Where do I even begin on this movie? I have so much that I want to say and so much to break down that I’m not sure I can do it all in a single blog post. But let’s get started. This is not a true movie. This is a visual sermon that is intended to be broken down into scenes that can be presented in Bible studies and Sunday School rooms to demonstrate points.

Biases

I am a Christian, and I do believe that prayer is powerful and effective. I also grew up in the Bible Belt and am familiar with Christian culture, including Beth Moore and typical Christian movies. This movie has me exceptionally torn because I want to like it and feel expected to like it because I am a Christian and this is a Christian movie. That struggle has sometimes caused me to be quiet in the past because I didn’t want to make others stumble. Right now, I plan to wrestle with it.

A Word of Caution
This movie is a movie for Christians by Christians. Some advertisements as well as several people have told me that this movie is called War Room so that it doesn’t scare non Christians from coming. Others have suggested that it is to lure non Christians into filling the seats. But no, please, whatever you do, do not pretend this isn’t Christian. This is not a movie for non Christians. Not at all. (And there’s nothing wrong with a movie being focused on a Christian audience.)

In fact, this would be a bad movie to show non Christians because it does not define a lot of key concepts. It uses shorthand. There’s no explanation of what prayer is nor is there a development of why prayer matters, particularly in light of God having a plan. Other concepts such as submission are thrown in without any development or explanation or nuance. But more on that later.

Basic Premise of the Movie

The basic premise of the War Room is that Elizabeth, a married career woman, learns the power of prayer to change her husband, Tony, and make him a good man. She is mentored by an older Christian woman. It is targeted at a particular audience: the Christian middle to middle upperclass within the Bible belt. The houses, the style, and everything else all corresponds to this target audience.

There really aren’t any surprises in this movie, so I’m not going to worry about avoiding spoilers. I’d rather analyze the movie as a whole and the various components rather than trying to shield these.

Let’s Start Off With the Good

One of the first things I do want to note is that Christian films are improving. The acting quality in this as compared to Courageous and Fireproof is markedly better. Ms. Clara is particularly

well portrayed. I think most of us who have spent a significant time in church can recognize someone who was quite like her.

Also kudos to the Kendrick brothers for finding a little known competitive sport: double dutch jump roping competitions. It’s pretty intriguing, and you can see some of the information on the national site here.

The movie also has a fairly color blind story. Racism is not an issue at all. In fact, areas where it might have been an issue are ignored. Whether this is good or bad, depends on your perspective, but what I do appreciate is that the story has more diversity.

Let’s Hit the Technicals

I’ll be fairly brief on this as there are other more important things. The technical side of this movie is lacking. Certain transitions, such as those between Tony’s contemplation and dreaming, are exceptionally jarring and abrupt. It almost feels as if a section is missing or they got in a hurry. This isn’t always a problem, but when it crops up, it is disruptive.

The pacing is quite poor, and the story line needs focusing. It isn’t entirely clear whose story it is. And after the adultery theme is resolved, the movie then moves into a theft and embezzlement situation and jump rope competition that feels like another movie. The overall structure and pacing was such that 2/3 into the movie, it seemed like it should be over. But it kept going.

The characters themselves are quite bland. They are nothing more than stereotypes of various tropes. They do not have histories or pasts (Elizabeth and Tony never reminisce about what they used to be like or what they used to do; pictures do not show any scenes that reveal hints about hobbies, passions, or even personality). The sum total of their characters is as follows: Tony is the driven career minded man with a wandering eye who can never have enough, Danielle is the innocent child who adores jump rope and competes, Elizabeth is the career woman, wife, and mother with a bad case of smelly feet, Ms. Clara is the wise black prayer warrior, and Tony’s best friend is the cool religious one line spitting buddy who only shows up when his one liners will move the plot forward.

The passage of time is difficult to follow. Montages are used at various points to indicate the passage of time, but it’s not clear how long has passed. The movie feels as if it’s taking place within a span of days, but I think it’s supposed to take place within a few weeks, maybe a couple months.

The Message Itself

This movie seems to be about inspiring people to pray more, particularly given the montage at the end with the flag and the Christians gathering. And even as a sermon, I have a problem with this movie. Prayer is shown as being the easy solution. Despite Ms. Clara saying that prayer is challenging and it is hard to learn to fight the right way, we never see Elizabeth struggling to pray (unless you count the montage where she’s trying to create her space). Prayer is answered with a resounding yes, and everything is resolved within a matter of weeks.

Ms. Clara actually doesn’t do much mentoring that’s specific to Elizabeth’s situation except to chastise Elizabeth for whining about what her husband has done (after less than an hour of conversation), point out that Elizabeth is the recipient of grace and should extend that to her husband, and instruct Elizabeth that she should surrender to God and create a special place for prayer. Prayers are written out. The little girl, Danielle, even makes a checklist. Mercifully, we don’t see her check off every single one, but by the end of the movie, all of the things that Elizabeth and Danielle have asked God for have been given and things are better than ever. However, if you do want more technical specifics on how to pray, the Kendricks are more than willing to sell you all kinds of merchandise from the prayer journals you see featured to prayer cards to a prayer battle strategy.

