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Reviews
The Hunt for Gollum (2009)
Fan film-making at its best, worth a look
A team of Tolkein fans, with an estimated budget of $3,000, have produced their own addition to Peter Jackson's film series. For such a small budget, it's impressive how close they come at times to reproducing Jackson's big-budget style.
The movie takes its inspiration from one of the many appendices to the original novel, events that are hinted at in the first movie. The wizard Gandalf goes to Aragorn with a crucial mission: find Gollum, who knows the location of the One Ring, before Sauron's forces do. Success will allow for more time to plan, failure will result in a forced hand for our heroes, requiring that the ring be moved, with Frodo and the others put in imminent peril. Those who have seen Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring will know how this movie ends, but then that manages to add some more tense elements to the story.
If you had some favorite technical element from the movie trilogy, writer/director/producer Chris Bouchard has likely re-created it here on a fraction of the budget. No less than a half- dozen cinematographers were used to evoke the atmosphere and rich, somber colors that helped distinguish the first movie. The score by Adam Langston and Andrew Skrabutenas is less conspicuous and "epic" than the Oscar-winning strings of Howard Shore, but that's perhaps fitting for this small, more personal movie. Gollum is envisioned with creativity, the filmmakers confining him to a burlap sack for most of the movie, yet whoever plays him in the sack, combined with Gareth's Borough's keen impression of Andy Serkis, are a worthy low-budget substitute for Jackson's extensive motion-capture. The appearance of a full-CGI Gollum addressing the camera at the very end was sufficient payoff for me.
The acting styles of Adrian Webster and Patrick O'Connor as Aragorn and Gandalf are both quite interesting, surely both were cast in part for their resemblances to Viggo Mortensen and Ian McKellen respectively. Still, seeing them in their roles on the big screen is not a great stretch of the imagination.
Fight choreography was one of the movie's strongest points, Bouchard has a very good eye not only for cat-and-mouse suspense, but complex sword fights. Too often with fan films, (or action/fantasy in general), fight scenes are handled poorly, leading to audience boredom. Far from it here, where the action drew me in a surprising amount.
Bouchard and company have created something most impressive, and with a running time of 40 minutes and a price tag of $0, there's really no excuse to not see it. I can only hope that the people behind this movie will have their hard work here recognized, and maybe next time they'll make a movie they can actually profit from. This is likely the best fan film I've seen since Grayson in 2004.
Shin Kido Senki Gundam Wing Endless Waltz (1998)
Actually not that bad
Endless Waltz, a sequel to the successful TV series Gundam Wing, is a fitting conclusion to the After Colony continuity, and manages to make improvements to the series in just about every way. The fights are more interesting, each Gundam has been given a re-design, and the animation/direction is overall more detailed and interesting.
The plot: One year after the end of the TV series, Earth and its space colonies have come to terms, ending a costly war with peace throughout the solar system. Just as the pilots of the near-invincible Gundams have sent them to be destroyed, one space colony secedes from the new world government and declares war. Lines of loyalty are quickly drawn, and the the five pilots are soon fighting each other to resolve this final conflict. Nearly every character from the TV series appears, leading to some surprise revelations.
If you have not seen the original series, good luck, because this movie will fail as a stand-alone title: as a conclusion to the series, it assumes the audience's knowledge of events and relationships from the entire 50-episode series, which is no easy task. However, as a conclusion to the series, it continues to build upon its stronger points, including the philosophy of battle and the complex array of allegiances that are built.
As I watched the dubbed version, I realized that the voice acting is for the most part quite good, but like the TV series, the English writing suffers now and then. Still, the writing here is an improvement, and the conversations had a better flow. My vote for best exchange in the series: "See for yourself just how powerless you are!" "Roger that".
Unfortunately, the movie lacks a good villain, with the young daughter of the series' primary antagonist rarely seeming that dangerous. It was darn hard to tell exactly what was happening at certain points, and the Gundams naturally follow the rule of being indestructible, "except Sometimes". On a smaller note, the movie's 4:3 aspect ratio proved no less bothersome than it had in the 49 previous episodes, I would have preferred some slightly larger width to go along with the boost in animation quality.
An interested observer (but not a "fan") of Gundam Wing, Endless Waltz proved to be a pleasant surprise, so I will take a leap here and say that if you were indeed a fan of Gundam Wing, this movie might just satisfy your desires. As the end to a series with some worthwhile thoughts about war, the movie's thesis that history is an endless waltz of war, peace, and revolution is a lovely bit of food for thought, the kind of thing I watch anime for in the first place.