Gimli The Avenger Admin
Posts : 27722 Join date : 2008-07-23 Location : Middle Earth
| Subject: Re: The Hobbit Sat Dec 07, 2013 9:44 am | |
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Gimli The Avenger Admin
Posts : 27722 Join date : 2008-07-23 Location : Middle Earth
| Subject: Re: The Hobbit Fri Dec 13, 2013 11:03 pm | |
| More thoughts later but The Desolation Of Smaug might be the first of Jackson's Middle Earth films that doesn't get top marks from me.
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Gimli The Avenger Admin
Posts : 27722 Join date : 2008-07-23 Location : Middle Earth
| Subject: Re: The Hobbit Sat Dec 14, 2013 8:56 am | |
| The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug (1st view) - In the cinema last December, as "The Hobbit" appeared on the cinema screen I settled myself down and prepared for an almost three hour film. What seemed like half an hour had passed and the film had ended. It flew by. It flew by the second time I watched it ata the cinema and it flew by two days ago on DVD. Time also seems to vanish whenever I watch the LOTR films. But with The Desolation of Smaug, Middle-Earth did, for the first time, occasionally feel pondorous and slow. My memory of the film is that it consisted of about nine main sequences - Beorn, spiders, elvish prison, Gandalf's wanderings, barrels, Bard, Laketown, keyhole, Smaug. At least one felt pointless (Beorn), one went on for far long (barrels) and two more (prison, Laketown) had moments that I wished would just end, and, most of them involved Taurlel, Legolas, Kili or Stephen Fry. Such feelings are new to me when it comes to Midlle Earth. Admittedly, way back in 2002 in a time before even Fellowship was my favouirite film, my first viewing of The Two Towers had me kinda hoping for a little less Treebeard (foolish me!), wishing the film to get back to the main thrust of the story. Of course, by the time the film ended and we'd seen The Last March Of The Ents, the earlier scenes seemed much better suited than I'd first expected. With this film ending on a very definite, and quite brilliant cliffhanger(a moment which really does make mw wish next December was already here), there was no chance for an "aha!" moment in which eveything slid into place and There and Back Again will have a tremendous job to do to make that happen. And I'm not sure it can because inter-species love triangles between elves and dwarves do, as it turns out, bore me rigid. As good as it was to see fan-fave Legolas (who was a right moody bugger when younger) back again as as much as I liked both Tauriel as a character character and Lily's performance their entire story just seemed poorly handled. I couldn't care less that these were gargentuan changes from the book - The Hobbit is an absolute favourite novel of mine, but Jakcson and co. could have chucked in lightsabre-wielding gingerbread men and I wouldn't have minded had it been done a worthwhile fashion (and it's not as if An Unexpected Journey didnlt have drastic changes either) - but they just felt wrong. I can't describe howor even why. Maybe it's just because a lot of it felt very much like scenes from LOTR, or maybe the moments were just too distracing and out of place, certainly with Stephen Fry's scenes that did seem to be the case. And it's really annoying because the bits I really didn't like are now, in my mind, seeming to have taken up more of the screetime than they actual did. And now I'm thinbking about all the stuff that I did like, so much stuff, then surely I'm just exaggerating the prominence of the flaws? Because the prologue and Mirkwood and the meeting with Bard were just great. And even though it went on for too long and featured too much Elvish gynmastics, the barrels ride was actually a lot of fun. When Stephen Fry (it should be noted that I like Stpehmn Fry and I liked his performance in this, I'm just not entirely such scenes were needed) wasn't about I loved the Laketown scenes too. And Gandalf on his own little quest was just pure pefection for me. I'd happily watch a film of McKellen's Gandalf darning his socks, so when he's visting the burial chambers of the Nazgul or deliberately placing himnself in harm's way by removing spells from from an orc-infested stronghold and doing battle with smoke, I'm all giddy with excitment watching scsnes that equally match the very best of LOTR. And then there's Samug, a truly magnificent sight to behold, wonderously voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch and taking centre stage in a thrilling final forty minutes sequence. And then, as ever, the design and the viausl all just worked, And the music, Shore's worked magic again. Performances to adore from McKellen, Freeman and Stott, an impressive Luke Evans, ditto for Evangeline Lilly, Armitage perhaps evens better in the role than first time around. So actually, yeah, I really, really, really did love an awful lot of the film. And if it wasn't the fifth entry in a series that I hold in such high regard I'd have walked out of the cinema proudly declaring it a five star gem. And I think after I've mulled it over for twelve hours I can say that it is. Roll on next December! - 5/5* | |
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