Well, it has happened. After the the masterful “Lord Of The Rings” film trilogy and the flawed but pleasant “An Unexpected Journey”, Peter Jackson has finally delivered the first bad film of the franchise. “The Desolation Of Smaug” falls prey to the vices that plagued the “Pirates Of The Caribbean” sequels and worsens its case by combining them with esthetic faults that Jackson had already hinted at in his disappointing adaptation of The Lovely Bones and some scenes of his otherwise solid “King Kong” remake, but are aggravated here in a way that almost reaches George Lucas-like proportions.
When we
last left Bilbo (Martin Freeman),
Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and their
dwarven companions, they were half-way on their way to the Misty Mountains,
where the evil dragon Smaug (Benedict
Cumberbatch) devastated their kingdom and cast them from their homes.
Amidst the mountain of gold Smaug rests upon, the steely dwarven leader Thorin
(Richard Armitage) seeks one gem –
the Arkenstone, the stone of his forefathers that shall restore his power to
unite all dwarf tribes under his command and reclaim their land.
Although
I have not read any of Tolkien’s books, I do know that Jackson and his
co-screenwriters made the ambitious choice of not only faithfully adapting “The Hobbit” but of making a full prequel
trilogy that would attach the dwarves’ quest to the slow yet imminent return of
Sauron and the gathering of evil at his service. An ambitious and very risky
decision that was met with justified fear and puzzlement from fans. “An Unexpected Journey” – in spite of its
occasionally slow pace, particularly in its beginning – did a very good job of
balancing the hopefulness of the dwarves’ daring quest with a sense of
impending doom ignored by all but Gandalf and Galadriel. In addition, the fate
of the old dwarven kingdom and Thorin’s backstory were woven in to give a
greater sense of meaning to their quest, as well as a recurring antagonist in
the form of Thorin’s old nemesis Azog (Manu
Bennett), an Orc now in the service of Sauron.
Leaving An Unexpected Journey, I was hoping that
the screenwriting team could stay as even-handed for the duration of the
trilogy. Alas, it was not to be. The problem starts as soon as the dwarves are
rescued from a spider attack by wood-elves of Mirkwood who then capture them as
trespassers. Among these elves is none other than Legolas (Orlando Bloom), the least interesting member of the Fellowship of
the Ring, discovered here to be the son of Mirkwood’s king, Thranduil (Lee Pace). He is accompanied by Tauriel
(Evangeline Lilly), a character
created specifically for the film in order to provide a prominent female
character in what would otherwise be an all-male film. While I respect the
sentiment behind that decision and Evangeline Lilly herself does a serviceable
job, Tauriel unfortunately becomes one of the many elements that end up
drowning the story in subplots.
You see,
Tauriel is given exactly two purposes: To help the Hobbits kill Orcs with
Legolas and pad the film with a love triangle comprised of herself, Legolas and
a dwarf named Kili whom she rescued from a spider.
While
none of films in the “Lord Of The Rings”
trilogy are exceptionally romantic, the relationship between Aragorn and Arwen,
and particularly Eowyn’s unrequited love for Aragorn, was handled in a way that
evoked courtly love without excessive sentimentalism or purple prose, and
served the characters without weighing down the plot. Aragorn and Arwen’s love
not only deepened their characters, it represented the future imperiled by
Sauron’s forces. A future in which, as Elrond showed in his sublime speech in “The Two Towers”, life and happiness
would still be outrun in time by death and grief, but a future nevertheless
worth fighting for, on the mere basis of its existence.
The
romance in this film however, without inducing Padmé/Anakin levels of cringes,
is quite bad. Kili and Tauriel share only two scenes together and chemistry in
neither of them. Their lines do not help either. Here’s an actual dialogue
sample, as the dwarves are each searched and locked into cells after their
capture:
-
Kili: Aren’t you going to search me? I could have
anything down my trousers.
-
Tauriel: Or nothing.
Upon
hearing that exchange, my heart sank. Never would I have expected the
Middle-Earth film franchise to contain sexual double-entendres that even Roger
Moore’s James Bond would have dismissed.
