Repetitive and repetitive

Rating: 7/10 (18 August 2013)

Never managed to read the books but overall I enjoyed the Lord Of The Rings film trilogy with its relentless use of cgi cartoonery taken to its limits in furtherance of the story. So I was also looking forward to seeing this, the prequel being also a trilogy. Some people may want to call it Art, I call it maximising the potentialities of this particular revenue stream. After director Jackson has done with it maybe he'll find a way to continue the saga, in the same way that Dune, Shannara and other tales have been resurrected in print more times than Frankenstein.
Band of ragtag dwarfs looking for a home come unbidden in Bilbo Baggins the anti-hero's home to devise a way with Gandalf the hairy wiz to get their home in the Lonely Mountain back from the clutches of the Smaug dragon. Who unaccountably loves gold. One tedious chase or flight leads to another, however I suppose the tension does alternate between the tedious and the tiresome. The story development is almost nil because of the screenplay elongation and repetition in the real Quest to get money from the hordes of Smaugheads. The cutting edge cartoonery is used to the max, this alternating between impressive and laughable. Repetitive, complete and devastating mayhem rules yet there is no doubt there will be no casualties (except in the game version): vast mountain ranges thumping one another over their heads, half a million goblin-shapes against 14 are great odds, and falling miles into jagged ravines the brave band is as indestructible as Captain Scarlet would've been. Sometimes from a distance it looks like millions of hieroglyphics zanily slipping and sliding about a page. Gollum looked more like an old fashioned cartoon in this outing though, methinks someone was trying to save a few bob on him. I love all kinds of cartoons but this is unlovely. This was a motion picture I've just watched passively, not a game or I'm missing the controls.
Most kids under 20 years old will be entranced by it, older kids will face an increasing problem: they've seen it all before, and in this case within the same film too. It's incredibly well made in most visual departments and I enjoyed it to a point but along with most other ordinary films I've watched will never ever watch it again. My problem now is do I still bother with the next 3 hour instalment: The Hobbit – The Expected Flogging Of A Dead Horse.