The Movie: Tolkien
The Director: Dome Karukoski
The Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Colm Meaney, Patrick Gibson, Anthony Boyle, Tom Glynn-Carney, Derek Jacobi
The Story: The formative years of the orphaned author J.R.R. Tolkien as he finds friendship, love and artistic inspiration among a group of fellow outcasts at school.
There is a very heavy and obvious emphasis to evoke Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies in just about every scene of this entire film which I guess isn't really a bad thing, I just feel like it wasn't as necessary to tell Tolkien's story. The man himself is endlessly interesting and there could have been a trilogy of films made about his life so to pack as much into one single film had to be no easy task. While the film makers were busy comparing Tolkien's like to the movies we all know and love, I felt like the heart of who the man was and the soul of his work was a bit lost in the telling.
What wasn't lost were the performances from Nicholas Hoult and Lily Collins who I feel each put in some of their best work to date. Hoult has been slowly building a resume that could stand up to just about anyone working today and his work in this film adds a major cornerstone to that foundation. Collins is always a delight to watch and this performance I would say is easily the best of her career so far. It was also nice to see veteran actors like Colm Meany and Derek Jacobi still delivering stellar performances alongside the aforementioned headliners.
While the movie overall was informative and evocative, I felt like it was a bit hollow and not quite as emotionally engaging as I had hoped. Tolkien fans should definitely check this movie out because you will learn a few things about the man that you din't already know and Lord of the Rings movie fans should check it out because it's sort of an origin story of the movies themselves.
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