The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug (review)
Aug. 2nd, 2014 07:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatMost people have probably seen this already...I waited to view on DVD, which was a good thing, since my attention kept wandering during it. I made muffins. I drifted off to sleep. I surfed the net. Not the most gripping or compelling film I've seen. Actually, I recommend watching the first three films instead or better yet, the Ralph Bakshi animated version from the 1970s, which was hugely entertaining and surprise, surprise, actually followed the book pretty closely. Also John Huston was the voice of Gandalf.
Not that this version doesn't follow the book, it does, sort of. It's admittedly been a while since I read The Hobbit. (I read it in the six grade, which was over 20 years ago, I think. Don't exactly feel like figuring it out. ) Although from what I recall there wasn't all these battles with orcs, they didn't spend time with a shape-shifting/skin-changer Bear, Tauriel didn't exist, there was no romantic sub-plot, and we didn't spend all that much time in Lake Town. I may be remembering the truncated version? Also, while Gandalf does disappear from the book for a bit - we aren't told where he went or why - the entire book is in Bilbo's point of view. Also at this stage, Bilbo's new-found ring is a great tool and just grants him the power of invisibility, that's it. It's not a nasty thing that speaks to him or shows him Sauron. I don't think Tolkien had figured out the Lord of The Rings quite yet.
Personally, I didn't mind the introduction of Tauriel or the star-crossed romantic triangle that is hinted at between Leglos/Tauriel/Killi. Although I'd have gone for Leglos, but that's just me. (She might still, the jury's still out on that one.) Killi is played by an attractive actor, the same one that was on the British version of Being Human, (but who is not all that convincing as a dwarf). It sort of livened things up a bit. (One gets tired of battle, chase scene, battle, chase scene, battle - I was starting to drift off to sleep.)
Peter Jackson is like GRR Martin - he loves battles. I find them dull and would have condensed them. If you love to watch battles, some people do, this is definitely your movie.
Best thing in this movie is the dragon, although I liked him better in the book. That's the last 15 minutes. And they don't even kill the dragon - so the movie ends on a cliff-hanger. A 2 hour and 41 minute movie that ends on a cliff-hanger. Oh, and there's an extended version. Apparently Jackson didn't feel he padded this one enough with extraneous items, he needed to add even more stuff to it?
Eh, I found myself wishing Jackson stuck closer to the book, and I'm not a book to film purist, far from it. I see films as the filmmaker's interpretation of the book - there is no way that the filmmaker can recreate the book on screen or create how you personally interpreted it on screen. They can come close. Also, books are huge, like ice bergs, and film's are ice caps - or snapshots of them. BUT, in this case - I think Jackson took an ice berg and decided to create Anartica out of it. I've never seen anyone stretch plot this thin. Like I said above, I wish he stuck to the book (and ignored all the extraneous information, etc). And that's coming from someone who usually could care less about such things.
Overall rating? D (I went to sleep during it - it never bodes well when I go to sleep during an action movie. We'll see if I bother with the next one. Most productions of the Hobbit tend to leave the last portion of the book out - which is the fight with the five armies. Ralph Bakhsi version does contain it - but a rough sketch, with no color and only on some video cassettes - I found one in the 1990s and watched it. I love that version.)
On the tv front - saw the pilot of the critically acclaimed series The Divide on WE. This is the legal thriller written and directed by Tony Goldwyn and Richard Lagrevese. It's actually pretty good. Takes place in Philadelphia and features a death row appeal of two convicted killers responsible for butchering a black family approximately 10 years ago. The daughter witnessed it and fingered one of the men. But here's the thing - she was 8 at the time. And did she really see who did it? The main characters are: an intern with the Innocence Initiative, who is in law school, and whose father is on death row awaiting his last appeal. She's dating a cop. Both are working class, white, Philly. They got the accents down by the way. Then there's the prosecutor, an up and coming black district attorney, whose father played by Lester Freeman from The Wire, is the police chief and who both built their careers on this case. Along with the district attorney's family, and his wife who works with the young girl whose family was butchered. It has some interesting twists and turns, and the characters so far are realistic and gripping. It also has some interesting things to say about the divide between race, gender and class and which has the most privilege (I think it's a draw).
