Hobbit movie blah blah
Finally saw the Desolation of Smaug on DVD! Hmm, what a curate’s egg of a movie. Parts were excellent, the other parts were… a lot of faffing about.
( Spoilers though you all know them! )
( Spoilers though you all know them! )
Liked Tauriel, thought she was a well-handled original character, but agreed the Kili stuff was milked. Agreed with my daughter that the fight scenes were again unbelievable, especially Legolas' antics, taking away from the impact of the battles. I thought Bloom did well, really, but the stuff he was made to do undercut the character. Loved Martin Freeman, loved the spider scene. In fact, I thought the spiders of Mirkwood were handled better than Shelob in her scenes. Very, very good. Yes, it seemed ridiculous that the Dwarves went through that with topless barrels and managed not to sink, but Legolas leaping among their heads while shooting arrows made that a minor implausibility.
As usual, I thought the design team and artisans did a FANTASTIC job.
Smaug. Hmmm. I think I was disappointed there. Not that the actors, Cumberbatch and Freeman, didn't do fine work. It was PJ's choices again. The prolonged chase scene especially diminished Smaug as a foe. Smaug is invincible because he's invincible, which is why he only can be vanquished by the coming together of Bilbo's observation of the one unarmored spot, the messenger who gives Bard the information, Bard's openness to legend that lets him hear that information, coming from a bird, and act on it, making him the right person to loose the arrow that could hit the mark. I also thought Smaug was more one dimensional vocally than he should have been, lots of bellowing and blasting, but not so much of that soft, insidious, confidential speech that nearly undoes Bilbo, making him doubt himself and the Dwarves.
Agreed the windlass cross bow thing (is that what it was) seemed over the top, and, I thought, took away from the legendary/mythical aspect of the book, replacing it with the modern idea that the most advanced weaponry wins, not providentially designated heroes. But PJ, a decidedly modern person, had trouble with this in the LOTR films, too. (Yes, his carrot in Bree was an eye-roller.) I'm beginning to think PJ should concentrate on production rather than continuing to write and direct. He's bubbly and enthusiastic and imaginative, and great at encouraging and firing up others, but he doesn't seem to have the self-discipline, or the discernment, to make really good films. How he managed LOTR so well, I can only think it's like the thing he doesn't get: the notion of myth/magic/legend, things coming together in a providential way. Like the heroes of Tolkien, he and his team succeeded because the right people came together at the right time in the right circumstances in the right place to create what they created, as if chosen by providential design. It wasn't his own genius, but a timely confluence of many people under his leadership who were enabled to make what they made, a gift, a film gem, flawed but wonderfully beautiful.
Well, I did go on and on. Guess I haven't bothered to say any of this before. :)
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Agree on many points. I don't object to Tauriel as a character - but that she was in there at all. For the sake of having a female kickass character who was not in the book, and the whole Kili thing. I read on IMDB that their scenes were added to 'beef up' the film. That says it all!
Leggie, well, yes. His blue contacts were distracting! :D
Design team et al are superb, no question. And the prolonged chase, yes, it was too long and not needed. I get why the Dwarves became involved, otherwise they never get to face down their foe. But it went on and on and on! The more PJ tries to thrill, the more bored I get. Mind you, Gilded Smaug looked very cool.
Re PJ, yes again. He seems to have that awful tendency to replace storytelling (and great mythical storytelling at that) with bombast and too many special effects. At least we got the magicry that was LOTR!
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Ah, yes, we did. *sigh sigh sigh*
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