“Great” Scott’s Pretty
Darned Great The Hobbit: The Desolation
of Smaug Review…of Greatness
Title
The Hobbit: The Desolation of
Smaug
IMDB
Page
One-Sentence
Summary
Reluctant hero Bilbo Baggins
(Martin Freeman) continues to lead a band of dwarves to reclaim their mountain
home from Smaug, the dragon (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch).
What’s
Great About It
This movie was just fun to
watch. The “barrels” scene (I won’t ruin
it by saying more for the uninitiated.) was a high point. While this movie isn’t
going to win any awards for great acting, it has enough of everything to keep a
non-Tolkien reader interested and entertained.
What’s
Not-So-Great About It
Rating
GGGg
(3.5 Gs)
Explanation
I will start this explanation by
saying that I haven’t read any of the Tolkien books. I am, however, a fan of RPG video games of
the knights-and-dragons persuasion, so I’m about in the middle of the field on
these types of movies. I reluctantly
went to see the first Lord of the Rings movie and enjoyed it, loved the second
one, and liked the third one until the ninth different ending…it just seemed
like it ended nine different times.
Anyway, I can honestly say I enjoyed
this movie. Martin Freeman plays Bilbo
Baggins as the skilled, but reluctant hero, really well, even though the movie
loses focus from him from time to time.
Richard Armitage plays the leader (and next in line to be king) of the
dwarves, Thorin Oakenshield and does a good job as portraying him as a guy
walking the line between trying to do what’s best for himself and his men and
what’s the best for the dwarves, in general.
He’s trying to reclaim the dwarves’ mountain home, which unfortunately,
has been claimed by a squatter in the form of a fire-breathing dragon named Smaug. Not only is Smaug gigantic and dangerous, he
seems better educated than 90 percent of the general population…dragons must
have good schools. Obviously, the dwarves
meet all kinds of trouble on the way from point A to point B, getting help from
Gandalf the wizard, a guy who can turn into a bear, Orlando Bloom (sorta’), a
guy named Bard who’s not a bard, a female elf who’s apparently not really in
the books (which is pissing off some Tolkien fans), and a shifty town leader
who seems like he’s not a very nice guy.
Most of these characters are played well enough not to be distracting…but
this movie’s not looking to create any Oscar winners.
The movie is fun, relatively
well-paced (if not a little long), has some great (and a bit over-the-top
ridiculous) action sequences, and is absolutely gorgeous to look at. I’ve been known to pick apart movies from
time to time, but this is the type of movie I just see to enjoy.
Overall, this is the type of
movie that most people either want to see or they don’t. If you’re in the minority that’s on the
fence, make sure you see the first movie in this new trilogy-plus-one, and then
give this movie a shot if you like the first one. It’s pretty entertaining and a fun ride.
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