The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Bear with me here, this may sound a little strange. There's these things called hobbits, which are basically people, but they're quite a bit shorter than humans, with big hairy feet, and they live in the ground in houses with big round doors, and they have a penchant for pipes. One of these hobbits, Bilbo Baggins, is paid a visit by a wizard - stay with me - called Gandalf, who arranges for said hobbit to go on a quest with thirteen dwarfs - kind of like hobbits, but a little taller, bulkier, hairier and grumpier - to travel a really long way in order to break into a locked mountain and kill the giant dragon that's sleeping on a huge pile of gold that rightfully belongs to the dwarves. Oh, and one of the dwarfs, Thorin (their king), chopped off the hand of a giant pale orc (a kind of, um, ogre?) after the orc (called Asok the Defiler, of course) killed Thorin's grandfather, and understandably Asok is out for revenge. Oh, and there's a mass of caves full of goblins, some giant wolf-creatures called Wargs, great big problem-solving eagles and another wizard called Radagast the Brown who keeps birds under his hat, their faeces in his hair and rides a sleigh pulled by big rabbits. Actually, now I think about it, there's nothing all that weird about any of this.

Transformers

Part 2 in my Shia LaBoeuf: the Scourge of Cinema double-bill sees him taking on giant, transforming robot aliens as he attempts to save the world using a weird little cube, and cop off with Megan Fox. I've got no historical connection to the Tranformers franchise, as I neither saw the cartoon series or the animated feature from the 80s, and I've never played with any of the toys as a child. So unlike many people, I feel that so far my childhood has been unmolested by Michael Bay, something I was afraid I'd no longer be spared from with his intentions to paint his own brand of ridiculousness onto the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which I think now has been fortunately abandoned.

Babe

The film that made James Cromwell a perfect secret bad guy (see L.A. Confidential) and converting many meat eaters into vegetarians after seeing the consequences of the odd sausage roll, Babe tells the story of a pig, won by a farmer at a country fair, who learns to become a sheep-pig after being adopted by the farmers dogs. As a child, I remember greatly enjoying this film, especially the exploits of clumsy, prophetic duck Ferdinand who has aspirations of becoming a rooster to prevent being cooked in an orange sauce, but now I just find the whole thing tiresome. Especially the mice. What is the deal with the singing mice? I’m guessing they were probably used to introduce the various chapters in Rudyard Kipling’s book, but having them occasionally pop up and sing the chapter title, even though it’s written on the screen directly above them, just seems silly, and I’m sure they’re too small in comparison to the rest of the animals. If they were the inspiration behind the recent films of Alvin and the Chipmunks then woe betide anyone with a hand in bringing them onto the screen.

Choose life 5/10