10 February 2013

Kicking the Hobbit: Bored of the Rings


(I see a lot of live performances, but don't usually review them. But this one holds a special place in my heart.)

Synopsis: (hijacked from Desert Star Playhouse's web site)
Science Fiction geek Walter gets a “Dear John” from his fiance because he spends too much time fantasizing about "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings." Now Walter must journey to Middle-Earth with a zany band of misfits to return balance to the the world...and his girlfriend. Come along on this hilarious adventure to find out if Walter can defeat the Dark Lord Sharon and become a hero to couch potatoes everywhere.

Why did I watch this movie again?

Uh, hello...LOTR, Star Wars, geeks, Middle-Earth, parody? What part of this doesn't scream win?

5 out of 5

Characters

It's always amusing to see what these Desert Star team will come up with. I'd have to say that I pretty much loved all of the characters. They all made me laugh, they all made me cringe, and—as they were supposed to—they all kind of reminded me of me.

5 out of 5

Did I care what happened?

Yes. Although the plot for Walter to take the ring back to his girlfriend to see if he could re-win her heart didn't pull me along nearly as much as Ken Jennings' random answers in the phrase of a question did. Whoever wrote this play was great, and this character in particular was hilarious.

Each character had something they wanted, and they were all equally ridiculous in their desires. So nice job.

4 out of 5

Plot Holes

A production like this only uses a plot to string together a rather impressive number of jokes. Which it did fine at.

3 out of 5

How many times did I yawn?

No yawning. Princess Leia made me roll my eyes a few times, as did Hillary Clinton/Gollum. But I think they did that on purpose.

At one point the dialogue seemed to slow down, but it picked back up pretty quick. And I laughed a lot, which was the whole point!

4 out of 5

Cool Factor

I'm going to change this to the Funny Factor.

I went to this show expecting to be completely entertained by geeky references, Mormon references (because they always toss them in), political zingers and ridiculous circumstances. I pretty much got all of that.

4 out of 5

The End

The end—when Walter gets back into the real world—made me laugh pretty hard, because we got to then see who all of the characters in his “Dream” were based on. And some of them were really funny.

4 out of 5

Overall Enjoyment

I laughed. Out loud. Multiple times. The switch from an Orc attack to a Dork attack really entertained me, and my not so inner geeky self loved it!

4 out of 5

Score=31


That's a Brown Belt

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