How does The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug compare to the first? Well damn, you'll just have to keep reading to find out.
The more thought I put into this, the less I find a review is even worth it. If I see a really good movie, I am very happy to talk about it with anyone who'll listen. And then it seems the more I talk about it, the more I love it. Forcing myself to discuss a movie I am unhappy with has an equal and opposite effect. I really want to enjoy these Hobbit movies, so reinforcing my disappointment by going over the flaws again and again isn't helping anyone.
To some extent, I learned my lesson after An Unexpected Journey. These movies are not The Lord of the Rings. They really want to be. And maybe if LOTR didn't exist, these would be really powerful, exciting, epic films. But they're all just a shallow half-hearted reminder that something better has already been made and, if your ass is in the theater, than that better something is likely in your DVD collection already.
This time around, I went into the theater with lower expectations. And that was a good move. Basically, everything wrong with the first movie had rippled through to the second. Yes, I read the book. But no, I am not such a hardcore Tolkien fan that I'll rant about every minute deviation from source. That being said, it was once again painfully obvious when the narrative when into uncharted territory. Characters and plot threads that were written in to add screen time have no purpose other than to say and do things that can warrant some flashy special effects work. And once again it is at the expense of any unified central narrative. I admit, Bilbo and the dwarves are finally expanded on, something that was painfully lacking in the first entry.
I think back now and can't seem to remember any of the dialogue from the film. You can tell what scenes the filmmakers thought were important and actually gave some attention to: Thranduil and Legolas interrogating an orc, and Bilbo talking to Smaug. Everything else was "let's throw in a few more shots of New Zealand here" and "wouldn't it be cool if the eye of Sauron showed up and just zoomed in and out of the screen for about ten full seconds?"
I did get to see the high frame rate version this time. And I will say that the headache-inducing visuals, like those from the first film, are made much more crisp and solid in 48fps. The IMAX 3D was pretty impressive. The scale -- especially of Smaug -- was accomplished very well. But again, no five consecutive minutes of the movie can be watched without an idiotic leap in logic, a contrived plot move, or a dumb (meant to be funny) look on Martin Freeman's face.
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Anyways...of course I will go see the third one next year. Because I am a sucker. I would like to hear from someone who really loved it and thought it was brilliant (as long as that same someone is more than ten years old). As I said, it makes me depressed to sit and reiterate the things I didn't like about a movie that I spent years anticipating. Now all I anticipate is the "Everything Wrong With..." video. If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's a link to the first one.
P.S. Why the fuck are more of the orcs CGI? In the original trilogy there were orcs and Uruk-Hai. The Uruk-Hai were the bigger fiercer ones. And they were all played by humans in makeup. We got scenes like this:
Which, by the way, made us give a shit about the characters. In these films, the supposed orcs are all giant and white and fake as fuck. Are we finally at a point where it's cheaper to just digitize some bad guys instead of put some makeup on a guy? If that were the case, they could've saved half the movie budget if they had just removed the dwarves altogether.
Sigh, everything about this review is true. While I do appreciate that Peter Jackson seemed try a little harder with this movie (there were some semblances of plot and a semi-original score), I found it mostly disappointing. Everything that was added storyline was silly, especially Tauriel and Lake Town. I thought it was interesting when you mentioned that you couldn’t remember any of the dialogue—so much of what was great about the original Lord of the Rings trilogy was the connection that the audience had with the characters. This is something that is blatantly lacking in this new trilogy. The dwarves and Bilbo are mostly useless and the only character that I ended up really caring about was Gandalf, mostly out of nostalgia for the original films. (Side note: pulling the “you shall not pass” staff slam against Sauron… not cool, PJ).
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