Well, what can I say? I enjoyed the movie quite a lot. I expected to enjoy it, so I was glad I wasn’t disappointed in that regard. I read the book once and that was about 15 years ago, so I didn’t remember much from the plot. To be honest I hardly remember anything from the book, which is why I borrowed it from Bro2 yesterday to read it again over the next few days. So I was totally open-minded about the movie.
I think the pacing of the story worked well and so did the additional characters, like the “she-elf” Tauriel. The movie was actionpacked and thus entertaining, but there also was enough comic relief and the right amount of emotional moments. A few things were a bit over the top (the elfs using the dwarves head’s in the barrels as stepping stones while chasing the orks) and some sequences could have been a bit shorter. But I never felt bored in this movie, even though it’s such a long one.
In “An Unexpected Journey” I didn’t like some of the 3D and CGI because it was either too much or looked too artificial. I have no complaints about that in this 2nd movie. Except maybe, that the spiders looked so horribly realistic. Holy crap! I usually am not afraid of spiders and don’t run screaming, but in this case I could have totally lived with shorter scenes of that ;-)
I very much enjoyed to Luke Evans as Bard and of course this time I also paid close attention to Graham McTavish as Dwalin, because he will be Dougal McKenzie in the upcoming Outlander TV series. And he had some really great scenes. So I’m really looking forward to see him on the small screen as well.
Highlight of the movie was of course: Smaug, the dragon. Or to be more precise: his voice. Because… isn’t Benedict Cumberbatch’s voice just the most perfect for this creature? I know they used additional subwoofers and such, but it was still so much his voice and I’d say he was even recognisable in Smaugs movements and “facial” expressions. No wonder because Benedict Cumberbatch acted as model for the digital dragon as well. It was just really amazing and impressive and to see him and Martin Freeman face each other (sort of) in this movie and think of them in Sherlock was also a lot of fun. And Martin Freeman himself was really awesome as Bilbo as well. Perfect facial expressions and gestures and everything.
So, all in all, I’d say:
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
[This is the first post, in what I hope will turn into something regular, movie (and book) reviews. Or not so much reviews as just my thoughts about it. I think a 5 stars scale is a good one *g*]