The Last Unicorn

The story opens in a lovely forest with two mounted hunters.  They soon realize this is a special wood, noting that it doesn’t snow here in winter and is likely the preserve of the last unicorn.  The unicorn overhears the pair and wonders at this notion of being last.  Soon thereafter a daft butterfly arrives and sings mostly gibberish but likewise indicates that she is the last unicorn.  Determined to know the truth, the unicorn sets out into the world.

 

On her journey, she discovers that she is the last and that unicorns are mostly viewed as a myth.  When people see her, they are blind to her horn and think she is just a white mare, which she takes as a great insult.  She further learns that a fiery red bull (no relation to the energy drink) had chased all the unicorns to the realm of King Haggard.  Shmendrick the Magician, who is able to see her for what she is, offers to lead her there in search of the missing unicorns.  But disaster strikes.  The red bull appears and chases the unicorn!  Shmendrick, who is a mediocre magician, nonetheless summons the power to polymorph the unicorn into a human woman.  Confused, the red bull departs.

 

It was interesting to watch how the polymorph played out.  Now called Lady Amalthea, she slowly loses her memory of being a unicorn.  As her memory fades, she falls in love with Prince Lir and dreams of a life with him.  Shmendrick cannot restore her until they determine how to protect her from the red bull.  The solution is somewhat disappointing.

 

Unicorns are quite powerful in this setting.  The unicorn has considerable though not explicitly explained powers regarding the woods in which she lives.  Unicorns are immortal, so becoming human was a shock since she was suddenly dying and felt cloistered by the mortal body.  She was able to negate a witch’s magic with the touch of her horn.  Later, she was able to raise the dead.

 

The movie is fun though there are some failings.  The animation is okay.  The voice cast is impressive: Jeff Bridges, Christopher Lee, Alan Arkin, Angela Lansbury, and Mia Farrow as the Unicorn.  The pacing is uneven, with some parts dragging and others are rushed.  The bandit incident comes and goes in a flash.  There are also some bizarre anachronisms.  The babbling butterfly sings a medley of modern songs while another character mentions barbed wire (invented in the 19^th century).  King Haggard commands the red bull but it is never explained how or what exactly the red bull is.  Would the captive unicorns have been released when King Haggard eventually died of old age?  Might everything have resolved itself in a few more years or would the red bull have stood eternal vigil over the unicorns?

 

Though the unicorn’s quest is a success, it isn’t really a happy ending.  That is refreshing.  Prince Lir has lost the love of his life and the Unicorn is an outcast among her kind because she had experienced a mortal life and now knows love and regret.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The Hobbit opens with a lengthy history of the Lonely Mountain, the rise of its power, the greed of its king, and finally its fall to Smaug the Dragon.  Added to this you have the fact that the elves declined to aid the Dwarves in the fight against the mighty dragon, thus explaining Thorin Oakenshield’s animus toward elves.

 

With that prologue, the story picks up with Bilbo working on his memoir of his great adventure on the very day that Gandalf is expected for his birthday party (see the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring).  It was fun – though unnecessary – to see Frodo (Elijah Woods) as he leaves Bag End to intercept Gandalf.  More importantly, this gave an opportunity for Bilbo (Ian Holm) to provide a bridge to his younger self (Martin Freeman).

 

Finally, our story begins.  Gandalf and the dwarves arrive at Bilbo’s home and enlist him into the cause of reclaiming the Lonely Mountain from Smaug.  Bilbo refuses but then chases after them to join.  The plot generally follows the book though it is massively augmented with other events in Middle Earth.  This is useful in a big picture sense but detracts from the story, especially since this is supposed to be Bilbo’s memoir.  Furthermore, many events are turned into huge battles.  The flight from the goblin caves is turned into a running fight where all of the dwarves survive essentially unscathed.  No sooner are they out of the caves than some orcs on wargs show up and the dwarves are helpless and must climb trees.  Really?

 

The band is safely carried away from the orc threat by giant eagles and deposited on a picturesque peak where they can see the Lonely Mountain in the distance.  The dwarves talk among themselves that perhaps Smaug is dead, as he hasn’t ventured out in many decades.  The movie ends with the great piles of gold suddenly disturbed to reveal the head of a dragon; Smaug yet lives.

 

Though generally enjoyable, this isn’t The Hobbit.  This is a prequel to Lord of the Rings, bringing in characters who have no business in the story and outlining events that are referenced in other works.  Radagast the Brown Wizard never appears in The Hobbit but he has a sizable role here.  Saruman (Christopher Lee) scolds Gandalf and Galadriel (Cate Blanchet) gives him tentative support.  In the book, Gandalf often vanished from the party without much explanation but the movie version isn’t going to leave that a mystery.  It is no wonder that Peter Jackson is stretching this into a three movie epic.  The Hobbit was a modest book, smaller than any of the three books of Lord of the Rings and yet we are promised as much film time as the trilogy.  Of course, the trilogy left out some things; that certainly won’t happen with The Hobbit.

 

One of the benefits of being so long is that all those dwarves get a bit of personality.  Thorin was noteworthy in the book for being the dispossessed King of the Lonely Mountain and Bombur was a plump fellow who cooked but the rest were just a collection of names.  Now Balin is an old veteran who is an adviser to Thorin.  Dwalin is a monster fighter with a bad attitude, Bofur is an amiable dwarf and friend to Bilbo, Kili is a master archer, Ori is the youngster of the bunch, and so forth.  I expect some of the ones I haven’t mentioned will get their due in the next two movies.  Each dwarf is very distinctive in appearance so that it is hard to confuse them.  I wonder if these personalities are taken from the writings of Tolkien or are they from the imaginings of Peter Jackson.

 

Despite its flaws, it is a fun movie; too much movie but still enjoyable.

 

Though I wrote this review in November 2013 - nearly a year after the movie was released, I have not seen the two other movies in the trilogy.  The first trilogy saw me in the theater during opening week but this one didn't even get me to go for that first one.  I saw it on HBO or pay per view.  Just not all that eager to see the over-inflated Jackson version of The Hobbit.