Film Preview: Tolkien (2019)

Page Revisions:

(February 17, 2019) Original
(March 10, 2019) New Trailer (#2) / New Poster (#1)
(May 5, 2019) New Posters (#2-#4)

Release Date:

May 10, 2019

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “Tolkien explores the formative years of the orphaned author as he finds friendship, love and artistic inspiration among a group of fellow outcasts at school.”

Poster Rating: D+ / C / C+ / C

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Review: (#1) Highlighting the golden “O” is expected, but also cheap. The faint writing in the background of this otherwise dull and lifeless design doesn’t add much depth.

(#2) At the heart of the man who created it is well balanced color scheme and a cheap aesthetic. (#3) It’s an interesting way to separate out Tolkien’s two worlds, but the overall look feels unbalanced. (#4) Another compelling way of looking at the character, this time with both an overused aesthetic and a poorly constructed one.

Trailer Rating: B / C+

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Review: (#1) In spite of knowing that in Tolkien’s own words that the war had no actual influence on his seminal works, there’s always been a sense that such was true even if he wouldn’t acknowledge or even identify with it. This trailer has a lot of very evocative scenes that suggest a rather fascinating parallelism between Tolkien’s real life and his written one.

(#2) The shameless attempts the writers of the film and the creators of the trailer to cheaply reference J.R.R. Tolkien’s works is disheartening, suggesting the film really can’t consider it an appropriate exploration of the author’s life.