Released: 17 December, 2014
Rated: PG-13
Studio: Warner Bros.
Starring: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard
Armitage, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Luke Evans, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ken
Stott, James Nesbitt
Directed by: Peter Jackson
Written by: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson,
Guillermo del Toro
Personal Bias Alert: has read the book, have not seen the previous Hobbit movies
5 of 10
I
first read The Hobbit in middle
school and walked away thinking quite fondly of the nice, quick little story. Subsequently, I heard the LoTRs trilogy was being
made into films, and in my excitement endeavored to read all three books before
the films were released. I managed, but
it was a slog, never getting into the series’ sluggish pace. The films I fell head over heels for, largely
because it dropped all the incessant singing and whittled down its mythology to
what was necessary. When I heard that The Hobbit was being made into multiple
films (first two, then three), I knew this adaptation wasn’t going to be for
me. It seemed Peter Jackson and company
were going in the opposite direction of my taste this time, expanding and stretching
the fun little book into a slog of epic proportions. Boy, did I nail it.
As
best I can tell, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug takes 144 minutes
to cover about 100 pages of the book.
The main stretch comes from the titular Battle of the Five Armies, a
sequence that takes only 6 pages in the book, but here gets drawn out to unnecessarily
epic proportions without even being clear about how many armies there actually
are (I really am a bit confused about that).
Yes, there’s some invented material to fill in the time, but most of it
feels like the filler it is instead of something that’s actually interesting.
This
film’s saving grace is a series of excellent casting choices that allow the
smaller parts to efficiently have the gravity that hardcore fans desire. J. R. R. Tolkien created a world steeped in
history, and Jackson understands that he must balance the expectations of hardcore
fans with that of the larger audience. Martin
Freeman as Bilbo, cast just before making it big with Sherlock and Fargo, is a
believably good-natured fellow that never buckles when out of his depth. Sure, he’s no fighter, even if he is holding
a sword in that poster, but he does his best to help out when he can. The Elvin cast, primarily Lee Pace,
Evangeline Lilly, and Orlando Bloom, all look the part, and Pace carries
himself with an outward regalness that’s clearly hiding a broken heart. Lilly and Bloom are two of the unfortunate
actors stuck with frivolous roles, but they work adequately with what they’re
given. The other big standout here is
Luke Evans as Bard, a leader of the men of Dale, who along with Bilbo are
perhaps the two most decent fellows in the film. Bard just wants a safe place for his family
and his people, and Evans made me believe that this guy truly was only interested
in the gold so he could rebuild his people’s lands. Unfortunately, this does make Bard remarkably
similar to Evan’s turn as Dracula earlier this year, and there were several times
where I remarked on how helpful it would have been for Bard to have the same
army-wrecking mojo that Dracula traded his soul for.
Like
I said, I once was head over heels for this series. I still keep my worn copies of the books out
in the living room for all to see, but to be honest, a fatigue set in shortly
after the release of The Return of the
King in 2003. I guess my interest in
fantasy, in the goings-on of elves and dwarves and wizards, has its limits, and
I’ve simply had my fill of this world. I
couldn’t help but roll my eyes whenever the silly-haired dwarves showed up, and
the intended comic relief of the smarmy Alfrid just grated. Actually, let’s dwell on Alfrid a moment, because
he brought this film down several notches for me. He’s the classic character that exists only
for broad comedy relief; a frantic, self-serving man who inevitably has a mildly
high-pitched voice and ends up in drag.
He never once felt like he was in the same film as the rest of the
characters, and his comedic efforts do little to break up the film’s dour tone. All of his flailing just made me wish for
Indiana Jones to step out from behind a wall and shoot the guy cold. At least that would have been a satisfying
moment.
Granted,
there are a few truly satisfying moments scattered throughout this film, like
Thorin’s last conversation with Bilbo and the fan-service references to the
LoTR series and the Sackville-Bagginses making off with Bilbo’s spoons. Unfortunately, there’s little else to keep
you entertained through the long stretches in between these moments. The stakes they try to drum up for Thorin is
ludicrously overdone, and the final battle is a repetitive CGI-fest. The most remarkable thing is how bad most of
the CGI work is, with vast armies blurred into a dark, muddled mass and the
lead orc looking more doughy than tough.
If you’re going to invest this much time in a battle sequence, you have
to do much better than this. In fact, if
you’re going to invest this much time in a beloved 304 page book, you better do
inordinately better than this.
Other Notes:
Ø So
do lady Elves always fall in love with non-elves?
Ø Did
we really need a sequence where Thorin is literally engulfed by his greed? No one thought that was too on the nose?
Ø On
the plus side, I finally learned how to pronounce Smaug.