Now, on the one hand, the movie presents a delightful message! We petition God, and He gives us what we request. This movie fails to address the

nuance and the long suffering required in prayer as well as the fact that some prayers appear to go unanswered. The answer to prayer isn’t always a resounding yes. Sometimes it’s a “no” or a “wait.” Sometimes we are to praise in the midst of trials and suffering. Yes, praising God is part of prayer as is thanksgiving. Not that that receives much attention here. It might get a line or two, and, after God does what the main characters want, there are periods of praise. But praising God and thanking Him when things aren’t going well, not so much.

In fact, prayer is shown as having swift results. In one scene, Elizabeth drops to the floor of her closet and prays against her husband having an affair. It’s juxtaposed with scenes of Tony with Ms. Drake, a sexy assistant with pouty pink lips. Thankfully, just as Elizabeth is finishing the prayer, Tony gets a stomachache and can’t go through with the affair.

If I were to take my cues for what prayer is supposed to look like in this, then I would presume that if I write out a prayer strategy and tell God what I want, then in a short time I will get it. In fact, Tony’s total transformation is so perfect, it’s hard to believe that this got past the drafting board. Prayer is powerful, and there are miracles. But often such growth takes time, and there are setbacks and failures. There’s no real variety to the prayers demonstrated here nor to the answers given.

The perspective on prayer presented here is quite appealing. Nothing is hard. But it’s a far, far, far cry from reality. It does a huge disservice even to the Christian audience because it pretends to be realistic and offer solutions. I truly wish this was how prayer worked! Can you imagine if Elizabeth had just prayed that wars would end, the starving be fed, and even that her sister’s husband gets a job? Everything she asks for, she gets. But her prayers are exceptionally self focused, revolving only around her needs.This is a false picture of prayer because, while it had multiple opportunities to do so, the movie only shows one type of prayer: swift answered prayer. So while this does exist, there is far more to it than that, and that should have been addressed.

Where is the Sacrifice?

One of the bigger issues that I have with this movie as a whole is that faith and prayer are presented as easy. No one has to give up anything really. Everything is easily resolved with minimal problems.

For instance, Tony steals drugs and later returns them to his employer. But he has been found out and fired before he returns the drugs. He doesn’t risk losing his job when he takes the drugs back. And true, he says that he’s doing this just to make things right (and thankfully he doesn’t get this job back). All he is risking is jail time at this point, but even that gets wiped away. And his agitation and fear is really quite downplayed. It’s more the level you would expect if he had to give a presentation to a hostile clients.

Similarly, the CEO ultimately decides that he will not file charges against Tony. But here’s the problem. If this is intended as an example of grace (and they tell us that it is more than once), then it did not go far enough. It’s stated that stealing these drugs is a federal offense, and that means that the company is required to submit this information to the government. Failure to do so keeps them on the hook for liability. (Perhaps the confession he signs keeps him on the hook? I’m not sure.) But if the CEO chooses to absolve that and let Tony off the hook, then the CEO is the one who has to pay the price if something goes wrong. That’s the other component of grace. Grace isn’t just one person not having to pay what is deserved or necessarily be punished. It’s someone else stepping in and taking on that punishment. God didn’t just tell us that it’s all right and we’re forgiven. Jesus stepped in to pay the price. Here it seems to just be absolved through sheer desire and a willingness to accept responsibility.

Prayer takes time out of the day. But Elizabeth has an abundance of this. She doesn’t struggle to balance her responsibilities while meeting Ms. Clara nor does she struggle to find time to pray. Most mothers I know, whether career women or stay at home caregivers, must fight to get time to pray. We see one scene where Elizabeth has apparently fallen asleep in the closet, and it’s played up for all the humor they can wring from it. But we don’t see Elizabeth giving up sleep to pray or giving up time with friends. In fact, all the characters’ lives are really quite empty. Everything serves the plot so schedules don’t compete. Everyone understands as needed. It isn’t even a sacrifice for her to give up her closet to prepare a war room because she has another closets with enough room. We don’t even see her struggling to adjust to this or losing things. Maybe I’m strange, but if I gave up a closet, I would have to do some serious reworking.

More problematically though, Elizabeth talks about how she would rather not have as much money and have a husband who chases Jesus, but we don’t see that reality. The money never

actually becomes an impacting issues. It’s only discussed and argued about. Tony does lose his job. But this only worries and stresses him a little (unemployment isn’t a big deal here; there’s no lifestyle cutbacks or losses of any kind). Elizabeth is able to immediately step into the gap and pick up more houses to sell. She doesn’t worry at all because she’s trusting God. Later on Tony gets another job offer at the community center. He’ll only make half of what he made before (but doing math from earlier in the movie, that’s still twice as much as Elizabeth is making). They say that they’ll have to cut back. But we never see this. Nor any steps that must be taken to achieve this.

