Bingowings said:
The Hobbit : An Unexpected Journey (2012).
I finally got around to seeing this after reading so much about it that wasn't good.
It is perfect. No.
It is a not bad adaptation of that part of the book. It changes things but it's a film adaptation so I'm fine with that. Also I can see how the book would need be at least two very long films to be true to the flow of the book so making it a trilogy isn't a problem for me either (upon reflecting on the flow of the film).
It shouldn't be seen in the cinema.
It is too long without an intermission. It would work better as a Game Of Thrones style mini-series. The future of these films and their cousins is to be seen box set style anyway it works better that way.
On the whole I enjoyed it, I would have cut the first Dwarf song (I never liked the songs in the book as a kid anyway) I would have trimmed the Goblin King sequence to make it less cartoonish on paper before adding more rubberpixelation to the mix.
The effects are a real step backwards though. The whole film looks kind of waxy especially the CGI and I saw in 2D Standard Definition with a conventional framerate. If I had seen this at the cinema I would understand the acid thrown at this.
It looked like a video game cutscene of an earlier generation than the other three related films.
The framing device (Frodo etc) doesn't work it makes it into a Lord of the Rings prequel instead of an adaptation of the earlier book.
This backfires because the peril in this film is implausibly mild.
People cling to objects that smack together and nobody gets crushed let alone die etc. Which works as an adaptation of the earlier book but not as a prequel to the later books.
The ponies should have been killed and not run away. This sounds like a minor quibble but as the film is meant to more child friendly displacing the consequences of danger to the animals we have bonded with makes more sense than another scene with dead animals which feels disconnected and gratuitous in terms of story.
Radagast's scenes are handled badly. I don't mind him being there as much as some but very little effort seems to be made to fit him in.
Compared to Lord of the Rings the tone doesn't match.
It would be better to start with young Bilbo and then maybe add old Bilbo at the end of the last film to nod towards the darker sequel story which would allow for a retuning of the universe into a more plausible darkness.
Indeed toning down the action to be more believable would sell the characters better.
4 Cones.
I agree. I just came from seeing Smaug. As with the first, I feel like the movies are too reminiscent of the style of PT. Faster, more intense, more CGI, rhyming like poetry, etc. In Smaug there was just too much stuff, a couple of big video game type sequences - I was practically convinced we were back on Mustafar inside the Lonely Mountain. Like Radagast, Beorn was handled badly - and not in accordance with the mystery and playfulness in the book. There were other departures and I rolled my eyes a couple of times where things went way overboard (as with one special effect/scene transition). Sounds like I hated it, but I didn't. It's just too much a mish-mash without true levity and playfulness the story needs.