The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug

This is a version of a review that aired on ABC Ballarat in January, 2014.

(M) ★★★★

Director: Peter Jackson.

Cast: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellan, Richard Armitage, Evangeline Lilly, Orlando Bloom, Lee Pace, Luke Evans.

Bilbo had found more chocolate coins than you could poke an Easter bunny at.

WE'RE five films into Peter Jackson's journey through Middle Earth and it's bleedingly obvious he could lead the way with his eyes closed.

The Kiwi director deftly navigates a path between the dark perils of JRR Tolkien's fantasy world and the necessary jokey lighter moments. He knows the landscape, the history and the races probably better than his native New Zealand, and he understands the stories of Middle Earth on both the small scale and the large. Because of this, The Hobbit Part II is a walk in the park for him, albeit a park filled with shapeshifting bear-men, large spiders and an even larger dragon.

The flaws of it are the same as those of the first film, but the peaks and strengths are the same as we have seen throughout the rest of the acclaimed Middle Earth movies - in fact, these are things we've come to take for granted.

So as hobbit "burglar" Bilbo Baggins (Freeman), venerable wizard Gandalf (McKellan) and the 13 dwarves continue their journey towards the Lonely Mountain to reclaim the dwarves' home and wealth, we are again treated to a film that looks amazing, is well performed, and is immensely enjoyable.

The biggest issue coming into each instalment of Jackson's Middle Earth films is managing our own expectations - we've been so spoilt with the previous works, plus so many people are so familiar with the source material, all of which works to set the bar pretty high. With The Desolation Of Smaug, Jackson clears the bar with ease.

Two of the key components of this section of the story - a wild barrel ride down an Elvish river and the introduction of the toothsome firebreather Smaug himself - are triumphs of the film, with the former turned into an epic and impressive running battle, and the latter a wonder of CG animation and given voice through Benedict Cumberbatch and some impressive audio trickery.

The liberties taken with the original text, such as the introduction of new character Tauriel (Lilly) and the expansion of Gandalf's side adventure, serve to make the tone of story sit closer to The Lord Of The Rings, rather than the kiddishness of Tolkien's book, and drawing more out of the simplistic tale.

The flipside of this is the biggest flaw of the two Hobbit films so far - trying to stretch such a slight book into a trilogy means that there is a bit of excess padding. There are no songs this time around, but Jackson takes his sweet time with every character and every plot point, which is not totally a bad thing and the padding is less obvious in part two, but the pacing does slow to a crawl every so often.

It's a minor quibble and let's face it - Jackson's Middle Earth is a pretty cool cinematic universe to hang out in and kill some time, largely because of the director's insane attention to detail, particularly evident in the art design and set creation involved in bringing Lake Town to life.

Amid all the epic fantasy, it's easy to overlook the performances, but again they are solid. Freeman continues to prove an inspired piece of casting, McKellan's Gandalf is once again outstanding, Armitage leads the dwarves admirably, while the additions of Lilly as Tauriel and Luke Evans as Bard are welcome. Strangely, it's only Orlando Bloom - a veteran of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy - who doesn't quite seem at home, as if he's wondering what he's doing back in Middle Earth.

There are other issues, such as the fact radiant heat seems to be non-existent in Middle Earth (particularly evident in the final showdown with Smaug) but it feels silly arguing about physics in a movie with a huge dragon and a man who can turn into a bear.

If you've been enjoying Jackson's ride through Middle Earth, you won't be disappointed with The Desolation Of Smaug.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

(M)  ★★★

Director: Adam McKay.

Cast: Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, David Koechner, Kristen Wiig, Meagan Good, Christina Applegate, James Marsden, Dylan Baker.

Godzilla didn't look that scary.

It may come as a surprise, but the first Anchorman movie was not an immediate box-office smash.

It wasn't until the DVD audience latched on to it that the adventures of Ron Burgundy and co became one of the most quoted movies of all time, resulting in lines such as "I love lamp", "Boy, that escalated quickly", and "60 per cent of the time, it works every time" regularly invading conversations and the internet.

Maybe that's why it has taken nine years for a sequel to emerge - the first film was still building momentum for a lot of that time.

For Anchorman 2, the plot - and I use the word 'plot' very, very loosely - focuses on Ferrell's moustachioed newsreader Burgundy hitting rock bottom and attempting to claw his way back to the top courtesy of fledgling TV network GNN.

GNN, led by fiery award-winning producer Linda Jackson (Good), is the first 24-hour news network, and Burgundy and his team - daft weatherman Brick Tamland (Carell), insane sports reporter Champ Kind (Koechner) and lothario journalist Brian Fantana (Rudd) - are along for the ride.