Does This Movie Promote Submission in the Face of Abuse?

This is a really touchy point in the film where a lot can be misunderstood or misapplied. Ms. Clara never asks Elizabeth whether her husband is abusing her or her daughter. Nor does she suggest that Elizabeth set any boundaries or stand up for herself (this could have been a fantastic way to demonstrate how one can stand up for oneself and still rely on God!). Tony does not physically abuse her. But it could be argued that he psychologically or emotionally abuses her. He tells her in no uncertain terms at the beginning that the money is his and not hers, and he is loud and aggressive. At one point, Elizabeth speaks with her friends about this and says how hard it is to submit to her husband. Beth Moore’s character says something along the line of “sometimes submitting to your husband is ducking out of the way so God can deal with him.” It’s Christian humor, but it could be easily misinterpreted.

Even more troubling is at one point, Elizabeth asks whether she is just supposed to let Tony walk all over her. Ms. Clara says she is supposed to pray and fight this battle through God. So…

in essence, yes…Elizabeth is to stop fighting Tony. She does not set up boundaries or communicate her feelings with Tony until he asks her what she wants (and then she rambles about hot fudge sundaes and foot rubs). She becomes consistently calm and soft spoken, never raising her voice or asserting any of her own desires.

I don’t think it was the Kendricks’ intention to say that prayer is the only thing one should do or that one should remain in an abusive relationship. (At least I hope not.) However, I completely understand why some people would take it this way. There is no nuance in the discussion. Ms. Clara doesn’t even listen to Elizabeth’s struggles for an hour before she’s telling her to pray. And when she has Elizabeth write down everything that Tony has done to wrong her, Ms. Clara then points out that Elizabeth needs grace too and has done wrong things. Therefore, what Tony has done doesn’t matter. She just needs to let it go.

Okay, okay, okay. I have to cut myself short here. On a very basic level, this is somewhat true. No one is perfect. Everyone has messed up at one time or another. Sin is sin. But this does not mean that everyone is mutually guilty in all situations. That’s a lazy method of thinking. If someone comes to you and says, “I’m struggling with so much pain and heartache because of what this person said to me,” it’s easy to say “hey, you can’t change what that person did. So you need to forgive that person and then move on.” But sometimes it takes a lot more. For instance, those words can sometimes settle in and create false perceptions. Forgiveness is not a reason to bury something and fail to deal with it. It sometimes takes time and must be acknowledged. This movie seems to presume that forgiveness is easy. It just takes a choice. Forgiveness does start with a choice. But to pretend that it’s as simple as just waving the magic words of prayer over one’s wounded heart does a tremendous disservice. The damage done through someone else’s cruelty and even neglect takes time to heal. But I can’t get into that as much as I would like to. Perhaps later.

This movie is supposed to be realistic. Supposedly. Yet Ms. Clara takes no time to investigate.

She simply assumes and gives her prescription. It could have actually been a great point for character development. But Ms. Clara’s failure to inquire as to whether Elizabeth is being harmed or whether she and Danielle are in danger is also what contributes to the perception that this film promotes submission in the face of abuse. As a side note, if you are talking to someone or mentoring someone, please take the time to investigate. Be responsible. Don’t assume you have the magic bullet just because you know how to pray.

Would It Make a Difference If This Was Presented as a Sermon?

Yes and no. On the one hand, presenting this as a sermon would be much better because it would better encapsulate what this movie is attempting to do. Just as we do not expect fairy tales to go as in depth in development and allow them to portray shallower characters, we allow the same in sermons and parables.

However, I think that certain areas still should have been addressed. Most importantly, 1) why

does prayer matter if God is in control [this is a huge question even for some dedicated Christians] 2) how do you make time for prayer in a busy schedule 3) what does prayer cost? And so on. The abuse/submission situation should also have been discussed. The movie needed more focus, but converting this into a true sermon, even a visual sermon, would have solved much of this.

The perspective on prayer here is inspiring insomuch as it promises to get us what we want. Or at least that’s how it appears. This could have been resolved by having some prayers go unanswered or things actually get harder and difficult for Elizabeth after she starts seriously praying.

Overall

I still have a lot more that I’d like to say, specifically on whether it’s all right for Christians to critique Christian films, whether the point or intentions make up for bad writing and storytelling, and whether people hate Christian movies just because they’re Christian movies. There were also a lot more missed opportunities in this movie, but I don’t have time to get into those.

However, I’m going to wrap this up right now with this: War Room is a Christian film for Christians that does not dig into the nuance of prayer or do much more than tell Christians what they want to hear. Prayer is at once simpler and more complicated than it is presented here, and while it is essential, it doesn’t always get us everything we want. For Christians who would like a night out and an inoffensive film, this probably fits the bill just fine.

Last night, James and I went to see The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies. I have both been looking forward to and dreading this event. Looking forward to it because The Hobbit is one of my favorite stories and I have thoroughly enjoyed the movies. Dreading it because it is the end of the saga and because it might not live up to my expectations. I can be a very harsh critic, though I try to curb my nitpicking tendencies when it is not warranted. And most of the time, I do not enjoy movies as much when I have been looking forward to them because they don’t live up to my expectations. But here the movie did live up to my hopes.

