Monday, January 13, 2014

Movie Review: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

I really love the Lord of the Rings books and the Peter Jackson movies. I've read the books and seen the movies multiple times. "The Hobbit" however, I don't have any great feelings for. I read it once over 40 years ago. I wasn't real enthused to see the first movie, but I did enjoy it. The second movie is not so good in my opinion.

Make no doubt, it's a gorgeous movie and parts are pretty exciting. But that's all it is. Lot's of stuff happens: dwarfs escape from Elftown in barrels with orcs and elves chasing them; dwarfs get trapped by giant spiders; Gandalf meets the guy with the big red eye; dwarfs get chased around underground by a fire breathing dragon (Smaug, of course). There's a little illicit dwarf-elf love story (red-haired elf played very enthusiastically by Evangeline Lilly) for some reason.

And then the movie ends. Very abruptly.

As I said, I don't have great feelings for the book, so I'm not particularly bothered that Jackson took a pretty slim book and turned it into three giant movies. As long as the movies have a good story to tell, and are not just filler. I'm sorry but "The Desolation of Smaug" is almost entirely made of filler.

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