of 5 reels of film.

Movie Review by A.B. McBlogsmith the Backwards Cap Film Reviewer

(C) Review Flix 2011

Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers

The Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers (2002) – Movie Review

Director: Peter Jackson

Screenwriter/s: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Stephen Sinclair
Based on the Book by: J.R.R. Tolkien

Producers: Barrie M. Osborne 

Studio: New Line Cinema 

Production Companies: WingNut

Top Billed Cast: Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, Ian Holm, Viggo Mortensen, Andy Serkis, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies, Cristopher Lee, Liv Tyler, Hugo Weaving, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, Bernard Hill, Miranda Otto, Brad Dourif, Jed Brophy, Karl Urban, David Wenham.

LOGLINE: Frodo and Sam continue the perilous journey to Mount Doom to destroy their evil ring along with an unexpected Allie - Gollum. Aragorn and co set out to rescue the kidnapped hobbits before joining forces with the Rohirrim in their war against the Uruk hai.

VIEWING CIRCUMSTANCES: Opening Day, Boxing Day 2002, with a sold out cinema. Many times on DVD since.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: I made no bones about the fact that the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) films are my favourite. 

STORY: This was no doubt the most difficult of the LOTR films to convert into a compelling, cinematic story.

PRODUCTION: As with the first the production is excellent and pushes the boundries of what is possible. The CGI Gollum really comes into his own here and is a breakthrough for cinema. The miniatures and props/costumes etc continue to excell.

PERFORMANCE: Again all round great performances. Some new cast members join and carry-on the high quality.

OVERALL: In my humble opinion, this is one of the best three films ever made.

MEETSLINE: FOTR meets ROTK

FAVOURITE QUOTES:
"A red sun rises, blood has been spilled this night."


"What's taters, precious? What's taters, eh?"/"Po-tay-toes!* Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew..."


"Boorum horummm, little orcs"


"And then... a tunnel."

RECOMMENDED ACCOMPANIMENT: Ale by the pewter stein and bread.

LINKS:



Check out my review of LOTR FOTR here:
http://reviewflix.blogspot.com/2011/09/lord-of-rings-fellowship-of-ring.html


Check out my review of LOTR ROTK here:
http://reviewflix.blogspot.com/2011/09/lord-of-rings-return-of-king.html


Check out my deconstruction of LOTR FOTR here:
http://filmdeconstructions.blogspot.com/2011/09/lord-of-rings-fellowship-of-ring.html



RATING:

5 out of 5 reels of film.

Movie Review by A.B. McBlogsmith the Backwards Cap Film Reviewer

(C) Review Flix 2011

Heavenly Creatures

Heavenly Creatures (1994) – Movie Review

Director: Peter Jackson

Screenwriters: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh

Producers:Jim Booth

Studio/s: New Zealand Film Commission, Miramax (Dist)

Production Companies: WingNut Films, Fontana Productions

Top Billed Cast: Melanie Lynskey, Kate Winslet

LOGLINE: The True Story of a couple of teenage murderesses.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: I watched this after having seen all of the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) films and most of Peter Jackson's earlier stuff. Not so much because I was interested in the film but more in Peter Jackson's career, and in particular his amazing leap from stuff like Brain Dead and Meet the Feebles to Lord of the Rings. This film didn't completely fill the gap, but I could see PJ's maturation as a filmmaker emerging in this film. The magic realism (fantastical stuff) lends it's self to his style which was previously mostly used on horror films.

STORY: The story is told artfully. There is narration in the form of diary entries and there are places where the story takes a break from narrative to go into a song or a dance, not quite like a musical but almost.

PRODUCTION: Kiwiesque, which is to say not your typical Hollywood production, which is to say not quiet as smooth or slick.

PERFORMANCE: Melanie is great - I don't know why she isn't used in more than Two and a Half Men! And Kate in her first real role is the real deal and you can see why she went on to become Kate Winslet.

OVERALL: A good film, worth a watch but it probably won't find a place of high rotation on my DVD player.

MEETSLINE: A Clockwork Orange meets Breakfast Club.

RATING:

3 out of 5 reels of film.

