Hugo Weaving Page 3

How do you satisfy a legion of fans, some of whom have been waiting almost 65 years to see their absolute favorite work of literature put to film? More often than not, you don't, and though Peter Jackson's production of The Lord of the Rings is painstakingly faithful and earnest, it is almost a foregone conclusion that the movie will never quite be good enough for the obsessed fans (see also the 1978 animated Lord), just is it will be far too obtuse for those who haven't read the books.

Continue reading: The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring Review

To understand why, let's just dive right in.

Continue reading: The Matrix Revolutions Review

The Matrix Revisited is now on hand to tell anyone who cares to listen and learn about the most minute facets of the making of The Matrix, exploring everything from the studio's early nervousness to fight training to storyboards to wardrobe to the pioneering and widely-copied "bullet time" camera trick. While you've seen a lot of these before on endless behind-the-scenes documentaries. (In fact, you've seen some of this on the original Matrix DVD, which some correctly feel is robbing us, at least a little, by not simply including this documentary with it in the first place.)

Continue reading: The Matrix Revisited Review

About half way through "The Matrix," the ostensibly intellectualand certainly expensive virtual reality sci-fi thriller starring KeanuReeves as a genius hacker, the movie turns suddenly simple, as if a WarnerBros. exec showed up on the set and said "I don't get it. You're gonnahave to dumb this down for me."

The writing-directing team of brothers Larry and Andy Wachowskicomplied, and once the movie peels away the mystery of the world in whichit takes place -- which happens about 40 minutes into the story -- it becomeslittle more than wildly over-produced string of action sequences, pausingonly for the obligatory smarmy remarks made between barrages of fancy weaponsfire.

Continue reading: Matrix Review

Here's your review of "The Matrix Reloaded" in a nutshell: One incredibly cool, gravity-defying, CGI-aided, swirling-camera kung-fu melee; one jaw-dropping, 100-mph, against-traffic freeway chase; and way, way too much long-winded, expository, circular, self-important, pseudo-philosophical yappity-yappity-yap.

Writing-directing brothers Larry and Andy Wachowski saddle their cast with endless equivocal prattle while toiling to buttress the complex plot and metaphysical undertone of this picture's uber-stylish 1999 predecessor, which saw what we think is the real world exposed as an elaborate virtual reality prison for the minds of all humanity. Mankind's suspended bodies provide a power source for a race of machines, which a small band of escapees are hoping to destroy in the post-apocalyptic world outside the Matrix.

"We can never see past the choices we don't understand," sage but elusive cyber-prophet The Oracle (Gloria Foster) preaches cryptically to Neo (Keanu Reeves), the cyber-Messianic hero whose realization that physical laws don't apply in the Matrix led to the first film's groundbreaking wire-work martial arts fights and bullet-dodging slow-mo stunts.

Continue reading: The Matrix Reloaded Review

Unless you're a "Lord of the Rings" superfan, you'd better brush up on "Fellowship of the Ring" before seeing the sequel "The Two Towers," because director Peter Jackson just jumps right in to the middle of the story without much in the way of introductions or explanations.

He assumes you know who Hobbits Merry and Pippin are and why they've been abducted by the Uruk-Hai, the beastly minions of unseen supernatural villain Sauron (you know all about them, right?). He assumes you recall where "Fellowship" left off with human warrior Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) and Elfin archer Legolas (Orlando Bloom), and why they're trying to rescue Merry and Pippin.

He also assumes you know that hero Hobbits Frodo and Sam (Elijah Wood and Sean Austin) are still trying to reach the kingdom of Mordor, where they are to cast the dangerously omnipotent Ring into the volcanic fires of Mount Doom, thus keeping it out of the hands Sauron, who would use its dark psychic powers to lay waste to the world.

Continue reading: Lord Of The Rings:
the Two Towers Review

In the entire three hours of the audacious, transporting, spectacularly cinematic first "Lord of the Rings" installment, there are only two very brief moments that don't come across as being 100-percent a part of the mystical, dark and magical realm of Middle Earth.

These moments are not because of bad performances (there aren't any), negligent directing or special effects gaffes. In fact, from the digitally dialed-down stature of the actors playing hobbits to the frightfully demonic hoards of living-dead orcs (minions of the supernaturally evil antagonist), the effects are seamless.

These moments of doubt are merely scenes that take place in such plain locations (e.g. a non-descript river bed) that they seem far too familiar and Earthly in a movie of underground troll cities, ominous mountains called Doom, idyllic ancient forest hamlets of immortal elves, and hobbit's homes burrowed into impossibly green hillsides.

Continue reading: Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship Of The Ring Review

The eye-popping, heart-stopping last hour and a half of "The Matrix Revolutions" more than makes up for everything plodding and ponderous that has taken place since the mind-blowing first hour of the 1999 original.

Astonishing in scale and momentous in scope, it encompasses a spectacular battle between the scrappy, out-numbered but heavily armed defenders of Zion (humanity's last refugee city hidden deep beneath the Earth's scorched surface) and a million-strong swarm of enemy sentinels (those frightening, giant squid-shaped robots) invading from the machine-ruled surface world.

But the monstrous melee may be for naught if uber-human messiah Neo (Keanu Reeves) cannot defeat the invincibly evil, incalculably self-replicating rogue computer program known as Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) in a simultaneous, nuclear-strength airborne-kung-fu showdown inside what's left of the crumbling Matrix (that virtual world pulled over the eyes of the comatose majority of mankind kept in stasis by the machines who feed off our life-force).

Continue reading: The Matrix Revolutions Review

By the time hobbit hero Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) finally -- finally! -- struggles to the top of Mount Doom, where at the climax of "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" he must cast into its volcanic fires the malevolently omnipotent Ring that has been slowly consuming his psyche for three movies now, many of the nit-picky things that have gotten on my nerves throughout all the "Lord of the Rings" flicks had come to a head.

So many times now has Frodo's whiney, obsequious traveling companion Samwise Gamgee (Sean Austin) begun boo-hoo-hooing that I started rooting for him to be chucked into the lava along with the jewelry. One too many times has a lucky coincidence saved our hero, as when in this picture he's captured by the demonic, bad-tempered Orcs, only to be rescued moments later when his two guards -- the only two guards in an entire tower it seems -- are conveniently distracted by fighting with each other.

And once too often has director Peter Jackson assumed that the previous installments will be fresh in minds of the audience. That's a pretty safe bet for his fan base, but for the unobsessed, "Return of the King" -- like "The Two Towers" before it -- has many what-did-I-miss? moments. For example, in one of two climactic battle scenes, a never-identified army of fearsome face-painted foes riding atop gigantic elephants appears on the flank of the protagonists' battalion, prompting the question, "Who the heck are these guys?" (Apparently they were in the second movie too, but pardon me for not having seen it since last year.)

Continue reading: The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King Review