Last year I had high expectations going into The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey having
recently re-watched the Lord Of The Rings
trilogy, and upon seeing the trailer; which seemed to promise a return to
the Middle Earth I remembered so fondly from a decade prior. Sadly my expectations
were not met, as the film relied far too heavily on CGI, contained a lot of
sub-plots which resulted in many deviations from the main story, and a lot of
shoehorning-in of characters and plotlines from the original trilogy, just
because they could. It was nice to see familiar characters again, but
completely unnecessary (and at times it made for uncomfortable viewing, as Christopher
Lee looked almost like a cadaver which they had wheeled onto the set, en route
to the morgue). I found the film to be incredibly frustrating, because I really
wanted to like it – after all, the story is there and the world is there, so it
should work, but it just doesn’t.
My biggest issue is the same one shared by many of the film’s
detractors, and that is that the films should not be a trilogy. It should be
either two 2-hour films, or just one film; and after seeing The Desolation of Smaug my feeling is
that the filmmakers should have gone with the latter option. My feeling is that,
once this trilogy has finished, there will be enough solid content to make one
really great film. But as things stand, we will have three (very long) films
that are just okay. A year ago I didn’t think I’d be saying this, so it is a
sad thing to admit (I still love the Lord
Of The Rings films, in fact these films serve as reminders of how good they
are).
But it’s not all bad news, because there are some
salvageable elements within The
Desolation of Smaug. Once again Martin Freeman gives a very strong performance
as Bilbo, often a humorous and identifiable presence, but there are some scenes
where the character is taken to extremes, which really stand out. Early on
there is a scene in which the affects the ring is having on Bilbo are shown in his
actions, followed by a moment of realisation at what he has done. There is also
a wonderful dialogue between Bilbo and Smaug (more on the dragon in a moment)
in which Freeman shows the Hobbit’s absolute horror at the magnitude of his
situation. Generally speaking, any scene centred around Bilbo is usually a good
scene. However, it dawned on me as I was leaving the cinema that he wasn’t in
the film anywhere near as much as I thought he would be, and quite often when
he was around he was just hovering on the peripherals.
Ian McKellen also gives an enjoyable performance as Gandalf (I
would expect no less by this stage) although he separates himself from the rest
of the group very early on, and is used sparingly throughout the rest of the
film. There are also elements of his storyline which create inconsistencies
with the storyline of the original trilogy. This is why I have such an issue
with all the needless shoehorning-in of characters and plot-lines from The Lord Of The Rings, it creates
problems where there doesn’t need to be problems (not to mention the sheer
extent to which it draws out the running time).
The other big positive that I can take away from this film
is Smaug. The character has been built up since the prologue of An Unexpected Journey and finally makes
his appearance within the final third of this film, and it does not disappoint.
The design of Smaug is fantastic, the best mythical creature-design the studio
have created since the Balrog in The
Fellowship of the Ring, and he
gets a decent amount of screen-time so the audience can take it all in.
Benedict Cumberbatch provides the voice of Smaug, and it works really well; it
could be very easy for a voice to sound forced and unnatural within such a
role, but here it is very effective. These scenes are probably the best thing
about this film (which only serves to justify my theory that within this
trilogy of films, there is enough to make one really great film) and although
they take a long time getting there, it is worth the wait.
Unfortunately there are things that I didn’t enjoy so much.
I won’t go banging on about the CGI, because I was already prepared for it this
time around, but I will say that it had a dire affect on the action scenes. Everything
looked so flashy and unbelievable that it was impossible to become invested in
the drama of any of the fights, and most of the time things moved so quickly I
couldn’t make out what was happening anyway. There was also no stakes in any of
the fight scenes: the previous film established that this band of dwarves are
so uncanny, they will easily break free of any danger without getting so much
as scratched. At the start of the trilogy it was mentioned that they aren’t all
fighters, but that doesn’t prevent any of them from being able to dispatch untold
numbers of ‘supposedly’ deadly orcs with ease. There was a scene in which the
dwarves are floating down a river in barrels which demonstrates this issue very
strongly.
There is also an entire section of the film (I’m not sure
how long it was exactly) in which the plot stops altogether, in order to familiarise
the audience with Lake-town and its residents. I like Stephen Fry just as much
as anyone else, but I didn’t want to see him in this film. Luke Evans does a
fine job in the role of Bard, but unfortunately his efforts don’t count for much
as the surrounding scenes are overly long, and filled with uninteresting
characters. The confrontation between Bard and Thorin was the highpoint of this
section, but the film would have been a lot more engaging if the whole
Lake-town section had been omitted.
There is also a dull romantic sub-plot between one of the
dwarves: the good-looking one, (now the reasoning behind that casting decision
becomes clear!) and Evangeline Lilly’s elf Tauriel. Not only is this sub-plot
uninteresting, but it also takes up way too much time; I don’t know enough
about either character to become invested in this romance that literally came
from nothing. An Unexpected Journey provided
the Middle Earth-based films with their most underwhelming villain, in the form
of The White Orc. I assumed that he would get killed off in the first film but
he’s back, and now he has another big bad Orc take over his role (because that’s
what these films needed). To be fair the design of this new villainous Orc is
more impressive and sinister than the other one.
I don’t want to complain too much, because I didn’t hate the
film and I will go and see the third instalment when it comes out, but I just
find these films frustrating because they should be better than they are. At
least Sylvester McCoy was only in this one a little bit!
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