Movie Review by A.B. McBlogsmith the Backwards Cap Film Reviewer

(C) Review Flix 2011

Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring

Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring (2001) – Movie Review

Director: Peter Jackson
Screenwriters: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson
Based on the Book by: J.R.R. Tolkien
Producers: Peter Jackson, Barrie M. Osborne, Tim Sanders, Fran Walsh, Michael Lynne (E.P. New Line), Mark Ordesky (E.P. New Line), Bob Weinstein (E.P.), Harvey Weinstein (E.P.) Rick Porras (Wingnut), Jamie Selkirk (Wingnut), Robert Shaye, Ellen Sommers (A.P.).
Studio: New Line Cinema
Production Company: Wingnut Films,
Top Billed Cast: Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, Ian Holm, Sean Bean, Viggo Mortensen, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies, Cristopher Lee, Liv Tyler, Hugo Weaving, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd.

OK, here we go and where better to start this film review blog that at number one on my all time list.


LOGLINE: A small person sets out on a journey across dangerous lands to destroy a ring of great evil. As he journeys he gathers a party of followers including a great wizard, a ranger, and elf, a dwarf, a knight and... his gardener. Together they face many dangerous and perilous obstacles, none less than the ring in their possession.


VIEWING CIRCUMSTANCES: The first time I saw this was also my first experience with a premium cinema, Hoyts La Premier in Perth, where I was on Holiday. La Premier has a waiting lounge and unlimited pop corn and soda and tea and coffee. Unfortunately I had too much coffee and coke and could last the epic three hours without a runpee. A good excuse to go back and watch it in the cinema again... and again, even though I made it through the second time by not drinking anything for three hours before!


FIRST IMPRESSIONS: When I first heard that this film was coming out from my brother who saw a teaser trailer, I hadn't read the books. I was into a MUD (Multi User Dimension), an online fantasy text based game (OK, so much for my reputation as a cool movie reviewer, the game is up, I'm a nerd, good now I can relax) so had a slight interest in the fantasy  genre but I was from from a die hard.


So I went and read the book before the film was released. And I loved it! (I didn't read the second book, TTT, until after the film came out to see if this was better. It wasn't so then I read the third, ROTK before the film release). But I couldn't see how any film could do it justice. Especially the director of Brain Dead! Little did I know, Peter Jackson was in the process of taking the medium of film to a new level.


STORY: Tolkien's Epic is a true masterpiece. PJ, Fran and Philippa's adaptation does it justice. They found the true heart (spine) of the story, hit all the essential beats of any good film and somehow managed to stay to the characters and filled it will Tolkien's famous detail. No mean feat.


PRODUCTION: Old school miniatures and forced focus in camera trickery (making the hobbits look small by putting the further from the camera than the" big folk"), mixed with leading edge CGI (computer graphics)  and a  WETA's (the workshop that built all the sets, makeup, costumes, props etc) brilliant attention to detail (they engraved the insides of costume's in elvish that no camera would ever see) made for a breakthrough in quality and scope of production not seen since Star Wars over 20 years prior.


PERFORMANCE: Wonderful performances all round from an experienced, classy cast devoid of 'movie stars', which in my humble opinion was part of what made this such a great film - no distracting faces (i.e. I wasn't watching Brad Pitt, I was watching Aragorn). Speaking of which, Viggo's perfromance was one of the best, any guy who sleeps outside with his sword to get into character is going to put in a great performance though, isn't he?


OVERALL: As I said, this is my favourite film (though I usually count the trilogy as a single).


MEETSLINE: some movies are above meetslines. This is one such movie.


FAVOURITE QUOTE:
"You shall not pass!"


"I will take it. I will take the ring to Mordor... though I do not know the way"


"I don't think he knows about second breakfast Pip." / "What about Elevensies..."


RECOMMENDED ACCOMPANIMENT: Tea with toast and jam or soup with toast and cheese.


LINKS: 


Check out my deconstruction of LOTR FOTR here: http://filmdeconstructions.blogspot.com/2011/09/lord-of-rings-fellowship-of-ring.html


Check out my review of LOTR TTT here:
http://reviewflix.blogspot.com/2011/09/lord-of-rings-two-towers.html


Check out my deconstruction of LOTR ROTK here:
http://reviewflix.blogspot.com/2011/09/lord-of-rings-return-of-king.html


RATING:

5 out of 5 reels of film.

Movie Review by A.B. McBlogsmith the Backwards Cap Film Reviewer

(C) Review Flix 2011