cinemabon
12-13-2013, 05:03 PM
Directed by Peter Jackson
From Jackson's carrot chomping homage to the greatest of Warner icons in his cameo walk-thru (aka, Hitch) to the audible gasp of actor Martin Freeman's Bilbo muttering, "What have we unleashed?" this second installment of "The Hobbit" is a constantly moving roller coaster of setting and effects thrown into the fantasy realm created by J.R.R. Tolkien. While the film bears little resemblance to the original story, there is plenty here for fans of fantasy to chew on from the elaborate Middle Earth settings to the variety of CGI characters that leap from the screen with the ease of a computer artist's easel. Whole scenes in the film now revolve around characters that are not even there, only in some artist's rendering. There are no longer actors in make up or walking in their place. The characters of Beorn and Azog are completely manufactured in artificial settings that only exist inside the world of a computer chip. Azog, voiced by New Zealand weight-lifter Manu Bennett, has scenes where he is surrounded by similar products and the camera sweeps through with amazing swiftness, clarity and from breathtaking heights - all in 3D. "The Hobbit" like "Lord of the Rings" before it has become the commercial property of the new allied New Line Cinema now part of the Time Warner Corporation. As a result, they are now spitting out the same massive special effects laden over-blown stories that other corporate entities are spewing to the masses. What had been a sweet novella created by a linguist university professor has become a money-making franchise for people in a variety of cultures and nationalities. However wonderful the original story may have been, Jackson and his team of technical wizards have transformed “The Hobbit” into a Tolkien-esk world full of amazing characters that spout in guttural languages made to make us marvel at their complexity.
Rushing from the last scenes of being chased, creatures only casually mentioned in the novel, the newly invented CGI character of Azog dominates this film and is called by the newly emerging Sauron – who also spouts echoy-reverberating gibberish – and has trapped poor Gandalf in a place never mentioned in “The Hobbit.” And as if Shelob wasn’t scary enough in “Lord of the Rings,” why not have a whole forest full of them, scrambling around, hissing at you in 3D and crawling all over the camera lens until you want to slide under the seat from arachnophobia. Meanwhile, a romance has sprung from more characters never mentioned in the novel between elf warrior Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) and a character that had a very minor role, Kili – actor Aidan Turner played with all the modeling attractiveness he can muster. While love between an elf and a dwarf must surely be verboten in this world, that doesn’t matter because they’re both so pretty we don’t mind the absurdity.
Finally we arrive at the film’s climax and the effort WETA digital put into making Smaug not just big but frightening. Voiced by busy actor Benedict Cumberpatch, who also doubles for Sauron, Smaug rises from the huge piles of gold only to shake off every attempt to kill him – as we who know the story already realize before Bilbo enters the cave. But just to be part of this embellishment, we’re led temporarily to believe the dwarves could defeat Smaug by smothering him with molten gold – it would have been a fitting tribute but then there would be no third movie and the film wouldn’t have to end so abruptly as it does. This one is pure fluff with very little substance. Outstanding special effects. Trumped up storylines. Go for the popcorn.
From Jackson's carrot chomping homage to the greatest of Warner icons in his cameo walk-thru (aka, Hitch) to the audible gasp of actor Martin Freeman's Bilbo muttering, "What have we unleashed?" this second installment of "The Hobbit" is a constantly moving roller coaster of setting and effects thrown into the fantasy realm created by J.R.R. Tolkien. While the film bears little resemblance to the original story, there is plenty here for fans of fantasy to chew on from the elaborate Middle Earth settings to the variety of CGI characters that leap from the screen with the ease of a computer artist's easel. Whole scenes in the film now revolve around characters that are not even there, only in some artist's rendering. There are no longer actors in make up or walking in their place. The characters of Beorn and Azog are completely manufactured in artificial settings that only exist inside the world of a computer chip. Azog, voiced by New Zealand weight-lifter Manu Bennett, has scenes where he is surrounded by similar products and the camera sweeps through with amazing swiftness, clarity and from breathtaking heights - all in 3D. "The Hobbit" like "Lord of the Rings" before it has become the commercial property of the new allied New Line Cinema now part of the Time Warner Corporation. As a result, they are now spitting out the same massive special effects laden over-blown stories that other corporate entities are spewing to the masses. What had been a sweet novella created by a linguist university professor has become a money-making franchise for people in a variety of cultures and nationalities. However wonderful the original story may have been, Jackson and his team of technical wizards have transformed “The Hobbit” into a Tolkien-esk world full of amazing characters that spout in guttural languages made to make us marvel at their complexity.
Rushing from the last scenes of being chased, creatures only casually mentioned in the novel, the newly invented CGI character of Azog dominates this film and is called by the newly emerging Sauron – who also spouts echoy-reverberating gibberish – and has trapped poor Gandalf in a place never mentioned in “The Hobbit.” And as if Shelob wasn’t scary enough in “Lord of the Rings,” why not have a whole forest full of them, scrambling around, hissing at you in 3D and crawling all over the camera lens until you want to slide under the seat from arachnophobia. Meanwhile, a romance has sprung from more characters never mentioned in the novel between elf warrior Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) and a character that had a very minor role, Kili – actor Aidan Turner played with all the modeling attractiveness he can muster. While love between an elf and a dwarf must surely be verboten in this world, that doesn’t matter because they’re both so pretty we don’t mind the absurdity.
Finally we arrive at the film’s climax and the effort WETA digital put into making Smaug not just big but frightening. Voiced by busy actor Benedict Cumberpatch, who also doubles for Sauron, Smaug rises from the huge piles of gold only to shake off every attempt to kill him – as we who know the story already realize before Bilbo enters the cave. But just to be part of this embellishment, we’re led temporarily to believe the dwarves could defeat Smaug by smothering him with molten gold – it would have been a fitting tribute but then there would be no third movie and the film wouldn’t have to end so abruptly as it does. This one is pure fluff with very little substance. Outstanding special effects. Trumped up storylines. Go for the popcorn.