Stars Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage with Luke Evans, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Orlando Bloom and Benedict Cumberbatch Directed by Peter Jackson Second part of the planed trilogy in the adaptation of the rather slim novel. Sadly, it has all the problems of being a middle part of a trilogy. And while there was the sense of stretching the narrative in the first instalment, the impact of that exercise really hit me while watching this follow up. There was a complain before about The Lord Of Rings trilogy being three long movies of people walking about. For a pretty good stretch for the first half of the movie, it sure felt like it. Granted, we do get a prologue set a year earlier before we catch up with our company of weary travellers. Then, it's running across plains and running across forests and then it's wandering around Mirkwood and riding barrels down a river, then after a brief respite, more plains and up a mountain and so on. It does feel very stretched. At one point, it's just "The Legolas Show" Still, the vistas are gorgeous backed with some stunning cinematography. The performances are uniform, carrying on from the previous instalment. The action... Well... It is a very technically accomplished film from the design to the visuals and the music. There are a few character moments and we do get elves, primarily Orlando Bloom, Lee Pace and Evangeline Lilly, as well as the humans of Lake Town, led primarily by Luke Evans as Bard. Of course, the highlight of the second half (or last hour actually) being the titular dragon, Smaug, performed by Benedict Cumberbatch. Well, that's what the production notes say. Aside from the voice, perhaps some facial motion capture, how does one perform as a dragon? Still, Smaug is a fascinating cinematic creation, a digital creature courtesy of Weta Digital. There is a remarkable performance on screen, a creature with mass and weight and power. It is a fearsome creature. Still... The movie pushes close to the three hour mark and, as a middle part to a trilogy, the story doesn't end, capping this chapter with a cliff-hanger that may have been a bit too much too far on. I felt weary and worn, and the knowledge that there's still a concluding chapter just amplified the feeling. Even with the cliff-hanger that promises more action to come. It's just hard to reconcile the obviously stupendous and gorgeous product of epic story-telling with the also obvious and almost unnecessary expansion of plot that creates a somewhat very bloated middle chapter. Technical achievement and decent performance can only carry the movie so far. There's obviously a decent story in there too. Maybe something should be said about being overly faithful to the original text.
2 Comments
12/13/2013 07:19:32 am
Good review. While it definitely sticks a bit better in your mind than the first, there's still some problems to be had here that I hope Jackson at least works on in the next installment.
Reply
-bck1402
12/18/2013 08:34:53 pm
Thank you for the feedback.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
December 2017
|