Now let’s get out some of the biases. The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings are among my all time favorites, and they are, in fact, the stories that convinced me that fantasy writing is my passion. The Hobbit made me want to write fantasy and was what birthed the original idea for Tue-Rah Identity Revealed. The Lord of the Rings was what inspired its becoming an epic and the complex world building. I have deep emotional memories tied to both series, and as such, I may be somewhat more blinded to the flaws of the Hobbit trilogy as I am certain I am with Lord of the Rings.

Also please note that there will be spoilers. But since this is based off a classic novel, I feel like that shouldn’t be a big deal.

 Premises You Must Accept for This Movie

•  a lot of the character development has been done in the previous two films; you don’t have to have seen  them, but this movie is not as effective as a stand alone movie
• Legolas is bound by neither physics nor gravity (most elves really aren’t, but he is the Chuck Norris of the fantasy world)
• dwarves are not very bright, but they are obstinate and tenacious
• Gandalf and all other magical beings have massive recharge times
• Deus ex eagalia (and yes, the Doctor does save the day!)
• You will never EVER win a game of Tetris against dwarves
• The movie is very very different from the original book

One last point, though not related to the movie, I am quite long winded when it comes to writing these sort of things, particularly when I feel such affection or passion. So here are the topics I’m covering.

Overall Pacing of the Story

This movie was a little less than two and a half hours, but it flew by. It’s the shortest of the three movies, and, while it was good, I think it could have benefited from being a bit longer. A number of things were shortened and almost passed over, requiring you to pay close attention. The only thing that I think should have been trimmed down more was Alfrid. I’m not entirely sure why he got so much screen time as his purpose was not clear. Except maybe for some comedy? But even then he wasn’t that funny.

But the movie was never boring. At points, I wanted it to slow down so I could see more, but I’m willing to wait until the extended edition. I should also note that I never found the first two movies to drag either, so bear that in mind. I love being in Middle Earth, so it’s unlikely it would ever truly be too long for me.

I also feel I should explain my point about the Doctor from BBC’s Doctor Who. Sylvester McCoy played one of the Doctor’s incarnations, and he also played Radagast the Brown here. He arrives at the end with Beorn and the Eagles. I would have LOVED to see more about him and what happened and how they gathered the Eagles and why the Eagles weren’t there in the beginning. But for those 20 seconds, it was quite fantastic to see the Doctor and Beorn literally arrive as the winged cavalry (remember what River said about good wizards in stories; they always turn out to be the Doctor!).

Bilbo: Yes, the Story Still Involves a Hobbit

I am not a huggy person, but throughout this movie, I felt the urge to hug many characters, not the least of which was Bilbo. Even if the only character he can play is Bilbo, I think he hit it out of the park. There was a fantastic fusion of compassion, loyalty, concern, and fear. I was holding it together reasonably well during Thorin’s death scene until Bilbo started crying. That was the nail in the coffin for me, no pun intended.

As an added side note, a lot of the actors do tremendous acting through just their body language, facial expressions, and their eyes. Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, and Ken Stott particularly stand out in this regard. Some scenes have few words. And it works. I enjoyed those quiet moments and the development and testing of the friendships.

Now some people will point out that Bilbo just took the Arkenstone in the original novel. It was a rather jerkish move to pull, but here Jackson gives Bilbo a motivation. He’s trying to keep the Arkenstone from Thorin to prevent the madness from worsening. I always wondered about Bilbo’s motives initially in the book, and this was a reasonable explanation in my opinion and consistent with the character he presented in the beginning and throughout his journey.

Bilbo, in many respects, never loses his roots. He remains the practical character he was in the beginning. He does tend to point out the obvious, but sometimes it’s needed. For instance, when the elven army stands before Erebor, he has to point out to Thorin that they are significantly outnumbered. Thorin doesn’t listen, of course, but it’s good to know that someone is capable of noticing the practical details. He was brave in his own quiet way, and the story focuses more on him as it concludes. It stops concerning itself with the bigger picture as Bilbo bids Thorin farewell and mourns the loss of his friend. Most everything else is background, but it works in my opinion because for Bilbo it would be.

I also love the fact that Bilbo has so much faith in his friendship with Thorin that he actually goes back to Erebor after giving Thranduil and Bard the Arkenstone, seeming to believe that Thorin will see reason. Thorin does not. But I also loved that the other dwarves did not help to cast him over the side. It was a pivotal moment in the movie as in the novel, and Gandalf delivered his lines quite authoritatively. Even a king descending into madness would be loathe to disobey that order. As far as I am concerned, there can never be another Gandalf aside from Ian McKellen. He was as fantastic as always, even if he does need massive recharge times and disappears at inconvenient moments.

