wiseheart: (Gildor)
wiseheart ([personal profile] wiseheart) wrote2013-12-29 09:29 pm
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Hobbit II - The Desolation of Smaug

I've just seen the second film. I'm planning to write a longer review over at [livejournal.com profile] edhellondawards, so only a few impressions for now.

Spoliers behind the cut, just in case.

1. NOT ENOUGH BILBO
2. Not enough Thorin, either.
3. No character development re: individual Dwarves
4. Too many sodding Orcs - what were they doing in these films anyway?
5. Too much gratutious fighting, just for fighting's sake.
6. Too many stupid Elven stunts.
7. Too much Legolas - the film could have done without him much better. He's still the cardboard caricature he was in the LOTR trilogy.
8. BLOODY FABULOUS DRAGON! I know male CGI geeks are whining all over the internet about the dragon being not convincing enough - well, too bad for them. I loved it!
9. Brand and the stupid arrow catapult. Somebody shoot me with it, please!
10. Against my expectations, I actually liked Thranduil. His crown and his dressing grown with the floral(???) pattern (yes, I know it was meant to be a robe, but it did look like a woman's dressing gown) were stupid, but the actor did a very decent job.
11. Thranduil's caves looked idiotic.
12. The Dwarves successfully destroyed Erebor from within - I won't say anything else about the whole idiotic plot twist concerning it.
13. Gandalf in a bird cage? Since when were he and Sauron indulging in BDSM practices?
14. The tombs of the Ringwrights? WTF, the whole trick with them was the not dying part... sort of.
15. Elf/Dwarf/Elf love triangle. Bleh.
16. KICK-ASS TAURIEL, though. Loved her.
17. BEORN. Sort of liked him, too. His halls were poorly done, though.
18. Laketown. Hated it. I know it's fanfiction, but not my interpretation. I prefer my Lakemen decent, save for the Master.

All in all, I'm perhaps the only one who liked the first film better. That, at least had a fleeting likeness to the book that I've loved for the better part of my life.

[identity profile] aviv-b.livejournal.com 2013-12-29 11:04 pm (UTC)(link)
I agree with you. Maybe it was because all the reviews said the second film was better - this did not meet my expectations. I liked the first one better than you did, but this was all just fight scenes that could have been in pretty much any sci-fi movie. And while Tauriel was kick-ass, what the hell did she ever see in Legolas? She's much more alive than he'll ever be. I've always thought that Legolas was played too ethereal or maybe ephemeral - cold, not a living breathing being.

And yes about Bilbo - this is HIS story, and he seemed to be relegated off to the side so we could have the big Kili/Tauriel/Legolas love story. And yes about the dragon. He was most alive and fully developed of any character in this film.


I think the problem is the trilogy had more than enough material for 3 movies - the Hobbit would have been better off with 2. With three movies, they have to pad and they can only do so with minor characters or adding in other characters/ story lines that distract from the canon story line.

[identity profile] wiseheart.livejournal.com 2013-12-30 12:39 pm (UTC)(link)
As I said above, it would have made *one* beautiful film, if focused on what it's really about: Bilbo and his character growth.

Legolas was horrible in LOTR and is even worse in "The Hobbit". It's not entirely Orlando Bloom's fault, he could only work what he was given, and was I actually impressed with his acting in "Kingdom of Heaven". He can act if he's given a decently written character.

Unfortunately, Jackson's Elves are all bloodless, boring clones. Their appearance is ridiculous, and they've all been gelded personality-wise... if they had any to begin with.

I was also very upset to see that the different Dwarf characters we saw in the first film got all dissolved into a homogenous mass.