Peter Jackson, WHY?!?

Rating: 3/10 (17 December 2012)

It's not like I really wanted to see it, I just was seeing how comparable it was to the The Lord Of The Rings. I had previously seen the other LOTR films in order to gain some knowledge and felt like 'this should be a good film, it's not like it's going to be the worst film. Maybe I should look forward to this, I mean Peter Jackson did really well with the previous films, why should he fail with this one?' It's when you realise that it's a big mistake to overexcite yourself, that it's not the advertising that's hyping it up, it's you. It's because of that that you think it's going to be good. But you always blame it on the director and the studio and anyone else associated with the film because they're the ones distributing it. And you can't help but hype it, as it just looks and feels amazing. It's only afterwards that you then blame yourself for believing that it had any redeeming features.
I felt more than a little disappointed when I walked out of the cinema, as I saw it in IMAX 3D because of the 9 minute preview of Star Trek Into Darkness. That was the best moment when I was sitting in the cinema, when I was watching the preview. Somehow afterwards I felt I was looking forward to that film more than the present one, but I still felt that when it started, it should be good because you can't judge a film when not seeing it. Oh, as the cliché goes, how wrong I was. One of the only things that really motivated me when I came out of the film was what other films I could see, such as Oz: The Great and Powerful and Star Trek Into Darkness. Seriously, that's what I really wanted.
It's the before and after I really don't like because you have such different reactions, and you can't react afterwards if you haven't seen the film, so you see the film, and you realise how much time you've wasted. But at least I never have to see it again.
There are many perfect reasons why I shouldn't like this film. I was quite unsure where this was actually going. I sat there, waiting for the real plot to appear suddenly, and surprise me, but nope, I was left with empty, visually beautiful scenes of mountains and waterfalls and lush forest. With LOTR, it had that, but we were at least given some depth, like when they were trekking through the mountains, there was given reason and they weren't continually running around pointlessly. I knew what they were doing, and what reason giving why they were so delayed. Even that tackled amazing psychology, such as multiple personality disorder and addiction, but this was just some silly film that Peter Jackson decided to throw together because he thought people liked his films anyway. Wrong move, Jackson.
This also highlights my other point. I think it was the middle of the film, I wasn't too sure, that I sat there, bored out of my own skull. I literally wished that it would end halfway through. While LOTR had legitimate, intelligent stuff that spread thickly across the films, this was just basic filler material in this one, in order to spread this out so thinly to make 3 films out of it.
And why, oh why, did it have such stupid humour? Stupid in the aspect that it was low-brow and didn't appear to have any real meaning and was quite useless, to be honest. Other times, it felt quite forced, as if the people behind it really had to work hard to actually make it funny.
The film just didn't have the same magnificence and real meaning to it like the LOTR trilogy. You can't make 3 films out of one book, which is exactly why Peter Jackson decided to add some unfunny humour and empty scenes in order to fill 3 hours. I was like 'O.K, so are we going to see the dragon? No? Not even the Necromancer? That was like 5 seconds. Anything else? No? Look, do something, I'm bored'.
About the only good people in this film was Martin Freeman, who actually had the ability to act, and Andy Serkis, who did an amazing portrayal of Gollum; there wasn't a chance for me to see Ian McKellen properly as Gandalf. The dwarfs sucked, they seemed as if they were only there for the kids. I can really understand why the critics are saying that this film really screwed up.
What happened, Jackson? Your trilogy was so engaging, why did this feel so childish, brightly coloured, over dramatic and overlong? Have you now begun your descent into doing this ONLY to make money? I'm not even sure if I want to see the second and third ones. Otherwise, I'll only be that desperate to see how Benedict Cumberbatch has portrayed the dragon and the Necromancer. Or maybe I won't, because that would probably be the only redeeming feature in the film. I can always catch the clips on Youtube.