The Desolation of Peter Jackson

Rating: 5/10 (14 December 2013)

So here's the main points.
1. The actor who plays Thorin did a video commercial for the DVD of the movie that you just paid to see in the theater suggesting that you should pay more now so that you could get some wondervision DVD at some later date when it becomes available. It looked eerily similar to those videos of terrorist hostages talking about how America blows. Nice job Hollywood.
2. Like the first installment of this three movie one book epic there are action scenes of infinite length that, basically, are set up so that the dudes that make the Lego video game of the Hobbit don't have to think too much.
3. Speaking of action scenes, in the "barrel ride" scene something really weird happened in my theater. I think the projectionist kept mixing in video of his family's white water rafting trip from last summer. Either that, or they just forgot to bring a film camera the day they shot the close ups of frothy water. Maybe Peter Jackson made a selfie movie on his cellphone of him splashing around in his bathtub and stuck it in thinking no one would notice.
4. The studio or whatever must have finally gotten the note that they forgot to put any black people in Middle Earth because they put one whole black person in this one. Sure it was just one extra in a Lake Town scene, but at least they kept cutting back to reaction shots of her face for awkwardly long and obvious takes. Now no one can say that Middle Earth isn't racially diverse.
5. They could have given an actual speaking role to a black person. Like Bart. I don't think Tolkien ever said one way or another if Bart was white or not. Instead, they appeared to give Bart's role to Jean Claude van Damme made to look youthful through the magic of CG.
Incidentally, Jean Claude van Damme once told me that he could kick me in the eyeball without getting up from his seat across the dinner table after I told him that I really liked his performance in Monaco Forever. Nice to see you again Jean Claude!
It's not the worst movie ever made intended to help stretch a single, fairly lightweight fantasy book into three seven hour movies but it's not the best either.