The Desolation of Smaug 

Well, the bye now traditional Christmas visit to the cinema for a Tolkien inspired blockbuster epic came and went, but was it worth it and do I feel enlivened in any way?

I have to say that a more apt title for the film would have been "The Desolation of JB's Wallet", seeing as I shelled out nearly £15 for the pleasure of seeing it, not to mention the cost of eating my expensively purchased Cherry Garcia ice cream whilst waiting in a farcical queue. It WAS Imax though, and it WAS 3D, so you pay for what you get.

The IMAX and the 3D was superb, although as I've said before, once you've got through the first five minutes you get used to it. I must say that there was something about it which gave me a piercing headache - I don't think it was the sound, although it was as loud as the recent Black Sabbath concert. I noticed that an awful lot of the filming was done in a very close up sort of way - this certainly added to an intense feeling of claustrophobia when they were in the depths of Mirkwood fighting the giant spiders, but I'm not too sure it worked in the little houses and pubs in Lake Town. Whatever, I think it was, the "density" of the filming that caused my headache.

What about the story then? As per last time, I really think that spreading a short book into three long, sprawling films is taking an enormous liberty. It's a long time since I've read "The Hobbit", but I'm sure that a good deal in this film wasn't really much to do with Tolkien, hence the "based on...." rider at the end. I'm afraid that I got rather bored with the endless chases and fights, and the "homely" scenes in the hovels of Lake Town" just didn't work for me, especially when they all started speaking in Welsh accents. The attempts to come out with modern phrases and innuendos were just silly and spoiled the heritage - there was one scene between the imprisoned dwarf king and the elf princess that was worthy of a "Carry On" film.

I could go on for ages about the lack of plot and characterisation, but my biggest moan is about how hundreds of thousands of orcs get killed, yet not a single elf, hobbit, wizard or general good guy gets a hair out of place - oh sorry, I forgot - one of the dwarfs got an arrow in the leg which took some wondrous elfish medicine to sort out. The director seems to have a penchant, or perhaps even a fetish for orcs being decapitated in the most imaginative and gruesome ways, because there was barely a let up from start to finish. I also found it hard to understand how Smaug the dragon could cause so much death and devastation to ordinary people, yet conspicuously fail to tinge a single hair on the head of Bilbo and his friends.

All this might look like I've done a hatchet job on it - but not really, I DID enjoy it very much - it's simply that more than ever, I just don't think there's much actual Tolkien in it.

Anyway, here's to next Christmas and the last instalment - unless that it is, an unknown Tolkien manuscript is miraculously discovered.....

29/12/13