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Hi guys it's time for another movie review and today I'm reviewing the movie
The Desolation of Smaug
this is the second in The Hobbit trilogy the first one being
An Unexpected Journey which I saw last year
And I reviewed it and gave it 5 stars out of 5 , I thoroughly enjoyed it
I'm a big Lord of the Rings fan. I've owned all the previous movies on Blu ray and
DVD
I've been a fan at the book since I was a kid and I even enjoyed the cartoon.
so yeah, I've really been looking forward to these films, especially as
I not only watch the films by I collect the stuff as well. I have statues and
figures and posters and swords and rings and you name it I've
go a lot stuff based on Lord of the Rings.
I saw an Unexpected Journey
As I said, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I was really looking forward to this one
I did have certain worries. I was wondering how on earth Peter Jackson was gonna
pad this
quite slim book into three large movies
I've got a pretty good idea now I've seen the second one in what he's doing
The first one
I found very faithful to the book I really enjoyed it but did find it might
not have been so accessible
to non Tolkien fans there's a lot of stuff in there
exposition
people talking about certain things that are relate to the appendices of
the book. I've found that
some other stuff they were talking about while I was enjoying it, maybe
as I said, people that might not consider themselves major fans
of Tolkien might not have enjoyed.
Now we've got most of that out of the way
in the first book we can get on with the action
And the storyline moves along at a faster pace
I think this film is more accessible to non Tolkien fans they are going to enjoy
a lot of the action
and it's a very basic storyline to stick with really it just got go from
Hobbiton to the Misty Mountains and reclaim the throne
of the Dwalves. That's the simple story of The Hobbit
They do go into the appendices again in this book
but it's really about Gandalf
who is investigating
this character called the Necromancer this dark wizard, he's got to find out
who he is and what he plans to do.
most of the other parts of the story are
The Hobbit played by Martin Freeman who is excellent
along with Thorin Oakenshield who's played by Richard Armitage who's
excellent as well. Bilbo and the Dwalves
basically trying to get to the Misty Mountains and come across certain characters
and certain things
that prevent them from doing that. Now the film
is long, I think a little bit too long. I think they would have benefited from
cutting certain things from this, cutting certain characters out
and maybe saving them for the extended version.
It would probably made it a much better film theatrically
but really the film does move
at a steady pace and I didn't find myself bored at all while watching it
the action
there's quite a lot of it and while it's fun to look at and while it's
enjoyable to see on the screen it can be a little relentless and
you might glaze over it a little bit and start thinking alright
OK another action scene and you're not really on the edge of your seat on some of the stuff
but it's still enjoyable to watch
the characters that have been introduced we've
got a lot of the elves in this now from Mirkwood
and Legolas does feature quite heavily in this film
along with Evangeline Lilly I think I'm saying her name right
she plays a character named Tauriel. They're they're interesting, they're cool to see
and it's
great to see them you know in action and what Elves do
The problem I have with Legolas in this film is that he works better
as a double act with Gimli
and when Gimli's gone He doesn't work so well, he's dower and miserable and
grumpy in this so that was a little bit disappointing.
Also the Dwarves, while the main Dwarves like Balin and Thorin Oakenshield
are given a fair amount to do the other Dwarves are still in the background
and with two hours and 48 minutes of
this middle section I think that
Peter Jackson and his
writing team still didn't give enough for them to do and flesh there
characters out
as much as I would have liked them to have
you know that is one of the biggest disappointments for me
in this film. You've got booked based on
The Hobbit and these Dwarves and
you've neglected to let us know more about them apart from them running and
get into action scenes I think they should have been a little bit more
character development in the lesser-known Dwarves in the book
now for me the the film itself gets better and better while you're watching
it
and it really does build up into a fantastic
climax when you've seen it on the trailers, you've seen the Dragon
There was moments in an unexpected journey when you're watching
that and you think, Wow!
I'm watching a scene which is as good as anything that is in
Lord of the Rings
and that Gollum scene in an unexpected journey
is fantastic and belongs in some of the best scenes
in the whole saga. I felt the same way
when Bilbo is confronted by Smaug
the dragon that scene is excellent, the exchange between
Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch's character the dragon
is just excellent and you're on the edge of your seat
and you're thoughlly enthralled in that whole
exchange that they have in the end of the film
So overall I would say the film's exciting
it's good fun. There are certain characters that could've been done with being cut out
the film
and saved for the extended version. I was a bit disappointed with the
lack of characterization with some of the Dwarves
but overall as I said it's great fun film, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I definitely recommend it for anyone to see, especially if your fan of Lord of
the Rings and I'm gonna give it four and a half stars out of five.
I'll catch you later.