The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug (12A.)
Directed by Peter Jackson.
Starring Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Luke Evans, Evangeline Lilly, Orlando Bloom and Ken Stott. 161 mins.
The film version of the second 130 odd pages of The Hobbit is all together much better than that of the first 130 odd pages. Most of the quibbles and misgivings people had with the first one have been addressed: Martin Freeman is much more comfortable as Bilbo; it doesn’t feel like they have shoved in loads of filler to bulk out the running time and the film jumps straight into the action and keeps its giddy up for the whole running length. This time there are fights with big spiders, a river escape in barrels, more beheadings than you’d expect of the film of a children’s book, Gandalf being menaced by The Evil Floating Vagina of Fire and there is a showdown with the dragon Smaug.
(Smaug is voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, whose interpretation seems to be based on the snake that used to warn moviegoer before the film started about thieves operating in the cinema.)
To all intents and purposes it is just like the Lord of the Rings films we all enjoyed a decade ago. Despite this, I still don’t think this new saga matches up. When faced with these kinds of fantasy epics there are people who instinctively embrace the mythology and immerse themselves in it. Then there are others who won’t have anything to do with elves and dwarves and goblins. The magic of the Lord of the Rings trilogy was that it appealed to everyone, even those that felt that sword and sorcery was an inherently unsavoury and creepy pursuit.
These Hobbit films don’t have that wider embrace. They seem nerdy and geeky and though the pacing is relentless and it hurtles through the action sequences like it is an Indiana Jones film, to the non-believer it is inordinately long. Also, while the special effects seemed cutting edge and the best around 10 years ago, they don’t look so special now. Dare I venture that the fated Weta special effects team has been left behind a little in the last decade? This second film is available in the 48 frames per second High Frame Rate that many people found distracting and underwhelming in the first one, but at the press screening the film was screened in the conventional 24 frames per second, which must be telling.
When I was around ten years old I have a memory of pulling down a copy of The Hobbit from the shelf of the local library and perusing it as a potential borrowing, before replacing it and taking out Jimmy Greaves’s autobiography. So I’m in no position to speak as a defender of Tolkien, but the decision to inflate his earlier work into a copycat trilogy is surely a wrong one (except financially.) I just don’t believe these are a true adaptation of that book I once held in my hand.
Directed by Peter Jackson.
Starring Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Luke Evans, Evangeline Lilly, Orlando Bloom and Ken Stott. 161 mins.
The film version of the second 130 odd pages of The Hobbit is all together much better than that of the first 130 odd pages. Most of the quibbles and misgivings people had with the first one have been addressed: Martin Freeman is much more comfortable as Bilbo; it doesn’t feel like they have shoved in loads of filler to bulk out the running time and the film jumps straight into the action and keeps its giddy up for the whole running length. This time there are fights with big spiders, a river escape in barrels, more beheadings than you’d expect of the film of a children’s book, Gandalf being menaced by The Evil Floating Vagina of Fire and there is a showdown with the dragon Smaug.
(Smaug is voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, whose interpretation seems to be based on the snake that used to warn moviegoer before the film started about thieves operating in the cinema.)
To all intents and purposes it is just like the Lord of the Rings films we all enjoyed a decade ago. Despite this, I still don’t think this new saga matches up. When faced with these kinds of fantasy epics there are people who instinctively embrace the mythology and immerse themselves in it. Then there are others who won’t have anything to do with elves and dwarves and goblins. The magic of the Lord of the Rings trilogy was that it appealed to everyone, even those that felt that sword and sorcery was an inherently unsavoury and creepy pursuit.
These Hobbit films don’t have that wider embrace. They seem nerdy and geeky and though the pacing is relentless and it hurtles through the action sequences like it is an Indiana Jones film, to the non-believer it is inordinately long. Also, while the special effects seemed cutting edge and the best around 10 years ago, they don’t look so special now. Dare I venture that the fated Weta special effects team has been left behind a little in the last decade? This second film is available in the 48 frames per second High Frame Rate that many people found distracting and underwhelming in the first one, but at the press screening the film was screened in the conventional 24 frames per second, which must be telling.
When I was around ten years old I have a memory of pulling down a copy of The Hobbit from the shelf of the local library and perusing it as a potential borrowing, before replacing it and taking out Jimmy Greaves’s autobiography. So I’m in no position to speak as a defender of Tolkien, but the decision to inflate his earlier work into a copycat trilogy is surely a wrong one (except financially.) I just don’t believe these are a true adaptation of that book I once held in my hand.
