Recently, Jonny Prophet and I braved over a foot of snow and a -35 wind chill in a literal life or death journey to see the new Hobbit movie. But instead of walking like our heroes in Middle Earth, we had the good sense to drive there.
Toaster's Contribution - I have to say I enjoyed this one much more than the previous
Hobbit installment. The Desolation of Smaug didn’t feel like it was lagging and
bursting at the seams with filler. You had a lot of good rise and fall in
action, some great battle sequences and a definite feeling of plot advancement.
Unlike the previous film, this one didn’t feel like it was three hours long.
This film added some characters, some new and one old. Lee
Pace, the pie-maker from Pushing Daisies,
played Thranduil. He was the king of the elves of Mirkwood and really helped
give them that bad reputation of being assholes to everyone else. Tauriel, a
red headed she-elf was played by Lost’s
Evangeline Lily. I’m glad to see her get work. Plus, now she has another role
on her resume where she played a sexy geek fantasy character. (She was pretty
damn hot, I must admit.) Then there’s Legolas… the sexual fantasy of most women
and a few men (whether they want to admit it or not) from the original LOTR
trilogy. But he was different here. In the LOTR movies he was fairly
light-hearted and kind. I mean, yeah, he was a killing machine to be sure, but
Legolas carried himself as a nice guy. In this movie, he was a dick. Legolas
was always scowling and treated everyone like he had a chip on his shoulder.
(He also looked older, which is weird because this took place years before the
LOTR! I thought elves were virtually immortal!) I know that the movie had set
up him to be in a love triangle with Tauriel and Kili the cute dwarf (aka the
Paul McCartney of Thoren’s group!). I don’t get it, though. Legolas was so zen
in the previous films. Maybe they will explain this personality shift in the
final film. Or maybe Legolas will be a sort of ‘reverse Anakin’ of the Middle
Earth films, being a total mismatch of how he was originally perceived.
So you have this love-triangle subplot in addition to the
main plot featuring Thoren Oakenshield and Bilbo Baggins taking back treasure
from Smaug… but then there’s this other subplot that I can only describe as
“Gandalf and Radagast’s Excellent Adventure.” Early on in the film, Gandalf
excuses himself from the plot to go investigate the ruins of Dol Guldur over
the alarming number of orcs and necromancers reported in the vicinity. He ends
up getting followed around by Radagast, that other wizard that’s covered in
animal crap. I’m honestly not sure what purpose he serves toward the movie.
Radagast is like that smelly dumb guy who you let hang around with you out of
pity but then after a few days you end up really regretting the decision. Even
Gandalf knows he’s too cool to be seen with a guy with bird shit in his hair and
beard! That’s why Gandalf tells Radagast to stay behind once he reaches Dol
Guldur.
I’ve never read the book, but I am wondering if Peter
Jackson is making the connection of this “prequel” trilogy to the Lord of the
Rings films a lot more pronounced. The previous Hobbit film had Gandalf
discussing the “ring wraith” threat with Galadriel, Elrond and Saruman. This
one of course dealt with the Necromancer, but in a specific scene the character
was directly identified as Sauron by Gandalf, even going to far as to show the
silhouette of the fully armored Sauron as the iris of the flaming eye
(appearing to be the same flaming eye over Mordor). It’s not a bad idea for Jackson to take a few
creative liberties with his films, especially to connect The Hobbit (written
before the Lord of the Rings books) to his LOTR trilogy. However, it will lead
me to question something. The events of the Hobbit occur about sixty years
before Fellowship of the Ring. If all of this evidence of the return of Sauron
and his forces, especially the supernatural ones like the ring wraiths, why
would the powers of good (i.e. Gandalf, the elves) sit on their asses about it
for so long? Even though it may have looked like Sauron was defeated (as I
assume the Necromancer and his forces fall in the final part of The Hobbit),
the dude’s come back before! Maybe the elves should have gotten together and
purged Middle Earth of the orcs and other bad guys to make sure the Dark One
can never resurface as a threat again. Maybe then it wouldn’t have seemed like
the rise of Mordor caught everyone with their pants down!
I do have a complaint that doesn’t really pertain to the
quality of the film itself but more a gimmick of the presentation. Hobbit 2:
Hobbit Harder was filmed using that High Frame Rate, or 48 frames per second
instead of the usual 24 frames per second. This method can look very pleasing;
the on-screen motion can seem a lot more fluid and easier to see in fast paced
situations. The problem is that the HFR method can make the CGI look out of
place. One of the triumphs of the original LOTR trilogy was how seamlessly the
computer animation blended with the live action (for the most part at least). For
some reason though, during the fast paced fight sequences, the HFR made the CGI
look obvious and fake. The rest of the time, the HFR made the movie look like
it was shown on a giant LCD television... which is cool I guess. Not really
anything I was demanding nor something I would necessarily gravitate toward
when choosing a movie. (For note, Jonny and I saw the 3D HFR showing because it
was the nearest time to our arrival at the theater.)
The ending was an obvious cliffhanger, so much so that
nothing was really resolved. Almost every plot thread was left dangling. Unlike
the Lord of the Rings films, there wasn’t a ‘mini-climax’ to end this film.
Even the first Hobbit movie had its own climax. This film literally just leads
into the next one. It wasn’t necessarily unsatisfying, but it is always a
little irritating to know I have to wait a year before getting resolution.
Granted I could read the book, but I already have a stack of comic book trade
paperbacks and graphic novels to plow through (Marvel’s War of Kings, Realm of Kings & Thanos Imperative storylines, Grant Morrison’s JLA run, volume 1 of Garth Ennis’ The Boys, volume 8 of the ‘Ultimate Edition’ of Invincible and first volumes of various
Brian K Vaughan books like Saga, Pride of
Baghdad, Y: The Last Man & Ex
Machina to name just a few).
And now for Jonny Prophet to earn those meds he's been prescribed...
Jonny’s Contribution – Well, it’s another movie set in
Middle Earth, a place where people walk, and walk a lot they do. Why can’t they
make a mass transit system? Why can’t Gandalf use those giant eagles the whole
trip? Why doesn’t Radagast, that brown wizard, clean the bird crap off
himself? Birds are evil. Anyways, a large part of the movie takes
place in the Elf kingdom of Mirkwood, where there are no hand rails and in Lake Town,
where there are also no hand rails. Do they want people to fall off stairs in
Middle Earth? Lake Town is a run down city that is a shadow of its
former glorious self, so basically it’s the Detroit of Middle Earth… only better because they have Steven fry as The
Master. (stupid Kwame) The movie did have a cliffhanger, but don’t feel like I
did when I watch Catching Fire.
(stupid drag queen future). The best part the movie is clearly with Smaug. He
and Bilbo should get apartment together in London and solve murder mysteries. Come on, a
dragon and his Hobbit sidekick solving mysteries? That’s freakin’ amazing.
I also enjoyed Evangeline Lily in the movie, as well as the cameos by
Peter Jackson and Steven Colbert… even if Toaster didn’t catch them.
Okay, to be fair, we
are watching the movie in that 48 frames per second 3D… that’s a lot to take
in. My eyes weren’t always were they needed to be on a big screen with so much
going on. I did see Jackson,
but Colbert was only on screen for 2 seconds! Come on!
Until the next review... Stay Strange!
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