There are also some subplots about Burgundy attempting to repair relationships with his wife Veronica (Applegate) and his son Walter (Judah Nelson), a rivalry between Burgundy and handsome fellow anchorman Jack Lime (Marsden), Brick's office romance with equally odd receptionist Chani (Wiig), and some mostly pointless waffle about Aussie network owner and media tycoon Kench Allenby (Josh Lawson).

But Anchorman 2's success doesn't hinge on its storyline, which is fortunate because it ranges from the bizarre to the bland, such as Burgundy and his son raising a shark called Doby (bizarre), and anything involving Lawson's Allenby (bland).

This film is about the laughs and the antics. There are certain things fans are probably expecting in the sequel - a bit of jazz flute, Brick's nutty non-sequiturs, a large-scale news team battle royale - and they're all here, plus the laughs come in sporadic but frequent-enough waves.

In this sense, the sequel is a success. The dialogue is quotable, the gags hit more than they miss, Brick's idiocy is a highlight (particularly his encounters with green screen and a funeral), and the cameo-heavy fight at the end is worth the ticket price alone.

Is it as good as the first one? The short answer is no.

The longer answer is that while much of the humour and situations feel interchangeable, the first film moved at a steadier pace and with a better winning-joke ratio, whereas Anchorman 2 suddenly grinds to a halt in the latter half and features a lot more jokes that miss their mark. A particularly wasted opportunity is Lawson's Allenby, who looks like Richard Branson but acts like Rupert Murdoch and had the potential to be an interesting character but who just becomes part of the film's applaudable moral about the importance of the news and what the media should be doing in our society. Surely "our Josh" deserves better.

The cast are at ease returning to their roles, and Carell gets more screen time, his star having risen in the period between films. The reliance on improvisation is unfortunately more obvious this time, evident in the far-from-seamless editing within scenes.

But no one who goes to see this film cares about that stuff, do they? They just want to laugh at Burgundy's ego-driven idiocy and Brick's endless stream of 'what the?' moments.

With that in mind, it's perhaps easiest to simply say this - if you love Anchorman, you'll love Anchorman 2.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2

(G) ★★

Director: Cody Cameron & Kris Pearn.

Cast: (voices of) Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan, Will Forte, Terry Crews, Kristen Schaal.

Animals you can eat? What will they think of next?

THE first Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs was zany with more than a chance of becoming a favourite for fans of quality CG animation.

It was a feast for the eyes, with its wacky food-gone-crazy antics mashed onto a disaster-movie base to create a tasty new treat that was very different to the offerings served up by Pixar, Blue Sky, Dreamworks or any other major animation house.

Naturally, Sony Animation had to go back for seconds, but the latest helping of this story is a bit like eating chocolate cake - sure the first piece is good, but the more you eat, the less enjoyable it becomes.

Cloudy 2 picks up where the first film left off, with Flint Lockwood (Hader) and his friends saving the day from his invention that turns water into food, which ran amok and turned their island of Swallow Falls into something that resembles the floor under the kids table after Christmas dinner.

Just as they're celebrating shutting down Flint's FLDSMDFR (yes, that's what the invention is called), famed inventor Chester V arrives at Swallow Falls to lead the clean-up operation, ushering residents off the island and recruiting Flint to work at his company.

But all is not as it seems, and soon Flint and his friends are heading back to Swallow Falls, which has become a menagerie of "foodimals" that could threaten to takeover the world.

These "foodimals" are both the best and worst thing about Cloudy 2. While they are visually impressive and make for an interesting plot device at times, they ultimately become a tiresome parade of bad puns - their portmanteau names like "shrimpanzees", "watermelephants" and "flamangoes" are increasingly groan-inducing, yet it seems this is the bulk of the film's humour.

They're a good example of the kids-only gags that have replaced the all-ages laughs of the first film, with only the background antics of Flint's monkey Steve saving the day.

As a children-only adventure, Cloudy 2 works reasonably well. It's a frenetic barrage of colour and action, with plenty of bizarre set-pieces to keep the attention of a young audience. It revels in its "mysterious island" setting, the plot isn't too bad, and it does a good job of maintaining momentum, mostly by ditching things such as character development, any deeper themes, or any kind of emotional investment.

On the other hand, the teens and adults will be left hungry for something more substantial. The inventiveness of the first installment seems reduced to a one-ingredient dish, the themes are so subtle as to be almost non-existent, and its difficult to find much of a care-factor for Flint and his friends because they're not meaty characters.

This is where the difference between these two servings of Meatballs lies. The original was a well-cooked smorgasbord for the whole family, while the sequel is like a kids' dessert menu - all sweets, no substance.

If you think the food metaphors and similes I've whipped up in this review became increasingly tiresome and childish, then that perhaps is the best analogy of all for describing Cloudy 2.