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| If you're disappointed by Tauriel's rather passive pose on this poster, just wait until you see the film. |
Nah, I'm just funning. Dwarves charge up a mountainside on battle sheep and a lot of shit gets set on fire.
I enjoyed this film, and on a technical level it's superb, but in retrospect I think it has a lot of problems, some of which can be blamed on unnecessary changes to the source material and others to unnecessary adherence to the source material, and yet others to Peter Jackson's own directorial tendencies.
The huge tapestry poster above pretty much sets out the pattern of the film, so I'm going to take it step by step. The book is pretty old and the major plot beats are all in there, so I'm going to be less wary of spoilers than I usually am with new releases these days.
We open with Smaug's attack on Laketown and the triumph of some of the most dubious archery science seen on the big screen since Robin Hood shot two guys at once. Sadly, this will be the first of many moment where the epic action is undercut by whining presence of Alfrid Lickspittle, a character who seems to have escaped from a minor Dickens work to be The Hobbits bargain-basement Grima Wormtongue. As a minor niggle, this features another instance of Jackson's tendency to big up the beasts and shrink the world. In the book the dwarves are left to speculate as to whether the dragon is dead; in the film they can look out from Dale and see that Bard has hit his mark over Laketown.
Next up, the White Council descend on Dol Guldur like the magic Rangers, determined not to leave a man behind. Galadriel leads, with Saruman and Elrond on percussion (and it's nice to see Saruman the White being the epic badass instead of coming off all Chamberlain, even if we know it ends badly.) I think it's a shame that Galadriel's arse kicking is all shining lights, and as a Rings nerd I'm pretty sure that she ought not to be revealing to anyone - least of all Sauron himself - that she wields one of the three rings. I'm also disappointed that Jackson didn't take this chance to explicitly show that Elrond and Gandalf have the other two rings, something barely touched on in the original trilogy (and I think only even mentioned in the extended versions.)
Now King of the Lonely Mountain, Thorin gets all Smaugy-Gollumy over the traysure, refusing to share with the Lakefolk even though he gave his promise, and they did kind of remove the dragon that was going to come back and eat them all. The other dwarves are doubtful, but loyal, as Thorin has them scour the halls for the Arkenstone, which Bilbo has already pocketed and now holds onto, suspecting it would only make Thorin worse.
Back in Laketown, Bard organises a refugee train to the shelter of the mountain. Alfrid whines.
In defiance of his King's orders, Legolas goes a-scouting in Gundabad, taking Tauriel with him. This is basically his hail Mary move to try to win her back from Kili, and honestly if this is his idea of showing a girl a good time it's hardly surprising he's still single (if we don't count Aragorn) by the next trilogy. There are bats and orcs in their thousands, but surprisingly few wargs given that I had always read the wargs themselves to be one of the five armies (although accounts vary on that front) and Gundabad wargs are definitely made out to be a thing in An Unexpected Journey.
Thranduil turns up at Dale with a food drive for the Lakefolk, but because this is Peter Jackson and thus all elves (barring Galadriel, Tauriel, Arwen, Legolas and occasionally Elrond) are poncy, standoffish tools, he's really only there because he banked some shinies with Thror and wants them back. There is really no end to Thranduil's dickishness in this movie. He is basically responsible for almost precipitating a war over a few rocks (yay elven detachment from material things!), and later tries to walk out on the battle because it's not going well and directly contributes to Tauriel's victimhood and Kili's death by breaking the former's bow (which may be a figurative dismissal of her assumed 'masculine' martial power, 'putting the little lady back in her place,' because he's a dick in all other ways so why not make him a misogynist as well*.)
Gandalf reaches the Lonely Mountain and warns of orcs, but Thranduil poo-poos the warnings, because when have wizards ever been reliable?
Since always, you prick! You're an elf king; you know what the fuck is up with wizards. You were alive when they came out of the West into Middle Earth all shiny with the light of Iluvatar and shit. Your people have known and respected Mithrandir for centuries! Why are you such a tool, Thranduil? Where has this come from? What the actual fuck?
Oh, right; I forgot. This is a Peter Jackson movie; there has to be emotional conflict all over the place.
During this, Alfrid is around, whining.
