Peter Pan (1953) - 3/10
Absolutely dreadful! It must of been 20 years since I last watched PP and it'll be another 20 until I do so again...
An American Tail (1986) - 10/10
Such a wonderful heartwarming story. It keeps you captivated from beginning to end. The characters are great, especially Fieval the mouse and Henri the pigeon
Peter Pan (1953) - 3/10
Absolutely dreadful! It must of been 20 years since I last watched PP and it'll be another 20 until I do so again...
An American Tail (1986) - 10/10
Such a wonderful heartwarming story. It keeps you captivated from beginning to end. The characters are great, especially Fieval the mouse and Henri the pigeon
An American Tail must have been one of the first I saw at cinema
FILTH - 9/10
roller coaster ride through the damaged psyche of james mcavoy as a copper in edinburgh .....
SKINWALKER RANCH - NONONONONONONONONO/SODTHISFORALAUGH
another one in the "scary found footage" genre, and another one that will make you tear through the walls to get away from the SCAAAAAAAAAAAAAARES
Even though, I don't think it was a "pile of poo", I do agree it's an incredibly over-rated films totally spurred on by brilliant special-effects. I enjoyed it,but it's a superior popcorn film, nothing more, nothing less.
I saw it at the London Imax expecting to be blown away by the special effects at the least and left totally underwhelmed so meh on all fronts for me
I took my time but I finally got around to watching this, too impatient to wait for the Blu-ray (and I missed the cinema showings as nobody I know wants to watch it in any less than 48fps). Apologies for the long post that will follow... I guess a near-3 hour film deserves a decent amount of analysis.
I absolutely love Peter Jackson's adaptation of the Tolkien texts. I loved The Lord of the Rings and I loved the first Hobbit film. They make their changes and their deviations from the source, but I don't care - what they bring to the table is generally very good (and if you want "faithful" then go read the bloody book!) and doesn't felt spoiled from what is omitted. The Desolation of Smaug, though, is the first of the Middle Earth films that I've come away from feeling both disappointed and short-changed.
I think it is a decent movie in its own right, but it's not up to the standard of the rest. This puts me in a minority who actually preferred the first Hobbit film, but there was just so much that was jarring about this one, it's hard to know where to start.
Pacing
It's always hard for the middle film of a trilogy to establish itself as a solid standalone piece. The Lord of the Rings had a fair bit of help in the way that the text is arranged, and thus The Two Towers was a very, very good film. Deriding from a single text makes this a much harder task for The Desolation of Smaug, and even with the help of additional content thrown in this film was just totally off with its pacing.
The first film was far too slow to begin with, but it did eventually get going. This film was far too quick to begin with, and it never bothered to really slow things down. In retrospect, the silver lining of being too slow is that it adds depth and feel - An Unexpected Journey felt very much part of Jackson's Middle Earth world. The Desolation of Smaug often felt detached from all of that. By becoming too action-packed, it also became style over substance. It's cheeky to say about a fantasy genre film, but it lost a sense of realism along the way and felt like someone elses interpretation of a Tolkien-Jackson epic - I could have been fooled into thinking that this wasn't directed by Peter Jackson.
In addition to the general swiftness of the film being an issue, the additional concepts thrown in (Dol Guldur, Legolas and Tauriel) were very jarring this time around. I felt that all the bonus inclusions of An Unexpected Journey seemed to work well and helped to enhance the story - give it that epic feel of the Rings trilogy whilst establishing it all in something a bit lighter, whilst rewarding fans of 'Rings as well. Here though it truly suffered all round, with the constant shifts in character focus causing the story to lose coherency and in the case of Dol Guldur feeling like nothing but a tease for the third film as frankly this one didn't really do much with it at all apart from use it as a frustrating distraction from the main story. Time could have been cut off of this movie and it could have saved all but the odd mention-in-passing of Dol Guldur until the third film.
Finally on the pacing front - that "cliffhanger". What made The Lord of the Rings work so well was that despite being one whole story, the individual films were competent enough in their own right not to use cliffhangers to draw me into the next. It just felt cheap, and I felt a bit cheated.
Identity
As mentioned above, I wasn't a fan of the cliffhanger ending to this film. It merely makes it feel like a prelude to what comes next, which undermines this film entirely. The Two Towers felt like events were escalating and so served as a sufficient middle film (though wasn't without its flaws), but this one feels more like a servant to the third because it doesn't really have enough going on on its own to secure its own identity. The Two Towers is most remembered for that big climatic scene in Helms Deep - the rain-soaked battle, the march of the Ents, and then the return of Gandalf. It gave the film true identity despite it coming from the middle of the series. The Desolation of Smaug does no such thing. There's no pay off to this film other than a 'tune in next time' attitude to everything. The encounter with Smaug has been split and dragged out unnecessarily and the Dol Guldur segments were just as unresolved and pointless.
It must have been hard adapting three films from one text, which would bring us back to the boring old question of whether The Hobbit needed three films. Off the back of the first film I was satisfied with the decision in the end. Off the back of this one, I'm not - you can almost see how the middle of this film was meant to be the end of Part One and then the introduction of the dragon was meant to be Part Two. I'd simply have had two movies clocking in six hours between them, rather than three movies that will clock in a little over seven and a half between them. That extra hour and a half could have been cut very easily I'd imagine (mostly from the extended action sequences in this one!) and though I'll hold out on the third film to prove me wrong, I really hope I don't end up feeling dissatisfied by the three-film split decision.
