Desolation of Smaug: Review
Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2013 6:20 pm
Spoiler alert, in case it isn't obvious.
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Okay, you've been warned.
First off, I have to say, I love the opening scene. It really is straight out of the Appendix (or was it the Unfinished Tales?), the meeting between Gandalf and Thorin. And, of course, it means we get to see Bree again... is it always raining there or something?
The first plot change hits us right there: we learn that the specific reason Thorin agrees to hiring a burglar is that he's hoping to steal the Arkenstone out from under Smaug, so he can legitimize his reign and so Dain and the other dwarf families will rally behind him.
I have to say, as changes go, this makes sense. It makes sense why they hired Bilbo and then all sat back on the Doorstep waiting for him to go in and bring back all the treasure: in the book, Bilbo himself points out the futility of this plan. But if all they needed was for Bilbo to burgle the Arkenstone, so they could leave and come back with an army, well, then the need for a burglar fits.
So anyway, we jump back to the main storyline, and meet Beorn. And I have to say, Beorn certainly looks the part, both as man and as beast, even if he's playing him mournful rather than loud and jolly. No complaints there.
We come to the edge of Mirkwood, and Gandalf is summoned away to do some investigating. I do appreciate how Sir Ian plays him as conflicted about leaving: this Gandalf doesn't like leaving his friends in the lurch, unlike the Rankin-Bass Gandalf who was basically all, "I've got more important things to do, suck it up!" I do wish, though, that Gandalf had explicitly left Bilbo in charge, as he had in the books, because it's a needed vote of confidence in Biblo's capability.
The scene with Gandalf examining the tombs of the Nine: beautifully and subtly creepy. I liked how the bars on all the tombs were bent outward. And I enjoyed Gandalf vs. the Necromancer one-on-one. This is the answer to anyone who asks why Gandalf never just overthrow Sauron Maiar-to-Maiar.
The Mirkwood spiders and the naming of Sting: perfect. Those spiders were creepier than Shelob by far (I think it's the longer legs, more orb weaver and less tarantula).
Thranduil: perfect. I mean it, played well and played to the hilt by Lee Pace. You get a sense for his character, that his help comes with a price, that while he disapproves of the dwarves' greed, he himself is not free from the dragon-sickness. And INTERESTING twist that he himself is scarred by an encounter with the "Worms of the North," but that he hides it under... some kind of elven glamour? Seriously, though, the confrontation between Thorin and Thranduil was the best part of the movie.
And... that's sad, because I feel the movie started to go downhill from that point.
Barrels out of Bond: Almost done right. Seriously, I got the feeling that Peter Jackson's solution to everything is "Orcs show up, start a ten minute fight scene." The Barrel battle was fun, silly, and entertaining, but it was marred by the fact that there was NO REASON FOR IT.
Tauriel: In and of herself, I like her character. No, she's not in the books, but hey, the King needs a Captain of the Guard to imprison the dwarves, and why not a badass Evangeline Lilly? What makes my head pound, though, is that they seem to be making her and Kili fall for each other. I didn't mind the conversation through the cell bars: that I could have seen as one race slowly getting to know another, especially the conversation about starlight. But her following after?
Look, let's get something straight: a pairing between an elf and a human, the two races of the Children of Illuvatar, is so rare it has only happened three times in the entire universe. But dwarves are not even true children of Illuvatar: they are Children of Aule who were afterwards condoned and blessed. Gimli to Galadriel should be the closest we get to a dwarf/elf pairing. It just doesn't make sense to me.
Furthermore, a mere Silvan elf shouldn't have been able to do the healing ritual with athelas. It took Elrond to heal Frodo.
So yeah. I like Tauriel's character, but I don't like what role the plot has her playing.
Lake-Town: Nicely done. Portrayed in a sort of Dickensian squalor, you really get the sense of a town that is crashing economically, but that was once rich and prosperous.
Bard: I liked how they played him. He really does come across as the pessimist. I don't know how I feel about the Black Arrow being a type of ballistae ammunition, but hey, it works.
Smaug: Wow. I mean, seriously, wow. Hands-down the best cinematic portrayal of a dragon I have ever seen. Beautiful, frightening, truly the Greatest and Chiefest of Calamities.
But he's kind of undercut by the fact that, despite spending half an hour of screentime charging towards Bilbo or Thorin or one of the dwarves, he never actually catches anyone. Seriously, this is the dragon that laid waste to two whole nations in a day, and he can't catch a single person in a drawn-out chase scene?
I didn't feel like the Riddle-Game was done full justice. First, by having Bilbo take off the ring. Second, by cutting it short. And third, by having the dwarves come down, and devolving a clever and cerebral battle of wits into yet another endless action sequence.
And what was with the Gold Statue Plan? First, molten gold looks cartoonish in CGI. Second, how did Thorin expect molten gold to harm A FIREBREATHING DRAGON?! Third, it makes no sense for Smaug to fly away towards LakeTown when he does. In the book, he thinks he's killed Bilbo, either through fire or through burying him under half the mountain, and so he goes off to take care of the next order of business. In this version, though, he leaves a bunch of dwarves (and a hobbit) in his home, in the middle of battle. Why would he do that? "To make you watch them burn" doesn't fully make sense.
Seriously, that last battle scene soured the end of the movie for me: PJ had me at Mirkwood, but lost me in Erebor.
So, in summation:
I enjoyed the movie for what it is, but I although I like it, I don't wholly like it. I'm still excited for the third movie, I'll still see this one again, but it hurts me to think how easily it could have been so much better. In my mind a proper Hobbit adaptation has yet to be made (Rankin-Bass altered the story to make their version a 70s anti-war PSA, after all).