But more
importantly, the Kili/Tauriel/Legolas love triangle has none of the subtext
that gave Arwen and Aragorn’s relationship weight. Whereas Aragorn was Thorin’s
equal as a destined leader of men, Kili is but one of his many followers, a
character with no particularly outstanding trait, whose name I would not have
remembered if it weren’t for this subplot. There is no justification for the
inclusion of this subplot whatsoever and thus, as their role is sadly defined
by its inclusion, none for the inclusion of Tauriel or Legolas either.
Had
Tauriel and Legolas been left out altogether, the film would run more smoothly
and would be improved for it. Chief among the improvements would be the
subsequent scenes involving Laketown, and the character of Bard (Luke Evans), descendant of Girion, the
man who defended Dale in vain against Smaug during his devastation of the
place. The character has much potential, but it is undone by his submission to
the avalanche of subplots caused by Kili’s injury, the pursuit of the orcs and
Tauriel and Legolas’s pursuit of them. Also a collateral damage in this rush of
events is the setting of Laketown itself, whose culture – and greedy Master
played by a somewhat incongruous Stephen Fry – we only have fleeting glimpses
of.
As if
that wasn’t enough, Gandalf decides early in the film to leave the party in
order to go to Dol Guldur to distract Sauron’s forces and delay his inevitable
return. Had Kili, Tauriel and the orcs been out of the picture, this subplot
would command more attention and its ominousness would be better perceivd. As
it stands, mired between far less relevant side-stories, one feels deprived of
a much better film.
The
screenplay is sadly not the only thing that bogs down the viewer’s experience. In
“An Unexpected Journey”, I had felt
reservation towards Peter Jackson’s decisions to brighten the lighting and
colour scheme and motion-capture his orcs and goblins with CGI rather than
apply heavy make-up on his actors and extras. The result sometimes felt like
watching a spectacular video game rather than a film, quite different from the
visceral experience provided by real actors and stuntspeople in the original
trilogy. “The Desolation Of Smaug”
turns my reservation into outright rejection.
Never
has the world of Middle-Earth looked so artificial, thanks partly to a 48fps
format that accelerates every movement and every scene to the point of making
them hard to spatialize, and partly to gaudy bright lighting and an
overreliance on CGI over practical effects that makes the film resemble a
Frankensteinian mixture of soap opera, video game and Lolita Lempicka perfume
commercial.
When
they’re not artificial and cartoonish, the fight scenes are shot closely and
edited in a manner that, in an 48fps format, makes them blur past the eyes from
shot to shot without any time to pause and admire. The 3D worsens it by
clogging the foreground with constant objects and people. Only too rarely can
you take in New Zealand’s gorgeous scenery, as you are either blinded by the
bright orange sun or trying to figure out the scene’s topography.
Peter
Jackson overkills his action scenes by making his characters jump from one
scenery element to the next without the grace and seamlessness Steven Spielberg
displayed in “The Adventures Of Tintin:
The Secret Of The Unicorn”. This is most evident in the final action scene
involving Smaug chasing Bilbo and the dwarves. The unceasing overflow of
movement prevents immersion in favour of sensory overload. By the time the film
was over, I had a headache.
It’s all the more of a shame since that particular scene comes right after the best one in the film, in which Bilbo tries to sneak into Smaug’s chamber to steal the Arkenstone but accidentally wakes the sleeping dragon and tries to distract him with flattery and pretense of stupidity. It’s an interesting battle of wits compounded by the contrast between the size and demeanour of the two characters. David against Goliath, with his wits as a substitute for a sling.
I can
only hope that after this particularly long and uncomfortable bridge, the “Hobbit” trilogy can come to a close with a film that recaptures both
“An Unexpected Journey”’s balance of
plot threads and the original trilogy’s esthetic authenticity. I hope Peter
Jackson watches his previous films – not just the “Lord Of The Rings” but also his marvellous zombie comedy “Braindead” – and realizes how real they
felt in comparison to the increasing academicism he has been displaying for the
past seven years or so. Above all, I sincerely hope the 48fps fad does not
leave this trilogy’s gates and that 3D be used only to enhance the senses
rather than numb them. Cinema deserve better than to become just another
soldier taking part in the daily assault on the senses we experience.
