The good stuff first:
- It is better than I anticipated. Well, I spent the last couple of weeks lowering my expectations, but still.
- There is a bit of Jar Jar Binks around, but it is spread thinly across many figures, so it never got on my nerves. Although some scenes got pretty close.
- Gandalf levelled up and can call in air strikes now.
Some gripes to get out of the way:
- Smaug shows a bit of leg, and that's it. That was a bit disappointing.
- As an old GURPS-afficionado, I hated how the old grand dame Physics and her lapdog Falling Damage was treated
All in all, it was a very enjoyable experience. Maybe I was just in the right mood, but the humor found the right mark with me. Strangely, the scenes I dreaded most (the dwarfes' home invasion of Bilbo and everything with Gollum) came across really well.
Bilbo comes across as a dignified bourgeois in over his head, but still with a bit of spine. While he ends up as a troll's hanky, he never loses his poise, and he is much more watchable than Frodo, who I wanted to smack right in the quivvering lips for two long, long movies. Also, apart from three or four exceptions, I wasn't able to keep the dwarfs apart. If there only was a chart or something.
It is very different viewing compared to the old LOTR-films. Those hat some kind of grimy patina which became a hallmark of them. Strangely, the Hobbit looks like a high-end TV production, like Game of Thrones, only with less tits and more midgets, or a documentary. Yesterday, I learned that Jackson used 48 images per second than the usual 24: This somehow explains the strange cleanliness of the sets and the docudrama flair. Seems that this technical gamble didn't pay off. Also, 3D - next time, I wouldn't bother.
The movie shifts between kitchen sink-drama and grand, hectic CGI-vistas, and strangely, I enjoyed those small scenes more than the big, noisy ones.
3.5 (bordering on 4) of 5 of goblinoid living SMS messages
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment