Gene Parmesan wrote:
Movie wise it was a bit of a mess, but visually beautiful.
That pretty much sums up how I felt about it. I'm clearly in the minority, but generally thought the movie was only OK, and definitely the weakest, by far, of PJ's Middle-Earth movies.
My main beef with this movie was that it "nuked the fridge" so many times that I never felt like anything was at stake in any of the action sequences. I like that they made the barrel escape into a bit of an action scene, but was rolling my eyes at the Bombur: Dwarf Barrel of Death bit. I didn't like the ridiculous acrobatics that Legolas pulled off in the LOTR trilogy, but it's only one character, he's an elf and they're supposed to have supernatural agility, and it only happens a couple of times. Not so with dwarves, and there's been a tendency for many of the dwarves to pull off all kinds of ludicrous stunts in the two
Hobbit movies, so far.
I also feel like they sacrificed what could have been great dialogue-driven scenes, or exposing plot points with imagery rather than a quick line, to have drawn out and, as I mentioned above, ultimately low-impact action sequences. For example, Gandalf's trickery to get Beorn to let the dwarves into his home in the book was much more entertaining than the completely artificial suspense of a character who may-or-may-not-but-obviously-won't attack them, right at the beginning of the movie.
Similarly, Bilbo's escape plan from the Wood Elve's dungeon could have done with a
little development. Just one scene, in which he's wearing the ring and sees the drunken elf guards send the barrels down the hatch, would have been nice. That would also have given Bilbo more of a presence earlier in the film - his role seemed strangely downplayed until relatively late in the movie.
I personally also wish the dwarves hadn't confronted Smaug at all, because Bilbo and Smaug's scene in the book is up there with the "Riddles in the Dark" chapter, which was executed really well in
An Unexpected Journey.
That said, I generally appreciated the Dol Guldur scenes, and thought they were very atmospheric.
I did not mind the inclusion of Tauriel at all, and actually thought she was a really cool character. The romantic subplot also didn't bug me - the young dwarf is clearly infatuated with her, but it doesn't necessarily seem to be reciprocated beyond a fondness or platonic friendship for him on her part. We'll see how that pans out in the next movie, I guess.
The spider scene was great, and I liked the touch that Bilbo could understand them only when wearing the Ring. The wood elves were also really well done.
In the end, I thought it was visually stunning, consistent with the other films in that regard, and very well cast. The over-the-top action scenes, however, seemed to take front stage over any sense of narrative, which was a shame. I'm not necessarily a purist, or curmudgeon that thinks everything needs to follow the book to a T, but I did think that, in
most instances where they significantly deviated from the book for this film, they did so unnecessarily, and ultimately to the detriment of the movie.
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"Leave Sauron to me."
