The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

"The eagles are coming!"

So. I finally find three and a bit to complete the trilogy, a feat possible only during the Chrimbo limbo at a time when the little one is ith the in-laws. And yes, my disgracefully pretentious beginning was indeed a reference to Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf... no, stay with me. This blog post won't dissolve into pretentiousness, I assure you. I've had a bottle of wine, honest...

Tolkien was a scholar of Old English, and of other ancient Germanic tongues and heroic culture. This all, of course, was perverted for racist reasons- the most racist reasons imaginable- by Hitler's twelve year reign of unspeakableness. A millennium of Germanic literature must be held to exist on its on terms and not be defined by these monsters- as Tolkien himself makes clear in his response to the impertinent question from a Nazi publisher as to whether he has "Jewish blood". Ingeld and Beowulf may have lived in what we called the Dark Ages, but they must not be tainted by the far greater barbarism of the Nazis.

So, that aside... well, obviously, this is superb. The same stellar cast aside from the usual touch of plywood from orlanso Bollom, wit even John Rhys Davies being a splendid actor in spite of being a right wing conspiracy theorist twat; superb visuals and battle scenes that enthrall even me, perennially bored by such things; the narrative splendidly remixed for cinema in a way that works well dramatically. There may be no Scouring of the Shire, and Aragorn's use of Kinsfoil may be neglected somewhat even in the extended edition, but it's good not to have quite as many endings as in the novel.

What strikes me, though, more than either of the other two instalments, is how much the ethos of the film- that is, the defence of Gondor against the orcs and not the boring Frodo subplot, less dull by far than in the novel but still dragging- owes to the emotion and noble warrior passion of Anglo-Saxon poetry, which is not exactly about romance or daffodils, homoerotic overtones aside. Although Elrond’s words to Aragorn being in iambic pentameter may not be quite contemporaneous with this- but Tolkien’s literary bent is reflected in the dialogue, for which we should be grateful.

The film, and indeed the trilogy, is a triumph. Even though Christopher Lee isn’t in this one.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

"The lesser of two weevils!"

It's been far too long since I read Patrick O'Brian's superlative tales of Captain Jack Aubrey and his particular friend Dr. Stephen Maturin, and watching this unexpectedly excellent film adaptation has reminded me that I really need to start reading all twenty(!) novels all over again. It's a magnificent series of books, with both intense psychological depth for the extraordinarily well-rounded characters and a dizzyingly perfect evocation of time and place. A crude analogy would be Hornblower as written by Jane Austen, but the novels are much more than that. The language alone I can just get drunk on. Patrick O'Brian was a man of the Regency out of his time.

I've seen the film before, but it's only now, having read all of the novels rather than just the first few, that I can truly appreciate its excellent. It's odd to base the film around The Far Side of the World, one of the later novels, but that's a suitably representative plot of Jack captaining the Surprise in pursuit of a French privateer. Naturally this isn't really an adaptation of a specific novel; a franchise of twenty films was clearly not going to happen so they did the sensible thing and made a greatest hits album. Hence we see Maturin doing his famous bit of surgery with the coin, Maturin directing his own operation, Jack's anecdote about Nelson and the above joke from Jack. I'm surprised we don't get Stephen's "cur-tailed" joke which Jack brings up every bloody novel but you can't have everything! But the approach works; the plot, cobbled together from some of the best set pieces from the novels, makes for a gripping film.

I'm not generally a huge fan of Russell Crowe but he was seemingly born to play Jack, and David Threlfall deserves particular praise as the perfect Preserved Killick. Paul Bettany, though, seems to lack charisma somewhat, although I can see little actually wrong with his performance. But this is nevertheless a superb adaptation which has certainly succeeded in directing me back to the novels.

Seed of Chucky (2004)

“You killed my mummy and daddy, and now you’re pissing your pants!”

 

So, Chucky and Tiffany have a kid. It’s just like David Bowie in every way, including the androgyny. This is a deliciously silly film, which has just as much metatextual fun as its predecessor. It rips the piss out of loads of films, but is essentially more of the same that we know and love from the last film. Just a little bit more British.

It’s rather surreal to see Hannah Spearitt in a film like this. It’s even weirder, though gleefully hilarious, that the likes of Jennifer Tilly and Redman would play themselves in such a delightfully unflattering way. Best of all, of course, is the way that Glen, or Glenda, acts as a catalyst to the relationship between our two evil dolls. I particularly love the sequences in which Tiffany attempts to give up her addiction to killing. This is the most Californian thing ever.

Of course, there are plenty of gruesome deaths, but I think I speak for everyone when I say that the thing we remember most after seeing this film is the sight of Chucky, silhouetted, er, wanking. This, more than anything else in the franchise, is the stuff of nightmares. I half suspect that the whole plot about children exists solely so that this scene can exist. This film is evil. I love it

Silly though this film is, it is interesting to see how far the franchise has changed from its origins. These last two films, both of them superb, seem to belong to a different age. The animatronics are notably better here even than in the previous film and the humour is both sharper and more evil. I particularly enjoyed the fate of Britney Spears. Each film in the series has been better than the last one, and this film is the peak. Roll on the next one.