This is one of the funniest, most accurate reviews Ive read. Thanks Margaret for sending it to me. It makes clear what Ive always thought myself, that Tolkiens books are at heart self-important and humourless. (Now, now, Sparge and Jeannie, calm yerselfies). Heres the full article because the Sundaytimes.co.uk doesnt let you read the full thing unless youve signed up: Camilla Long The Times. The final Hobbit film, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, begins on an unusual note of restraint. Five armies, yet only one film? This must be the first time Peter Jackson has made one of anything. He has turned one book into three films — twice. He will probably turn The Hobbit’s total budget of roughly $500m into a box-office haul of at least $3bn. If his films are to be remembered for anything, it will be his extraordinary ability to see five where there is one, or even none. This film’s baddie, for example, a goblin king called Azog, hardly exists in the original book. But for all its pomp and bombast, the only thing I can think of is cheese. The final film stretches out in front of me like a sea of Dairylea: an endless, formless, highly processed mass of nothingness, smelling slightly of prosthetics and hairy feet. I’d like to say it is better than the others, but that’s like saying one slice of Dairylea is better than another. It’s exactly the same; another big cheesy dose of goblets and codpieces; a strident, overblown, self-confident blast from an alphorn, picking up in the middle of a scene — and I mean exactly where it left off last time. If you want an idea of how vast and tireless and unstoppable this franchise has become, it can’t even be bothered to do proper breaks between films any more. It just churns and churns. Like cheese. So everything plunges straight into a breathtaking battle between Bard (Luke Evans) and the dragon (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch), following his escape from the Lonely Mountain at the end of the last film. As Smaug swoops across Lake-town, which is a cross between Venice and Margate, breathing great billowing flames, it slowly dawned on me that I’d seen this before, the burning bellies and swamps of fire, the fat, screaming men — it is, of course, a vast, high-budget advertisement for indigestion. This thrashing Gaviscon spectacle is entirely different from the rest of the film, which is, for the most part, smooth and static, situated on the plain before the gate of Erebor, where a hammily dragon-sick Thorin (Richard Armitage) is holed up with the other dwarves and Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman). Poor, poor Martin Freeman: you can practically taste his desperation. I don’t know how many hours he has sat in prosthetics in a field in the middle of nowhere, but every second is etched into his deep, querulous eyes. Is there a place beyond woe? Tolkien is the man who would know. Freeman has been in that place for five years, a moody, murky swamp of goblins and no more than three emotions, trying to affect surprise when someone screeches: “The eagles are coming!” By the end, he has given up even looking for eagles, half glancing at the sky with a hooded and distant stare, wondering, no doubt, how many people will ask him whether he and Cumberbatch are a couple or not during this publicity tour. (“Me and Benedict are not a couple, and Amanda is not my beard,” he clarified last week; Amanda is his wife.) He seems almost relieved to be such a side note in this film, which focuses on, yes, a single enormous battle that takes up a mere 20 pages of the book, but is leeched out over an impressive 144 minutes here, involving... how many armies? I counted seven, 10 and four: men and elves and dwarves against absolutely everyone else — war bats and goblin hordes and great rock crunchers swinging bits of metal. If there is one thing I will miss from the films of Peter Jackson, it’s the sight of a truly hideous giant in a tiny leather thong. He really gives great monster. Also: great raven, great beak, ridiculous non-scenes with Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), silly speeches beginning “a fire in the east”, gloves, stupid hats and awful attempts at humour. Actually, I won’t miss those. As a director, he may be able to realise a full-scale medieval battle featuring 9,000 10ft orcs and Billy Connolly as a foul-mouthed dwarf astride a tacked-up war pig — the film’s finest cameo, pitifully short — but he simply cannot do laughs. He lacks the right sort of prance, inventing a lumpy character in the shape of Alfrid Lickspittle (Ryan Gage) to provide sub-Carry On relief. Lickspittle ruptures the tone and spirit of Tolkien’s world. His books are at heart self-important and humourless. There is no room for fake bosoms and cross-dressing — or, at least, none that anyone will admit. (This film is essentially a dance-off between five troupes of warriors with long hair and/or plaits who have been scrapping over a pile of diamonds.) And what would Tolkien have made of the films? What would he have made of the man who has twisted and pounded his work to (mostly) such great effect? I like to imagine he would have spent most of his time running away from him, hissing: “Who’s that bloody man? Why does he keep on wanting to talk to me? I can’t remember why I called him Azog.” If Jackson’s two trilogies have taught us anything, it’s that he is a rabid, obsessive, slavering fan. The films are our most epic example of fan fiction yet.
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 13:02:29 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015