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Also Known As: - |
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| Year of first release: 2013 | |
| Director: Peter Jackson (Bad Taste, The Lord of the Rings 1-3, King Kong) | |
| Actors: Martin Freeman (Hot Fuzz, The Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy), Ian McKellen (X-men 1-3, The Lord of the Rings 1-3), Richard Armitage, Benedict Cumberbatch (Star Trek Into Darkness) | |
| Country: USA, NZ | |
| Genre: Fantasy, Adventure | |
| Conditions of visioning: 16.12.2013, CINEMA theater, 3D, High Frame Rate | |
| Synopsis: The company of thirteen Dwarves led by Thorin (Armitage), one Hobbit (Freeman) and a Magician (McKellen) continue their journey towards the Lonely Mountain where the Dragon Smaug (Cumberbatch) stands guard. | |
| Review: After watching twice An Unexpected Journey on Blu-ray and liking it more and more, I was really eager to see this second part of the trilogy. In the second movie of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (The Two Towers),
not much was happening while we were introduced many new characters,
which was a difficult exercise to show. On the contrary in The Hobbit
trilogy, all the introductions were done in the first movie and quite
some action happens in the second, including the first encounter with Smaug the Dragon. As we are used to with Peter Jackson movies, everything is visually perfect and the scenes at the Lonely Mountain are great, but the way the movie ends makes it really frustrating to have to wait one full year to see the conclusion. The rest of the movie is good as well, but sometimes feels like only a succession of action scenes and encounters with particular characters whom role you don't really understand if you are not a hard-core Tolkien fan. This feeling was reinforced by the HFR 3D which as in the first movie put me ill at ease (I had the feeling to watch TV), especially since the cinema in which I was has a problem of cross-talk between the left and right images of the 3D (the already disturbed me when watching Gravity). Some characters are also annoying like Legolas (Orlando Bloom is back) and his father Thranduil, although I like his looks, and some scenes are a bit out of place (with Tauriel the female Elf). The Dwarves are very pleasant to watch now that I knew well all of them. In spite of my reservations, The Desolation of Smaug is still a great show and contains some memorable scenes (in the Lonely Mountain, the escape in the barrels...). I currently like it less than the first movie but I guess I need to wait to see all three before making my final rating of the trilogy. |
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Rating: 7 /10
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More than entertainment, an Art.
Thursday, December 19, 2013
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
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Going to have to wait one more year until the last installment, and I'm willing to, just as long as they deliver. Because they sort of did so with this. Good review.
ReplyDeleteThis time again, before watching the last installment of the trilogy I watched in Blu-ray the extended versions of An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug. And as for the first movie, I think I liked better the experience in the controlled conditions of my living-room rather than in 3D and High Frame-Rate in a noisy cinema.
ReplyDeleteThis time it was more pleasant to see the ending knowing that I would have to wait only a few days before watching the conclusion.
And again what tought me more was watching the extra disks. This time I didn't particularly like learning about new characters, but I was very interested by the realisation that The Hobbit was shot as two movies, not three. It was decided to make it a trilogy after principal photography, so that the actors had to be called back, and the story expanded and revisited in a hurry. This was done in the end very well, as one can expect from Peter Jackson and his team, but it explains the feeling I had that some scenes were out of place, not necessary or too long. This feeling will be confirmed after watching The Battle of the Five Armies.