...
...
...
Okay, you've been warned.
First off, I have to say, I love the opening scene. It really is straight out of the Appendix (or was it the Unfinished Tales?), the meeting between Gandalf and Thorin. And, of course, it means we get to see Bree again... is it always raining there or something?
The first plot change hits us right there: we learn that the specific reason Thorin agrees to hiring a burglar is that he's hoping to steal the Arkenstone out from under Smaug, so he can legitimize his reign and so Dain and the other dwarf families will rally behind him.
I have to say, as changes go, this makes sense. It makes sense why they hired Bilbo and then all sat back on the Doorstep waiting for him to go in and bring back all the treasure: in the book, Bilbo himself points out the futility of this plan. But if all they needed was for Bilbo to burgle the Arkenstone, so they could leave and come back with an army, well, then the need for a burglar fits.
So anyway, we jump back to the main storyline, and meet Beorn. And I have to say, Beorn certainly looks the part, both as man and as beast, even if he's playing him mournful rather than loud and jolly. No complaints there.
We come to the edge of Mirkwood, and Gandalf is summoned away to do some investigating. I do appreciate how Sir Ian plays him as conflicted about leaving: this Gandalf doesn't like leaving his friends in the lurch, unlike the Rankin-Bass Gandalf who was basically all, "I've got more important things to do, suck it up!" I do wish, though, that Gandalf had explicitly left Bilbo in charge, as he had in the books, because it's a needed vote of confidence in Biblo's capability.
The scene with Gandalf examining the tombs of the Nine: beautifully and subtly creepy. I liked how the bars on all the tombs were bent outward. And I enjoyed Gandalf vs. the Necromancer one-on-one. This is the answer to anyone who asks why Gandalf never just overthrow Sauron Maiar-to-Maiar.
The Mirkwood spiders and the naming of Sting: perfect. Those spiders were creepier than Shelob by far (I think it's the longer legs, more orb weaver and less tarantula).
Thranduil: perfect. I mean it, played well and played to the hilt by Lee Pace. You get a sense for his character, that his help comes with a price, that while he disapproves of the dwarves' greed, he himself is not free from the dragon-sickness. And INTERESTING twist that he himself is scarred by an encounter with the "Worms of the North," but that he hides it under... some kind of elven glamour? Seriously, though, the confrontation between Thorin and Thranduil was the best part of the movie.
And... that's sad, because I feel the movie started to go downhill from that point.
Barrels out of Bond: Almost done right. Seriously, I got the feeling that Peter Jackson's solution to everything is "Orcs show up, start a ten minute fight scene." The Barrel battle was fun, silly, and entertaining, but it was marred by the fact that there was NO REASON FOR IT.
Tauriel: In and of herself, I like her character. No, she's not in the books, but hey, the King needs a Captain of the Guard to imprison the dwarves, and why not a badass Evangeline Lilly? What makes my head pound, though, is that they seem to be making her and Kili fall for each other. I didn't mind the conversation through the cell bars: that I could have seen as one race slowly getting to know another, especially the conversation about starlight. But her following after?
Look, let's get something straight: a pairing between an elf and a human, the two races of the Children of Illuvatar, is so rare it has only happened three times in the entire universe. But dwarves are not even true children of Illuvatar: they are Children of Aule who were afterwards condoned and blessed. Gimli to Galadriel should be the closest we get to a dwarf/elf pairing. It just doesn't make sense to me.
Furthermore, a mere Silvan elf shouldn't have been able to do the healing ritual with athelas. It took Elrond to heal Frodo.
So yeah. I like Tauriel's character, but I don't like what role the plot has her playing.
Lake-Town: Nicely done. Portrayed in a sort of Dickensian squalor, you really get the sense of a town that is crashing economically, but that was once rich and prosperous.
Bard: I liked how they played him. He really does come across as the pessimist. I don't know how I feel about the Black Arrow being a type of ballistae ammunition, but hey, it works.
Smaug: Wow. I mean, seriously, wow. Hands-down the best cinematic portrayal of a dragon I have ever seen. Beautiful, frightening, truly the Greatest and Chiefest of Calamities.
But he's kind of undercut by the fact that, despite spending half an hour of screentime charging towards Bilbo or Thorin or one of the dwarves, he never actually catches anyone. Seriously, this is the dragon that laid waste to two whole nations in a day, and he can't catch a single person in a drawn-out chase scene?
I didn't feel like the Riddle-Game was done full justice. First, by having Bilbo take off the ring. Second, by cutting it short. And third, by having the dwarves come down, and devolving a clever and cerebral battle of wits into yet another endless action sequence.
And what was with the Gold Statue Plan? First, molten gold looks cartoonish in CGI. Second, how did Thorin expect molten gold to harm A FIREBREATHING DRAGON?! Third, it makes no sense for Smaug to fly away towards LakeTown when he does. In the book, he thinks he's killed Bilbo, either through fire or through burying him under half the mountain, and so he goes off to take care of the next order of business. In this version, though, he leaves a bunch of dwarves (and a hobbit) in his home, in the middle of battle. Why would he do that? "To make you watch them burn" doesn't fully make sense.
Seriously, that last battle scene soured the end of the movie for me: PJ had me at Mirkwood, but lost me in Erebor.
So, in summation:
I enjoyed the movie for what it is, but I although I like it, I don't wholly like it. I'm still excited for the third movie, I'll still see this one again, but it hurts me to think how easily it could have been so much better. In my mind a proper Hobbit adaptation has yet to be made (Rankin-Bass altered the story to make their version a 70s anti-war PSA, after all).