I saw this a while ago, just after reading the book. The book's only got about ten pages, but this movie was three hours long and is only the first one of a trilogy, so ought to feel epic. Sadly though, it doesn't. There's nothing like the sense of foreboding that you get in the proper Lord of the Rings films. The villain here is some sort of misshapen orc, who just grunts and looks very ugly.
The band of dwarves are not especially amusing, and could do with a heavy editing. They're from various parts of the British Isles, and the people I watched it with (in Belfast) were upset the only good looking one was English. There's a few Middle Earth stalwarts popping up - in one strange scene Elrond, Gladriel and Saruman (an impossibly old Christopher Lee) gather in Rivendell for no good reason. Ian McKellen as Gandalf is good, but seems to be doing a lot of work to hold it together.
My highlight was the Goblin King's song, which was mad. But I also hold him responsible for the low point in the film - the tremendously tiresome underground chase. I watched the film in 2D, maybe action scenes like that would have been great in 3D?
Overall then, I'm saying the film was a failure. But I still enjoyed it at the time. It's a big lavish production, with lots of good actors, and it moves along fairly well. I like fantasy films, and in fact I could take hours and hours of this kind of thing before I got bored. Wouldn't even mind watching it again.
No comments:
Post a Comment