Frozen Review

"The Snow Queen" Disneyfied

Children and adults alike have every reason to be excited for Frozen, one of most intelligent animated musicals ever produced. Patriarch of the genre Walt Disney Animation Studios has finally reclaimed its throne from Pixar as the hallmark for spellbinding animation with a tale destined to become the family hit of the holiday season. Containing all the elements that make a Disney classic, Frozen combines the old with the new, featuring exquisite modern animation complimented by traditional sing-along tunes.

Loosely adapted from Hans Christian Anderson's "The Snow Queen”, the movie includes snow and ice and a Queen, but other than that, departs seismically from the original tale. Set in the Nordic Kingdom of Arendelle, the older of two princesses, Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel), possesses magic powers that enable her to create ice and snow which when she’s stressed or angry are magnified to epic proportions. Young Princess Anna (Kristen Bell), unaware of her sister’s burdened secret, desperately wants to connect but spends her days wandering aimlessly in her parents castle, dreaming of the day romance will whisk her away.

When Elsa can no longer hide her powers from the world, she exiles herself to the snowy mountains but does not understand the magnitude of her curse, having trapped the kingdom in an eternal winter. Anna pairs up with lonely ranger Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) to help find her estranged sister in an effort to mend fences and thaw out winter. Along the way they meet a talking snowman called Olaf (Josh Gad) and an amusing mute reindeer in the vein of the horse from Tangled. Kristoff and Olaf are strikes of comic genius, many a time inducing riotous laughs in a full cinema.

Frozen succeeds on all levels that Brave, Pixar’s first film with a female lead wanted to but failed. Elsa and Anna’s complex relationship displays a newfound maturity in Disney’s storytelling, adding two worthy additions to the princess canon. Both sisters are properly fleshed out and are equally enticing to watch. Overarching themes of love, loneliness and hope remain all the more resonant with a cast of smartly written original characters with great singing voices. The Broadway-esque soundtrack is stoked with fun songs that have the potential to come alive onstage in an eventual live-action musical. Invoking the spirit of renaissance greats The Little Mermaid (1989) and Beauty and the Beast (1991), this icy adaptation is undeniably heart warming.

The Desolation of Smaug Review

Hi ho, hi ho, off to the Lonely Mountain we go...

Photo by Mark Pokorny - © (c) 2012 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc.

Are we there yet Peter? How many hours left? I’ve lost track of time. 

The Desolation of Smaug has improved upon its predecessor in tone, promising a faster-paced, darker action adventure, and boy does it deliver action pieces in spades, however at times it does feel like overkill. Individual set pieces work quite well, but the narrative links are a bit rusty, the sequences are very episodic and bits of it play like a high-tech computer game; dare I say reminiscent of the Star Wars prequels?

Martin Freeman stands out amongst the dwarves, giving real heart and humour to the central themes of hope, courage and heroism. It seems however that Peter Jackson appears unfulfilled by Tolkien’s writings, instead finding a way to bulk up an otherwise short story by reimagining characters that were not present in the original narrative.  Most egregious of which is Tauriel, an elf warrior and the apple of Legolas’s eye, who has been not so cleverly shoehorned into Tolkien’s predominantly male ensemble of characters. An unnecessary appearance from Legolas Greenleaf is also completely unsolicited. Is it possible, in his old age, Orlando Bloom has become an even worse actor? Both elves are able to massacre hundreds of orc enemies without stopping to catch a breath or put on a Band-Aid, their CGI bodies bounding from rock to cliff face, remaining unscathed when all arrows have fallen. Yes, they may look fake, but what a wonderful showcase of computer technology. Luke Evans is the sole welcome addition to the cast as Bard the Bowman, the likable Lake Town do-gooder. Of all the director’s imagined characters, he feels the most in spirit of Tolkien’s book.

Unfair as it is to compare the story of The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings, Jackson seems to have forgotten that which made the latter stand the test of time. There's lots of action at play here, but very little consequence. There are fewer physical threats and more computer-generated creatures. Jackson’s perplexing choice to favour computer-generated backdrops and villains over costumed creatures and practical effects is oddly engaging. Unlike the original trilogy, many of the elves and dwarves look like they’re wearing costumes, and while the production design is unequivocally formidable, the post-production colour rendering is too cartoony for my taste; the grass a little too green, the forests look too much like a set. New Zealand is no longer recognisable.