Thorin’s Descent into Madness and Subsequent Redemption

Okay, on the one hand, I did feel that Thorin succumbing to dragon fever or gold fever was a tad corny. It isn’t without precedent. If it weren’t for Duck Tales Gold Fever, it might have felt more serious to me. But I didn’t feel like it was handled in a cartoonish way. I can think of several stories that have mentioned and discussed the curse that dragons often brought to their gold or that could develop when gold was accumulated in great masses (a combination of Druid beliefs and “the love of gold is the root of all evil” 1 Timothy 6:10). I think that it might have been easier if they had created a term entirely separate so that it didn’t have the baggage of the current phrasing.

Even with that caveat, it was heartbreaking to watch Thorin transform from the gruff and driven but noble leader he was in the beginning to a greedy and obsessive ruler who values gold above mortal lives. It’s actually a very difficult redemption arc to set up because greed is such a base flaw that people tend to despise more than others. Cowardice or rage or even lust are easier to redeem characters from. But greed? Hmm…it might be because greed strikes so close to the heart of our consumerist culture that it’s easy to see ourselves falling into the same trap and behaving just as reprehensibly. Thus we want to avoid or demonize representations as much as we can.

Richard Armitage’s acting as Thorin was stunning, in my opinion. In the scenes when Thorin was slipping into madness, he mimicked what we witnessed with Thror in the first movie, down to the placement of the hands, the lurching movements, and even the gleam in the eye. It was uncomfortable to watch, giving the sense that the character you had come to know and love was changing into someone else entirely. There’s a sense of loss that comes from that. Though the exchange that broke my heart the most was when Dwalin confronts Thorin and Thorin rejects the idea of being Thorin Oakenshield again, revealing the self loathing of what he thought his former self represented.

There was also an interesting parallel that may or may not have been intended between Thorin’s obsession over the gold and the obsession that Bilbo faces with the ring. Obsessions, in and of themselves, are rarely pretty things unless people deem them worthy. But the way that this film was structured, it almost made me wonder if perhaps part of the reason that Bilbo was able to put aside the ring came down to the fact that he had seen his friend battle a similar addiction and eventually overcome it.

Not Aragorn or a Reluctant King

I’ve seen some folks comparing Thorin to Aragorn and expressing their disappointment that Thorin was not more like Aragorn and how much better Aragorn was. But Aragorn is a distinct character from Thorin. The two have little in common once you get beyond the kings who have lost their birthrights and must reclaim them. I actually think that Thorin is a more complex character who regularly fails. Aragorn is a wanderer who returns to become a king, in some interpretations reluctant but generally successful, noble, calm, and wise. Thorin is not really reluctant. He is also vengeful and zealous and a bit short tempered.  Plus he tends to fail spectacularly before he gets back up on his feet again. In An Unexpected Journey, he attacks Azog and gets thrown around like a doggie chew toy. In Desolation of Smaug, he fails to negotiate with Thranduil (though it’s arguable if he even wanted to). He regularly missteps and has to recalculate his position based on the new information or because he’s about to be crushed. One or the other. But he always manages to find some epic way to come back and demonstrate that he is not to be taken lightly, which is shown in the final sequence of Thorin’s battle with Azog.

That leads me to one of my other realizations in this series. Neither Thorin nor the other dwarves are really that bright. They’re not stupid, but they seem to get caught up in the momentum and forget to be strategic. But I didn’t feel that that was a mistake. It seemed to be something that was played out over and over again. The dwarves tended to be more short sighted, focusing on the immediate rather than the long or even medium term.  It’s just part of their characters. They wall themselves up in Erebor overnight in a manner that would make a Tetris expert look foolish (they even include a staircase and a peephole!). Of course they have reinforcements coming in, and no mention is made how they will let them in.

The worst one though is when Thorin battles Azog. The final sequence takes place on a frozen lake. Thorin pulls one particular move that is quite epic and intelligent while giving Azog a look that says “yes, I did watch Looney Toons growing up.” But then…he makes a fatal error…I don’t want to give any more away, but it was all I could do to keep from screaming “get off the ice!” Even though I knew that they were going to kill him, and I knew Azog was going to be the one to do it. Argh! It was still painful, and I still desperately wanted someone to save him and all the others.

Really? Friends? After All That?

The subject of Thorin and Bilbo’s friendship is an interesting one. A friend asked how it was possible that the two could be friends when Thorin was such a grouch from beginning to end. Aside from the fact that Thorin saved Bilbo’s life on multiple occasions (or at least attempted to), I still found the friendship believable. Perhaps it is because I have had Thorin and Bilbo friendships where I was the Bilbo. The other person may be gruff, demanding, and difficult to please, but I don’t know. I still loved that person for various reasons and would gladly stand up for him if needed. (If I have been the Thorin in such a friendship, I am not aware of it, but in fairness, it’s awfully hard to confront those people, and I am certain I would be no exception. My own mother has told me she’s afraid to confront me at times. Drat…I may need to take stock of my friendships now. ;))

The Love Triangle Comes to a Close

Now I will admit that I was somewhat on the fence about the inclusion of Tauriel initially. By including her in the story, they took time away from developing other characters. But I can see where Peter Jackson was coming from, and, in the end, it was not handled like the typical love triangle.