Anyhow, I'd recommend checking it out if you like these sort of things. I think it is better written and filmed than The Bridge or The Killing - at least so far. And has better pacing.
Not that this version doesn't follow the book, it does, sort of. It's admittedly been a while since I read The Hobbit. (I read it in the six grade, which was over 20 years ago, I think. Don't exactly feel like figuring it out. ) Although from what I recall there wasn't all these battles with orcs, they didn't spend time with a shape-shifting/skin-changer Bear, Tauriel didn't exist, there was no romantic sub-plot, and we didn't spend all that much time in Lake Town. I may be remembering the truncated version? Also, while Gandalf does disappear from the book for a bit - we aren't told where he went or why - the entire book is in Bilbo's point of view. Also at this stage, Bilbo's new-found ring is a great tool and just grants him the power of invisibility, that's it. It's not a nasty thing that speaks to him or shows him Sauron. I don't think Tolkien had figured out the Lord of The Rings quite yet.
Personally, I didn't mind the introduction of Tauriel or the star-crossed romantic triangle that is hinted at between Leglos/Tauriel/Killi. Although I'd have gone for Leglos, but that's just me. (She might still, the jury's still out on that one.) Killi is played by an attractive actor, the same one that was on the British version of Being Human, (but who is not all that convincing as a dwarf). It sort of livened things up a bit. (One gets tired of battle, chase scene, battle, chase scene, battle - I was starting to drift off to sleep.)
Peter Jackson is like GRR Martin - he loves battles. I find them dull and would have condensed them. If you love to watch battles, some people do, this is definitely your movie.
Best thing in this movie is the dragon, although I liked him better in the book. That's the last 15 minutes. And they don't even kill the dragon - so the movie ends on a cliff-hanger. A 2 hour and 41 minute movie that ends on a cliff-hanger. Oh, and there's an extended version. Apparently Jackson didn't feel he padded this one enough with extraneous items, he needed to add even more stuff to it?
Eh, I found myself wishing Jackson stuck closer to the book, and I'm not a book to film purist, far from it. I see films as the filmmaker's interpretation of the book - there is no way that the filmmaker can recreate the book on screen or create how you personally interpreted it on screen. They can come close. Also, books are huge, like ice bergs, and film's are ice caps - or snapshots of them. BUT, in this case - I think Jackson took an ice berg and decided to create Anartica out of it. I've never seen anyone stretch plot this thin. Like I said above, I wish he stuck to the book (and ignored all the extraneous information, etc). And that's coming from someone who usually could care less about such things.
Overall rating? D (I went to sleep during it - it never bodes well when I go to sleep during an action movie. We'll see if I bother with the next one. Most productions of the Hobbit tend to leave the last portion of the book out - which is the fight with the five armies. Ralph Bakhsi version does contain it - but a rough sketch, with no color and only on some video cassettes - I found one in the 1990s and watched it. I love that version.)
On the tv front - saw the pilot of the critically acclaimed series The Divide on WE. This is the legal thriller written and directed by Tony Goldwyn and Richard Lagrevese. It's actually pretty good. Takes place in Philadelphia and features a death row appeal of two convicted killers responsible for butchering a black family approximately 10 years ago. The daughter witnessed it and fingered one of the men. But here's the thing - she was 8 at the time. And did she really see who did it? The main characters are: an intern with the Innocence Initiative, who is in law school, and whose father is on death row awaiting his last appeal. She's dating a cop. Both are working class, white, Philly. They got the accents down by the way. Then there's the prosecutor, an up and coming black district attorney, whose father played by Lester Freeman from The Wire, is the police chief and who both built their careers on this case. Along with the district attorney's family, and his wife who works with the young girl whose family was butchered. It has some interesting twists and turns, and the characters so far are realistic and gripping. It also has some interesting things to say about the divide between race, gender and class and which has the most privilege (I think it's a draw).
Anyhow, I'd recommend checking it out if you like these sort of things. I think it is better written and filmed than The Bridge or The Killing - at least so far. And has better pacing.