(Distractions) The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug review
This review WILL have spoilers. You have been warned.
For those uninterested in reading the rest of this review I'll go ahead and spare you: I give this movie a solid A. I give An Unexpected Journey a B+. So yes, this is a much better film.
For those that want to stick around, here are my spoilerific thoughts.
The movie kicks off on a low note by setting up the importance of the Arkenstone. This was a great way to start out because the rest of the movie nary lets up its fast pace. By the end, the only way I knew I had been sitting for nearly 3 hours was the distinct pain in my rear.
From there we move on to a great scene with the skin-changer Beorn. It was a short scene but I hope we'll get to see more of him in film 3. It certainly alludes to that.
After that, the company moves into Mirkwood and faces of against some awesome spiders. While this section was great it did remind me a bit of the Skull Island escapades in PJ's King Kong. The entrance of the elves is priceless.
Speaking of the elves, Thranduil is played with great gravitas by Lee Pace. There're layers under that selfish king and not all of them are pleasant.
The barrel chase is fun and Bombur is fantastic here. You'll know when you see it. There was one thing that took me out the chase for a moment: a few shots of a first-person perspective looked like they were filmed with a HD camcorder. The shots are but mere seconds in length but they were jarring to see. I watched the movie in the standard 24 FPS showing so I found it odd to see this.
Lake-town was fun but the meat of the final half that really had me on the edge of my seat was the confrontation with Smaug. Who would have thought that dragons, with their long history in film, could be made utterly watchable in terms of performance? Smaug deserves an Oscar. Its that good.
While all of this is going on, Gandalf is off on his own venture and even though we know he's in The Lord of The Rings, we feel afraid for him.
DoS then ends on a awesome cliffhanger. Some people don't like them but I do. Especially when they're done right. I can't wait for next December.
While An Unexpected Journey was great, I could not rank it above any of the LOTR films. With The Desolation of Smaug I can easily rank it above Fellowship and is nearly surpassing Two Towers. Don't wait for the DVD or Blu-ray. See it now.
Bravo!
For those uninterested in reading the rest of this review I'll go ahead and spare you: I give this movie a solid A. I give An Unexpected Journey a B+. So yes, this is a much better film.
For those that want to stick around, here are my spoilerific thoughts.
The movie kicks off on a low note by setting up the importance of the Arkenstone. This was a great way to start out because the rest of the movie nary lets up its fast pace. By the end, the only way I knew I had been sitting for nearly 3 hours was the distinct pain in my rear.
From there we move on to a great scene with the skin-changer Beorn. It was a short scene but I hope we'll get to see more of him in film 3. It certainly alludes to that.
After that, the company moves into Mirkwood and faces of against some awesome spiders. While this section was great it did remind me a bit of the Skull Island escapades in PJ's King Kong. The entrance of the elves is priceless.
Speaking of the elves, Thranduil is played with great gravitas by Lee Pace. There're layers under that selfish king and not all of them are pleasant.
The barrel chase is fun and Bombur is fantastic here. You'll know when you see it. There was one thing that took me out the chase for a moment: a few shots of a first-person perspective looked like they were filmed with a HD camcorder. The shots are but mere seconds in length but they were jarring to see. I watched the movie in the standard 24 FPS showing so I found it odd to see this.
Lake-town was fun but the meat of the final half that really had me on the edge of my seat was the confrontation with Smaug. Who would have thought that dragons, with their long history in film, could be made utterly watchable in terms of performance? Smaug deserves an Oscar. Its that good.
While all of this is going on, Gandalf is off on his own venture and even though we know he's in The Lord of The Rings, we feel afraid for him.
DoS then ends on a awesome cliffhanger. Some people don't like them but I do. Especially when they're done right. I can't wait for next December.
While An Unexpected Journey was great, I could not rank it above any of the LOTR films. With The Desolation of Smaug I can easily rank it above Fellowship and is nearly surpassing Two Towers. Don't wait for the DVD or Blu-ray. See it now.
Bravo!
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