Tauriel is essentially caught in a love triangle between two men whom she can never be with. Thranduil has made it clear that he will never give his blessing to Tauriel and Legolas, and interestingly enough, neither Tauriel nor Legolas speak of their feelings to one another. We don’t even know for certain whether Legolas actually loves Tauriel or if he thinks of her as a friend or a sister. The only information we know for certain is from the second movie, Desolation of Smaug. Tauriel insists Legolas does not feel this way about her, and Thranduil suggests that Legolas does but confirms that he will not give his blessing. So whether Legolas sees her as a favored gal pal or the possible love of his life is never made clear by one of the most essential parties: Legolas. It isn’t said explicitly, but it also doesn’t seem likely that Thorin would approve of Kili’s relationship with Tauriel. Relations with the elves certainly aren’t at a high, and Tauriel, despite her banishment (which seems somewhat inconsequential in retrospect) would be a problematic alliance with the dwarf prince.

The death scene of Kili is made all the more potent and tragic because for once Tauriel fails. She is so close to succeeding. Kili himself is so close to succeeding. After all of the exploits Tauriel has made throughout the series (including shooting a flying arrow out of the air), she fails when it comes to protecting someone she has started to love. The love triangle has something of a Romeo and Juliet feel to it, not in the obvious two groups that are supposed to be kept apart but in the love at first sight that has no chance to mature. I do not doubt that Tauriel and Kili loved each other in the way that many feel that burn of infatuation and compelling desire to be with one another. And yet the love was struck down and death claimed it before the love was ever allowed to develop.

I think that there is some unnecessary hardness directed at Tauriel, describing her as a Mary Sue or a wish fulfillment character. But she’s prancing along next to Marty Stu himself (Legolas). In fact, most of the elves fall into this category in my opinion. They are practically flawless. Just watch them fight! They don’t just turn in battle; they spin. Thranduil having mud on his cheek in a lovely twist pattern is about as bad as any elf ever looks in this series. (Seriously, watch how Thranduil positions himself when he is flung from his elk. Russian ballerinas are more clumsy!) For that matter, Thranduil is one of the few flawed elves I can think of off the top of my head.  (I actually wound up preferring the dwarves to the elves in the books as well because I thought the elves were so darn perfect they were annoying.) And as pointed out here, Tauriel does fail. She fails at the most important moment of her life, and you know that it will surely haunt her and she will never get over it.

I was sad that Fili got passed over so much. He got pressed to the side, but I have heard that the extended edition will contain more about him. His death scene though is…heart wrenching and brutal. In one sense, I would say that his death is the nastiest and the saddest because there is no time to mourn over his body. He dies, and then it’s time to fight.

What a Woman! Dark Galadriel is a Sight to Behold

Gandalf apparently is helpless to do anything to escape after his imprisonment at the end of the second movie. And Galadriel arrives to rescue him, dressed as the demure elvish queen we have seen her as. Elegant in all white with a silver crown. Well…not only does she pick Gandalf up and carry him out like he’s nothing, but she also beats back Sauron with the aid of Elrond and Saruman. The film here offers a brief glimpse into why it would be so dangerous for Galadriel to take the One Ring herself. I wish that there had been more of her and her story, but, again, it was like her story just intersected with the rest of the plot and then she went on her own way.

Connection Back to the Beginning and Lord of the Rings

I did cry when Fili, Kili, and Thorin died. But I cried the most when Bilbo returned home and then the movie connected back to the story that started in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and seamlessly flowed into The Fellowship of the Ring. Following that up with Billy Boyd’s song , The Last Goodbye, was absolutely perfect when combined with pencil sketches of all the characters. (If you have not listened to the song, I recommend you give it a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8ir8rVl2Z4 It’s beautifully appropriate: melancholy, haunting, and lovely at once.

The other point that got me was at the end when the dwarves say farewell to Bilbo. Balin stands off a little bit from the rest, saying goodbye. And it struck me then that after a few years, Balin would go on to the Mines of Moria with some of the other dwarves and meet his own end. It gave the feeling that the story was continuing on. The Hobbit is only one small piece in a much larger story, and that is perhaps one of the things I love the most.

Could It Have Been Just as Good if It Had Strictly Followed the Book? Or Been Just One Movie

I actually have no problem with this series being three movies. If it had been a single movie, there would not have been sufficient time to connect to the characters. And even two movies would have pushed that. By the end of the third movie (even though I wished it could have been a little longer to finish fleshing certain things out), I was attached to the characters. Thorin’s death wasn’t just the death of a greedy dwarf king who didn’t know how to share. Fili and Kili weren’t just two faceless dwarves who died at his side. And the elf king actually has a name. There were reasons for a lot of the things that happened, and it reveals where Gandalf was during the times when he was so desperately needed. To me, it felt every bit as tragic as the story showed it should be.

