Review Detail
9.4 44 10
(Updated: August 26, 2016)
Overall rating
9.2
Audio/Video Quality
9.0
Audio Editing
9.0
Visual Editing
8.0
Narrative
10.0
Enjoyment
10.0
Most of the critique offered of these films comes from Tolkien fans and unsurprisingly most of the criticism is about adaption. For me this hides a more fundamental truth about the films failures. Whatever ones enthusiasm for the source :
1) They are extremely poorly structured, the set ups are over long and tedious, the pacing is off and the resolution to many of the set ups either telegraphed or simply wither.
2) They lack any kind of tonal personality or coherence. Indeed they do not know what they are or whom they are for. They attempt to be an homage, all-round family entertainment, profound and geo political and replace the charm of the book with occasional bouts of the most excruciatingly unfunny humour and in the last film the gags become vicious and brutal.
3) The most lamentable element is the poor values of the story telling endless fighting which achieves no change, characters undergo experiences and do not change and relationships are inconsistent. You can remove entire sections and no story telling is lost that is why the experience of watching them induces fatigue. Even more insidious are sub plots which threaten to overwhelm and indeed detract from the main story.
Some how the maker of this edit has managed to reduce or expunge many of these problems but he has had to be brutal. The sub plot of Dol Gulder which could have given these films there gravitas is axed and separated out into a small feature, entirely necessary, but the re imagining of the Hobbit in the style of the Rings needed that sub plot and was rich with potential. Indeed because it was sketched into the appendices of the Rings it needed first class writers to flesh it out and these films convince me that Fran and Phillippa, however dedicated, just do not have the talent to create something special by extension.
Other changes are less brutal but the editor of this film knows his subject and so we see Martins Bilbo emerge in to the central performance and shines more brightly for it. Curiously his editing style, which gives the story pace and focus, then enables you to enjoy the physical establishment of middle earth that much more and all the hard work of the fantastic crew in Wellington who created the textures of the film.
As others have said elements are clunky particularly the Dwarf deaths but if you want to sit down with the Hobbit as a winter film without your teeth grinding this is the ones to watch.
1) They are extremely poorly structured, the set ups are over long and tedious, the pacing is off and the resolution to many of the set ups either telegraphed or simply wither.
2) They lack any kind of tonal personality or coherence. Indeed they do not know what they are or whom they are for. They attempt to be an homage, all-round family entertainment, profound and geo political and replace the charm of the book with occasional bouts of the most excruciatingly unfunny humour and in the last film the gags become vicious and brutal.
3) The most lamentable element is the poor values of the story telling endless fighting which achieves no change, characters undergo experiences and do not change and relationships are inconsistent. You can remove entire sections and no story telling is lost that is why the experience of watching them induces fatigue. Even more insidious are sub plots which threaten to overwhelm and indeed detract from the main story.
Some how the maker of this edit has managed to reduce or expunge many of these problems but he has had to be brutal. The sub plot of Dol Gulder which could have given these films there gravitas is axed and separated out into a small feature, entirely necessary, but the re imagining of the Hobbit in the style of the Rings needed that sub plot and was rich with potential. Indeed because it was sketched into the appendices of the Rings it needed first class writers to flesh it out and these films convince me that Fran and Phillippa, however dedicated, just do not have the talent to create something special by extension.
Other changes are less brutal but the editor of this film knows his subject and so we see Martins Bilbo emerge in to the central performance and shines more brightly for it. Curiously his editing style, which gives the story pace and focus, then enables you to enjoy the physical establishment of middle earth that much more and all the hard work of the fantastic crew in Wellington who created the textures of the film.
As others have said elements are clunky particularly the Dwarf deaths but if you want to sit down with the Hobbit as a winter film without your teeth grinding this is the ones to watch.
User Review
Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
Digital
M