The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Hobbit yes, journey yes, unexpected? Not so much. For those of us religious fans of Peter Jackson original Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, the eventual coming of The Hobbit was anything but Unexpected. The tale of Frodos (Elijah Wood) uncle Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) involved Dragons, Dwarfs (Richard Armitage), Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and Gollum (Andy Serkis) a recipe for impending success.
Jackson has managed to do it again and though the film felt like it ran a bit short of the finish line, they have two years to make up for that. Maybe it was that Fellowship Of The Rings style ending that doesn't allow me to rate this movie any higher than an average three unicorns but one thing is for sure, when the other two films come together with An Unexpected Journey, ratings will be through the roof.

Rise Of The Guardians

Although not set around the feastive period, Rise Of The Guardians is this years Cinematic Christmas Feeler. Jack Frost teams up Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, The Tooth Fairy and Sandman to help thwart the Boogieman - Pitch Black.

Called upon by The Man in The Moon, Jack Frost (Chris Pine) the spirit of winter wonders the world alone and unseen, controling and adjusting the snow and frost to cause fun, inconvienience and necessity. His Lone Ranger days are over when the Guardians; Brought together to protect the hopes and beliefs of children all over the world are threatened by the return of Pitch Black (Jude Law) and are instructed to enlist his help.

Descriptions of these legendary characters have been passed on through time; The Sandman, a weirdo in pyjamas who throws dust in your eyes to help you sleep, The Tooth Fairy a small and cute being with butterfly wings who barters your teeth for some change, but as times have progressed it was about time that these legends got a makeover.
Voiced by Alec Baldwin; Santa "Schwarzenegger" Claus is a Russian accented tattoo sleeved badass whose reindeers rival the biggest and fastest stallions and who's helpers are less elves and more Sasquatch. Equipped with a pair of swords I'd take the phrase; Santa Clause Is Coming To Town a little more seriously if I knew he was round the corner.
Close your eyes and picture a mix between Bugs Bunny and a bench pressing kangaroo and you have the Easter Bunny. Mr Not-So-Cute-And-Fluffy has a slight temper and is in constant competition with Jack Frost over a decades old 'Misunderstanding' as Hugh Jackman delivers a comical performance and gives a slight insight into the magic behind the world of Easter.

The best character by far had to be Jude Laws sanctimonious Pitch Black, who was somewhere between the Grim Reaper and Hades. We can hardly blame the guy for wanting to cause fear and misery when it's in his nature to do nothing else. Yet his silky yet sinister voice makes it hard to be on his side as each word ripples another round of goosebumps. As he is the ultimately the reason for destroying the hopes and dreams of children all over the world. Dramatic. But True.

Though the scenes were beautiful and the graphics were amazing it sometimes felt as though you had started listening partway through a conversation as random unanswerable questions who just pop into your mind from time to time such as where did Pitch Black come from and how did he escape? Why is The Man in The Moon in charge? Perhaps however these are just the nitpicky questions of an adult, in the mind of a child the movie ticks all the right boxes from the loveable main character to the slightly sympathetic for Villain.
Although revamped to give a more modernised feel and physical personification they are all still very much the characters of stories we grew up loving. This may be no Arthur Christmas but this film will definitely get you buzzing for the magic of Christmas and may reignite that small torch of belief we all still have buried within us.

Great Expectations

There have been a range of adaptations of Charles Dickens' Classic over the years, including the 1998 modernised Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow version that we pretend does not exist. So it's understandable when another adaptation crops up out of nowhere the presses don't stop and people don't stand in the streets gazing up at billboards in giddiness.

A young Pip (Toby Irvine) whilst visiting his mother’s grave gets pounced on by an escaped convict (Ralph Fiennes) who then scares poor Pip into helping aid in his escape. Terrified of not complying to this mad mans wishes Pip does as he is told. Filled with the compassion of a young child, Pip also brings the convict some food and drink, all at the expense of a beating from is bitter sister. But no good deed goes unpunished.

After his efforts of keeping the convicts arrival in the area concealed, he eventually gets captured by the police and put back into prison. Young Pip doesn't have too long to dwell on these events as his life finds a new chapter in the household of Miss Haversham (Helen Bonham Carter). A crazy, cold hearted and slightly enchanting woman who acquires Pip so that he may play with her niece Estella (Helena Barlow). As is with children of the fantastical world, Pip almost immediately falls in love with this rude and uninterested spoilt child who makes him realise he wants to be more than a Blacksmith in life. Gladly their acquaintance is cut short so that we no longer have to endure her scripted ways.

Sometime in the future we are lucked with a sweaty hard working man who can only be described as a British version of Supernatural's Dean Winchester (played by Jared Padalecki). This matured Blacksmith gets his old wish of leaving behind his life when a mysterious benefactor pays for him to have everything he needs to become a Gentleman. Now living the high life in the stylistic black attire only town of London Pips re-acquaintance with Estella, a more refined version of her younger self is at this stage inevitable.

It would have been more excitable to watch Pip learn to be a gentleman through lessons in etiquette and speech than to just cut to him looking more gentlemanly and hanging around with other rich and rowdy young men whose only purposed seemed to be to show how pretension Pip had become, and to give way to foe and competitor Bentley Drummle (Ben Lloyd-Hughes)

Miss Havishams look I felt was slightly to over the top, she felt more like a delusion corpse bride than a woman crazed from a broken heart. Especially as nothing else in the movie was intensified to that effect, this made her character seem on another level. Lastly except for a few meaningful scenes the relationship between the matured Pip and Estella is greatly under explored.

I enjoy classic adaptations as much as the next person but it's quite possible that tales such as Great Expectations need to be buried deep in the screenplay writers’ trunk of possible book to movie ideas. It has gotten to the point where if another adaptation should rear its head in the next three years they should change the title to a more suitable: Same Expectations.