The Desolation of Smaug still doesn’t reach The Lord of the Rings heights, and so the apparent need to tie together the franchises feels all the more frustrating. A good chunk of Gandalf’s gallivanting around reintroduces us to things we already know the outcome of. At a Bilbo baggy running time of a little under three hours, you’d think that such an inconsequential storyline could have been left on the cutting room floor.

Smaug the dragon (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) does finally show up around the third act and saves the film from being more than a bloated mess. He is easily the biggest triumph of the series so far, and the wordy sparring scenes between him and Bilbo have real merit. Maybe if he arrived much earlier, this whole ‘middle-chapter’ crisis could have been abated.

Unfortunately, a significant amount of charm has been lost from the book to the screen translation. What ultimately is a delightful children’s adventure has been turned into a sprawling 9-hour epic including unnecessary plot threads, computer graphicy action and ten or so too many tea parties. It’s hard to believe J.R.R Tolkien would have been entirely pleased at the turn his book has taken. 

American Hustle Review

“Did you ever have to find a way to survive and you knew your choices were bad, but you had to survive?”

Photo by Francois Duhamel - © 2013 Annapurna Productions LLC All Rights Reserved

Taking us back to 1978, to the era of disco-influenced getup, big hair and aviator sunglasses, David O. Russell embarks upon his most audacious film to date with vivacious crime-comedy caper American Hustle. Reprising his relationship with Christian Bale and Amy Adams from The Fighter and Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper from Silver Linings Playbook, his exhilarating direction and spontaneous immediacy leads to a film that feels uncompromisingly real as if it were happening in the moment. Loosely based on a late 1970s FBI sting operation, American Hustle is more interested in fictionalising characters and situations fashioned by the actors and inspired by the director’s own imagination. "Some of this actually happened" are fittingly the first words we see onscreen.

We open on a potbellied and balding Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), who is shown carefully gelling an elaborate comb over in his bedroom mirror. This extended opening shot may seem indulgent but there is no underestimating the part appearance plays in the life of a con artist. We are then briefly introduced to seductive partner in crime Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) at a Long Island pool party. Bonding over a mutual belief in the necessity of reinvention and the rejection of reality as dictated by society, the two kindred spirits become quite the con artist ‘power-couple’. Prosser's alternate identity as Lady Edith Greenleigh, an English aristocrat with ‘royal connections’, comes in handy when the pair takes to swindling money from businessmen in need. Christian Bale is unrecognisable as Irving. He is morally duplicitous, somewhat charming and undeniably compassionate at exactly the same time. Amy Adams is especially outstanding, bringing endlessly layered complexities to her character while going in and out of an American and English accent. Showing as much cleavage as legally possible, it seems the less clothing she wears, the more confidence she exudes.

Meanwhile, Irving’s wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) – a feisty and manic-depressive homebody – finds divorce to be morally reprehensible and uses their son as a reminder of their commitment, dangling above him like a guilty charm. Lawrence once again goes all out and steals every scene she’s in.

FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) is somewhat of a loose cannon himself. Delusions of glory dance around in his head, along with feelings of self-dissatisfaction and a preoccupation to take down organised crime no matter what cost. Even the New Jersey Mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Runner) is entangled in the throes of his ploy.

In the real world, these protagonists are entirely the wrong crowd to get caught up in but they remain sympathetic and their vulnerabilities, all too relatable. While wildly peculiar in their own manner, in the grand scheme of things these characters are all united by a common ambition, whether they’re con artists adopting bogus identities, an FBI agent suffering delusions of grandeur or a mayor caught on the wrong side of law, they are hustlers striving for a life better than their own. The overarching crime plot is background to the personal and romantic dramas that take place between transformative personas who appear one straw away from breaking point.

With a crackling script and a fast paced plot that throws curveballs left, right and centre, American Hustle is uproariously funny, sometimes outlandish, but all together engrossing. Impeccable casting and a handful of unforgettably eccentric characters mark it as a serious contender for every major movie award.