Whether it could have been just as good as a strict interpretation of the book, I don’t know. Maybe. I saw the animated Hobbit a long time ago, and I did not like it. It left me unmoved and generally ticked off, even though it was quite faithful as I recall (it’s been a long time, so I may need to watch it again). I actually did feel as I watched this series. I was transported back to Middle Earth and fell in love with the story all over again.

So did I love it? Yes! Absolutely. Does it have its flaws? Yes. It does, but that doesn’t keep me from loving it. I will admit that as soon as I got home, I followed with a tradition that has been part of my life ever since I watched Davy Crockett and the Battle of the Alamo. I pulled up the first movie where everything was good, got to a point where I could see all of the dead characters, and then told myself everything was fine. Denial is bliss. 😉

But really this was a wonderful journey. I do recommend if you enjoy fantasy you should certainly check it out. I’m sorry to see the journey end, but I will gladly take it again and again.

 Into the Storm was not a movie that I had high hopes for. After all, it’s a disaster movie, and disaster movies generally don’t have the best track record when it comes to story lines or characters. Special effects are typically the main reason that folks go. Look, you can see the White House get blown up! Or there goes a whole fleet of 747s! Or look at that! The tornado is on fire! Recently, disaster films have also had a tendency to be overly preachy and even dull.

However, I actually left the theater surprisingly pleased. Overall, I found it to be an enjoyable popcorn flick that I would gladly watch again and probably would add to my movie collection. But let’s get into the film.

Premises You Must Accept if You’re Going to Enjoy This Movie

Okay, every disaster film has at least one or two of these. But you need to be able to accept these premises if you’re going to enjoy it.

1)      Some people will act incredibly stupid and ignore commonsense.

2)      Everyone looks really quite fantastic after having been through a massive series of natural disasters. Seriously. Some of the survivors get a little bloodied up. Hair gets wet. Mud streaks the clothing. But everyone looked really quite good all the way through. Having been through storms involving a tornado, I can tell you I looked about a thousand times worse, and the tornado itself didn’t even touch down anywhere near me.

3)      People and their vehicles will get far closer to tornados than is humanly possible without getting sucked in unless it’s required by the plot.

4)      Multiple tornadoes, including an F5, all descend upon the same poor area.

5)      Deaths are entirely at the film’s whim. People who shouldn’t be alive sometimes make it through what must otherwise be a miraculous event whereas others were obviously wearing red shirts.

Fusion of Regular Footage and Found Footage

Most of the time, I don’t enjoy found footage films. The shaky cameras and wooden dialogue tend to annoy me even though they’re supposed to mimic reality. In this case, it didn’t bother me as much. The film itself is a fusion of the traditional narrative style married to the found footage as Donnie and Trey, two brothers, are putting together interviews for the high school graduation and the time capsule. The other found footage comes from a group of storm chasers who are hoping to not only track down a tornado but anchor down and enter into the tornado itself. Security cameras also help to fill in the blanks, but the story itself includes regular film shots so that we can actually see what’s going on.

The found footage in this case gives it a rawer feel without making it feel entirely home cooked or nauseating. It also gives the whole piece more of the feel of walking into people’s lives rather than the film being based around them.

The Characters

For me, one of the most important things in any story is the characters. In a number of reviews, folks have described them as wooden or forgettable. For whatever reason, I actually liked the characters. Will they stand the test of time and be some of the most beloved upon whom I fondly dwell? No. But I enjoyed them more than I enjoyed the characters in Twister, 2012, and other disaster films. In some cases, yes, the dialogue was quite wooden, and it just didn’t sound natural for the characters to even be having those conversations. One conversation that takes place in a church feels particularly stilted and obligatory (though there’s some interesting symbolism in the survivors fleeing into a church when a spiraling fire tornado attacks; that particular tornado struck me as a horrifying representation of a possibility for hell).

The weaknesses in the characters and in the story itself can generally be traced back to the screenwriting. At times, it felt as if the story and dialogue just needed to go through the editing process a few more times to really polish it up.

In general though, the characters felt believable enough to me. Donnie is somewhat shy and awkward, uncertain how to pursue his love interest, Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn suffers the most from no character development. She is clearly just there to serve the purpose of getting Donnie to a particular place and provide an emotional scene. Yet Alycia Carey who played her did not do a bad job with the character. All of the actors actually did quite well with what they were given to work with, and in some cases, that wasn’t much. There’s one scene in particular between Donnie and Kaitlyn when they think they’re nearing their end that is particularly good. The emotion conveyed through the eyes is quite believable. Donnie’s message to his father and brother particularly so.

Trey has gained a fair amount of criticism as well. But I actually liked his character quite a bit. He reminds me of a number of young boys I’ve met. A little on the snarky smart aleck side with his own agenda and yet still that little bit of sweetness. Granted, I might have been grinning because I kept thinking of other students I know who are like him. Plus the kid always had a knife on him, despite his father forbidding it. And it works well for an ongoing joke as well as a resolution to some of the problems.