Bilbo offers the Arkenstone to Bard and Thranduil as a bargaining chip, but then Billy Connolly turns up on a pig with an army of dwarves from the Iron Hills and it's on like Donkey Kong until the orcs bust out of the hills through tunnels dug by shai-halud.
It was at this point I began to wonder if I were in fact having a confused fever dream and not watching an actual movie at all.
The dwarves form a battle line. Thranduil fakes that his elves won't get involved, because it's not like the orcs are the ancient enemy of his people or anything. No, wait; that's exactly what they are. Fortunately, at the last moment the elves leap into the fray. Not by shooting their fabled arrow storms at the charging orcs before they reach the dwarves, but by vaulting over the dwarven shield wall and leaping into the fray, thus proving that if you're an elf, tactics are something that happens to other people.
Bard and the elves cut back to Dale to defend the civilians (where Alfrid does all he can to stay out of danger) while Dain and the dwarves form a ring around the gates of Erebor. This scene at least establishes that Azog at least has a smattering of elemental strategarg. In fact, simply on the basis of dividing his enemies and using an elevated signalling platform to direct his troops I think we can safely conclude that a better major general has never sat-a-warg.
After a painfully protracted period of soul searching, Thorin and his company bust out of Erebor and join the fight. Thorin, Fili, Kili and Dwalin jump on convenient cavalry sheep** (seriously; the fuck did they come from? Did I just miss Dain's sheep cavalry out on the flanks somewhere?) and charge up the mountain to take out Azog.
Sadly, this is a situation for the Admiral, and despite a late warning from Bilbo, Thorin's magnificent four end up badly outmatched by Azog's command squad and Bolg's Gundabad reinforcements.
Fili dies badly and Dwalin... sort of disappears until after the battle. I'm going to assume he was fighting and not hiding. Kili is doing well until Tauriel shows up to save him, and here we hit a problem.
Thranduil decides its time to bug out, because he's a dick. Tauriel stands in his way and points an arrow at him, but he cuts her bow in half. Dick. In the end, Legolas and Tauriel head up on their own to try and take out the second orc horde; because that'll work. Being now armed only with a knife (Legolas is carrying his own knives and Orcrist at this point, but does he give the sword to Tauriel? Does he fuck. Clearly dickishness is in the genes) she is able to take out some orcs, but is fuck all use against Bolg, requiring Kili, whom she came here to rescue to abandon a strong position for a rescue bid which gets him killed.
Tcha. Women, eh?
Speaking of failures of feminism, there's a nice bit where the able-bodied women and grumpy old men of Laketown take up arms rather than passively let the menfolk protect them from an apocalyptic threat. It's just a shame we never actually get to see them fight. Ah well; maybe in the extended edition. The scene also features Alfrid trying to weasel out of fighting yet again.
Meanwhile Legolas is being all sorts of gravity defying awesome. I think Orlando Bloom must have got some sort of contract out of Jackson while he was drunk.He rescues Tauriel from Bolg and Thorin from a random troll, at the same time returning Orcrist to Thorin for his mutual annihilation duel with Azog.
Alfrid flees. Good riddance, although he was so obviously the bargain Wormtongue I actually half-expected him to show up in the Shire at the end running the auction of Bilbo's furniture.
Not pictured above are the eagles, but you knew they were coming, right? And this time, they seriously weigh in, ripping into the Gundabad horde and their war bats***. They also bring in Radagast and Beorn, neither of whom have any actual lines in this film, although Beorn gets to leap off an eagle and drop a hundred and thirty feet while turning into a bear; and why not?
Tauriel is all heartbroken over Kili's death, and presumably guilt ridden, since it's her fault. Or possibly Thranduil's. Or Peter Jackson's. What the fuck, Jackson? Not even a little bit of back-to-back badassness for our doomed lovers? If you feel the need to put in female characters (and I can see why; it's not like the book has any) then why make them ineffectual?
I suspect that there is an epic set of bad movies reviews in the making for all six of these bad boys, but I like them, for all their flaws, so I want to do it properly. That's going to mean a full rewatch of all the extended editions, so don't expect much before next Christmas.
* For the record, in my head he's also now an antebellum Southern Gentleman; like Colonel Sanders on an elk.
** Some might say goats, but those are clearly bighorn sheep.
*** The orcs and the bats are both explicitly referred to as being 'bred for war', which seems to be the arc words for the film or something and as an aside is also a term used of Sontarans.
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