Jack Reacher (2012)

The first film that I saw in 2012 was Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and its quite fitting that the last film of 2012 is a Tom Cruise film. Jack Reacher is based on a character created by Lee Child. I wasn’t aware of the character or author before seeing this film. The only thing I knew about it was that the character is suppose to be 280lbs and very tall and with the best will in the world, Tom Cruise is neither of those things. But I wondered whether that would make any difference to the film and to be honest it didn’t have an impact. Another thing that I wasn’t aware of was this was based on a book called One Shot which according to Wikipedia is the ninth book in the range. Quite why they didn’t go with Killing Fields instead of going for this one.

The plot of the film sees a guy named Charlie shoot dead five people (seemingly at random) and a lawyer is trying to prove doubt on him to avoid the death penalty. Jack Reacher is called in to try and help. The film seems to be plodding along when Werner Herzog turns up and instantly makes the movie better, the problem with that is he’s not on screen for very long but when he is then I’m interested. Another piece of good casting was for Robert Duvall who again is in it for very little but again I was interested when he was on screen.

The screening that I was in (which was early on a Saturday afternoon) there was a good 20-25 people there and there were a couple of instances of people laughing which when its suppose to be an action sequence is a bit unusual.  There were comedy moments which I found funny but there were times when people were laughing and I genuinally didn’t know why they were laughing. Was it that they were trying to find humour in something that wasn’t there or was it my sense of humour? Not sure about that but the thing I am sure of is that whilst watching this I felt that it was a bit like Taken where there is a guy and all he has is his quick moves.

Jack Reacher isn’t a terrible film but neither is it great. It’s middle of the road with some quite good action sequences the film suffers from being an unremarkable film. If there are to be more then they will need something

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Now I havent read the Hobbit but from what I understand its a short single book. Quite why Peter Jackson has decided to turn it into three films is a mystery. I understand why he did it with the Lord of the Rings because each book has a lot in it but The Hobbit? Anyway the film is one that I have been slowly waiting for a while. The story sees Bilbo Baggins go on a journey with Dwarves to the Lonely Mountain.

Martin Freeman plays Bilbo Baggins and if I’m honest then I must say that I am not a fan of Freeman’s as I just don’t think he is a strong actor. However saying that I don’t think he did that bad in this. However Ian McKellen does steal the limelight a lot but that’s just because he is Ian McKellen. For me the most interesting piece of casting is that of Sylvester McCoy as I am a Doctor Who fan and was just waiting for him to be on screen and I cant tell you how happy I was that it wasn’t just a cameo role but quite a significant one. Other interesting pieces of casting was James Nesbitt as Bofur and Richard Armitage as Thorin. But it was Andy Serkis as Gollum that I think everyone was looking forward to seeing. He was quite comical in this film but there weren’t glimpses of the LOTR version which is when I think the film was at its best. Serkis is fantastic because he manages to produce an incredible performance everytime and even 10 years after The Two Towers was released it is impressive how the character can still make people marvel at him.

I liked how the film tries to set things up for the Lord of the Rings films there was a scene where a sword from Mordor appears in front of Saruman and he has a look of someone who was being turned. There are also nice appearances of Hugo Weaving as Elrond and Cate Blanchett as Galadriel. Also I liked the scene where there are the rock creatures and they are throwing rocks at each other. It was the first time since I saw the wall blow up in The Two Towers that I went ‘wow’. It was an impressive scene and shows that Peter Jackson can direct impressive set pieces.

I rather enjoyed The Hobbit, I don’t think you can compare this to the Lord of the Rings trilogy because this is aimed at a slightly younger audience. I thought that they managed to pad the story out well enough but I wonder just what they are going to do in the next two films. The plot for this film was good and the whole thing felt like a slightly less grown up version of the LOTR films.