The storm chasers aren’t enormously developed. In fact, they are probably the most clichéd of the characters with the exception of Allison. Peter is essentially a Captain Ahab out to get his white whale, the tornado. And the others are there to serve as cameramen and tornado fodder.

Allison, played by Sarah Wayne Callies, does a nice job playing the research analyst who has had to give up time with her five year old daughter to work. She isn’t annoying, she doesn’t have a chip on her shoulder, and she has her work cut out for her. She carries herself with a quiet weariness that makes it feel as if she is a person who just happened to get caught in this documentary.

Another character who feels like he just happened to get caught in the middle of his regular life for the documentary is Gary, Donnie and Trey’s father. He’s played by Richard Armitage whom you’ve probably seen in The Hobbit. In the beginning, Gary really doesn’t have much time to participate because he is busy preparing for the graduation. The emotional moments and development come later, and the character is odd in that he seems to possess skills that aren’t really explained. In fairness, the film doesn’t do much to establish any characters’ abilities with the exception of Donnie and Trey’s filming talents and the storm chasers’ abilities to track storms. Some of the stoicness involved with Gary just strikes me as the character’s personality rather than bad acting or even bad writing necessarily. Though I will address some of the odder points in a special section with my own particular resolution.

And last but not least….let’s talk about the rednecks. Oh yes. They’ve received some fantastic outrage and criticism for being so 2D. But…um…I can’t be offended because…yeah…I know guys like this. The rednecks definitely made me smile a bit. Particularly their end. Sure, it’s cheesy. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. Sometimes the reason that there are stereotypes is because those stereotypes are true.

Not necessarily something you should aspire to, but if you’ve lived in this area, I’m sure you have met one or two people who fit into that redneck category.

For me, the characters in this movie were far and above more likeable and connectable than in Godzilla or Transformers 4: Age of Extinction or the other disaster films. In one scene involving a near trapped drowning, I knew there was no way that they were going to let those characters die. But it still got me on the edge of my seat as did the points when the tornado chased them. (Sometimes I did wonder whether the tornado was hunting them. I could swear these disasters get a scent of our main characters and then decide they want to finish them off, whatever the cost.)

Cliches

This film relies heavily on clichés. In fact, I was able to successfully predict just about everything, but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment. Some of the clichés such as the black friend who vanishes as soon as the white friend he is supporting dies bothered me more than others. Cliches such as the last minute rescue and the overly strict dad with free spirited boys actually work for the story.

But more than that, the writers didn’t force some of the other clichés on there. Spoiler alert here, but I fully expected them to shoehorn in a romance between Gary and Allison. It was perfectly set up for that. Single father with two sons meets single mother with adorable little girl. How could it not turn out that way? In most other films, it would have. But not here. While there’s certainly chemistry between Allison and Gary for the limited time when that’s a possibility, nothing happens except for that connection. They then move on. It’s certainly a possibility that something might happen between them later, but it’s not rubbed in your face.

At the end of the day, this film wants to be a happy disaster film. It ends on a fairly high note with interviews being redone for the time capsule. Probably unrealistic given what they all endured, but still serving to remind the viewer to live each day like it might be your last because one day it will be. So cheesy at points, yes. Hokey at others, absolutely. Enjoyable overall, most definitely.

My Brilliant Theory About Why the Vice Principal Could Be The Way He Is

            All right. Gary, the vice principal and one of the main characters in the movie, is a rather intriguing character. It’s not that he’s unbelievable. Such a character could certainly exist, but particular circumstances would need to exist to give rise to that character. In addition to being in excellent condition for a single father of two boys while also serving as a vice principal, he never freaks out and he always knows what to do. (In fact, in one scene, I could swear he was about to punch the tornado rather than let it drag off an innocent victim.)

In all fairness, not much is revealed about Gary’s background or his past or why he is the way that he is. All that we know for certain is that his wife died and he is raising his two sons alone. However, I have a theory. See, most of the time, when folks are this calm, they have been through exceptionally stressful circumstances before and perhaps even received training.

Now Richard Armitage played another character known as Lucas North in MI-5 or Spooks.

At the conclusion of Season 9, Lucas goes rogue and appears to commit suicide. Yet clearly, he did not.

He either  fell through an anomaly (ala Primeval) or the Doctor (Doctor Who) picked him up and gave him a lift to small town Oklahoma

where he married a nurse and adopted her two sons. His skills as a top notch MI-5 agent assisted in his getting as far as vice principal and later on helped him handle the myriad of emergencies that Into the Storm dragged up. It also explains the British accent that keeps fighting to get out of the American accent all the way through. And the fact is that Richard Armitage, while a very talented actor, just does better speaking normally. Some accents are easier to mimic than others, and an Oklahoma accent certainly isn’t one of them.

General Conclusions

I really enjoyed this film. It certainly has its weaknesses, but it also offered a fun ride.

It ended just when it needed to end, clocking in at just under an hour and a half. It’s nothing enormous and grand. It’s just a fun story that’s intended to entertain. And maybe convince you that tornadoes are dangerous. Just in case, you know, you had any doubts.