Effects
48fps is definitely not for me. Nor is 3D as it happens - I get nothing from a movie that occasionally fires arrows in my direction - it simply cheapens the story for me. Personal choice (well, that and 3D often makes me get a headache). I don't know what it is but the effects in The Hobbit often seem to have taken a step back from their quality in The Lord of the Rings. Some scenes I accept are slightly more 'colourful', or even 'cartoony' to match the tone of the book and to keep it distinctly lighter than The Lord of the Rings. But some of the effects, particularly later on in this second film are just jarring. They look too at odds with the surroundings, unless of course the surroundings are also as poorly rendered by CGI. Many liken some of the effects to cut scenes from a video game and I'm starting to see it... it's surreal and not in a good way. The continued use of overly choreographed action scenes has made this all the more prominent and it's making things look totally fake in places.
Similarly the Orcs have lost a lot of their menace, namely the CG ones. 'Lighter' is the way to go for The Hobbit, but they just don't make for very convincing baddies. It's all at odds - we have headshots and beheadings but cartoon-like effects to pull it all off.
What was wrong with using actors under prosthetics? What was wrong with utilising the natural beauty of New Zealand instead of a CGI-heavy lake with CGI-heavy sunset? This film (and to some extent the first) seem to be having a bit of an identity crisis - they don't know whether to be faithful to the children's book, or to be faithful to the more mature Lord of the Rings film trilogy. I accept any adaptation thrown at me, but having one warring between two very different concepts is nothing but off-putting.
To the film-makers credit, Smaug did look suitably impressive. And some of the city/town designs were very well realised as well.
Characters
Prior to seeing this, I had no problem with Legolas showing up. Or the introduction of new character Tauriel. It all made logical sense really. In the end though it just didn't work for me. These two just felt like invincible forces not to be reckoned with (thanks again to the overly choreographed action sequences) and their actual contribution to the plot was paper thin and lacking in anything resembling depth. If it was meant to be a romance then it was poorly conceived, and if it's a love triangle we have on our hands then it was even poorer. This action-movie didn't let up its pace for anything like character development. We had the endearing scene where Tauriel is discussing the talisman with Kili, and those are the sort of scenes we'd have needed in this film for it to flow a lot better. When it's the only scene supporting the rest of Tauriel's actions in the film it just doesn't quite flow properly. I can see where they're going with it all, and the pay-off in There And Back Again could still be very good, but the set-up will always be very flawed and will drag this film down, serving no purpose but to make the plot less coherent.
Gandalf was off to Dol Guldur the whole time, which was awkwardly weaved in and out of the film at various random points. This also served to make the plot less coherent - a shame as it worked better in the first film.
And then that brings us to the main players. While I should add that all concerned did a brilliant job of acting in this film (Orlando Bloom being a bit shaky), it was a shame to see the focus on Bilbo compromised so much. His changes as a character felt more abrupt in this film, and it's because we were spending so long gallivanting elsewhere.
Smaug had a great introduction though outstayed his welcome a bit too much come the end I feel, and it began getting repetitive with every mention of how invincible he was. It was a shame to see the film sacrifice the parallels between Bilbo's encounter with Gollum and his encounter with Smaug. But once more these sacrifices were made to fit in some more overly choreographed action sequences, which near the end of the film were absolute overkill - compromising character, utilising the dodgiest effects so far, running for far too long and not actually building to anything to give the film its own identity.
Overall
There was much to like about the film from the brilliant acting to the fact it is still just a very nice film to watch. It wasn't so poor that it will jar with a complete rewatch of the trilogy, though of course the quality of the third Hobbit film will determine whether much of this one was worth it. And that's the biggest problem - The Two Towers never relied on The Return of the King to prop itself up, warrant its length, give it identity or anything like that. But The Desolation of Smaug does ask that of its successor. As I said, you can almost see how the middle of this film should have been the divide in the intended two-part story. Jackson hasn't managed to avoid the middle-movie syndrome with this one, but in some ways it doesn't even feel like it was attempted. It is too content to sacrifice substance for style, and CGI for plot depth. It is all at odds as to whether its being faithful to the text, or to the LOTR trilogy. It never tries to establish its own identity and because of that, it stands as the weakest of the Middle Earth films to me.
You need to write a bit more dude not detailed enough
Fairly rubbish plot with many plot holes, also the female G.I. Joe is only there for her looks. Many absolutely ludicrous moments but it was fairly good 6/10
Comments
Absolutely dreadful! It must of been 20 years since I last watched PP and it'll be another 20 until I do so again...
An American Tail (1986) - 10/10
Such a wonderful heartwarming story. It keeps you captivated from beginning to end. The characters are great, especially Fieval the mouse and Henri the pigeon
An American Tail must have been one of the first I saw at cinema
roller coaster ride through the damaged psyche of james mcavoy as a copper in edinburgh .....
SKINWALKER RANCH - NONONONONONONONONO/SODTHISFORALAUGH
another one in the "scary found footage" genre, and another one that will make you tear through the walls to get away from the SCAAAAAAAAAAAAAARES
Stunnung holocaust drama, actually filmed in Auschwitz.
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews25/passenger.htm
11/10
Yet another Second Run DVD release that has blown me away.
Stellar cast & great performances from all of them.
I saw it at the London Imax expecting to be blown away by the special effects at the least and left totally underwhelmed so meh on all fronts for me
Wasn't expecting much, but.. I rather enjoyed it :eek:
A few fun 80's/retro references with some silly humour, but I did like
And there's that bloody earworm of a song :eek:>:(
Blood, guts and glory
Dumb, but bearable. Not as good as Olympus Has Fallen.
Superb.
Anastasia (1997) - 10/10
One of the best animated films of all time.
Should really be called the Cate Blanchett show as we all already know - although Sally Hawkins was also great as Ginger.
Fairly rubbish plot with many plot holes, also the female G.I. Joe is only there for her looks. Many absolutely ludicrous moments but it was fairly good 6/10
The scary thing is I could write more...lots more
I'll spare you all though