The final film in Peter Jackson’s trilogy adaptation of The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien, has now been titled The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. The film, previously titled The Hobbit: There and Back Again, will be released worldwide December 17th 2014, with select international territories releasing on December 10th 2014. Ian McKellen returns […] Avid moviegoers are once again reacquainted with the imaginative scope of J.R.R. Tolkien’s festive wonderworld in writer-director Peter Jackson’s frenetic follow-up to ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’. In ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug’, Jackson revisits his style of elaborate escapist cinema, the visual vitality and expansive storytelling methods to convey Tolkien’s visionary landscape of […] When reviewing any piece of work, I do my best to take it in isolation and not let related materials influence my judgement. I’m afraid with ‘The Hobbit’ soundtrack, that’s just not possible so expect lots of references to ‘The Lord Of The Rings’ to follow.
I’m sure I don’t need to go into the […] Call this shameless marketing for Lego Minifigs if you will… we’re just a corporate whore at heart, but let’s face it, if Lego made a Minifig of you, wouldn’t you be proud of it? The cast of The Hobbit certainly are! The Hobbiton Movie Set – where The Hobbit was filmed – has just opened The Green Dragon Inn, the ribbon cut by none other than The New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key (yes, they take things that seriously). Now tourists as well as dwarves can get some of that Shire ale down their necks. Smaug makes an appearance in the new trailer for The Hobbit. He’s a dragon, by the way. Likes: big piles of gold in his cave under the mountains. Dislikes: dwarves that sing too much. Our movie-watching Xmas is shaping up nicely! And there’s yet another new trailer out for The Hobbit, this time featuring some mighty Hobbit (and dwarf) fighting action. See the swords fly! And the media are still drip-feeding their ‘early reviews say this sucks’ message.
Boy, are they crazy about the new Hobbit film over in New Zealand. Okay, you have to give it to Peter Jackson, he has come a long way since his early Fraggle-like porn movies and has moved on to covering JRR Tolkien’s books with distinction, single handedly revitalizing the NZ-shot movie economy in the process. A new trailer for the Hobbit where Gandalf arms his diminutive questing companion up with a sword… It’s interesting that the media seem to be trying to spread a ‘This movie sucks’ message based on supposed awful early reactions at test screenings. We’ll hold our opinion until we’ve actually seen the film, […] You don’t step on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind and above all else, you don’t mess with the classics. Thankfully, David Wenzel and Charles Dixon have resisted the urge to give their graphic novel translation a modern look to reflect the super-duper high definition look that will grace our screens this Christmas. Here Are All The Websites Village Roadshow Is Banning In Australia
Deals: Become An App Making Pro With This Android Nougat Training What's New On Netflix, Stan, Foxtel And Amazon Prime For MarchScreenwriters: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, Guillermo del Toro; Starring: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Evangeline Lilly, Orlando Bloom, Benedict Cumberbatch, Luke Evans; Running time: 161 mins; Certificate: 12AOpening as it does on a bearded, handsome figure attracting furtive glances from fellow patrons inside the candlelit Prancing Pony Inn, it's plain from the get-go that Peter Jackson's second Hobbit instalment will serve nostalgic Lord of the Rings fans well – references to the trilogy abound. But where last year's An Unexpected Journey steered too structurally close to Fellowship and suffered by comparison, The Desolation of Smaug feels Ringsier in tone while forging entirely its own narrative path, marrying breathless action with shrewd character building.It's a moodier, more anxious story that gives Martin Freeman more dimensions to play with, as Bilbo and the band of dwarves journey on towards their confrontation with treasure-hoarding dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch), beset by a laundry-list of perils including giant spiders, a temperamental bear-man, treacherous rapids and a "less wise, more dangerous" breed of Elves.But as became the case for Elijah Wood's Frodo
, it's the internal conflict that cuts deepest, with the ring beginning to take a psychological toll on Bilbo and Thorin (Richard Armitage) increasingly ruthless in his determination to safeguard his long-lost homeland. Both characters – whose relationship was the cornerstone of An Unexpected Journey – being separately undone by gold offers a sturdy emotional footing on which to build the rollicking action.And build it Jackson does. Kicking into gear with a genuinely creepy sequence inside the sickly, hallucinogenic forest of Mirkwood, with giant spiders not far behind, Desolation sees its director showing off his horror credentials with gusto. An extended set piece where Bilbo & co escape from their elven prison by floating down-river in barrels is smoothly, thrillingly executed, Orlando Bloom's Legolas reporting once again for GIF-worthy battle duty as elf-on-orc warfare breaks out on the banks.But there's no getting around the fact that this story has been mercilessly padded.
Evangeline Lilly, who famously spent six years at the centre of an interminable love triangle on Lost, is introduced as the newly conceived Tauriel, a theoretically fierce warrior elf whose main function is to be caught between two suitors. Will she choose the species-appropriate Legolas or the besotted dwarf Killi, whose ethereal good looks make him indistinguishable from an elf in any case? The more compelling question is: exactly what audience is this storyline meant to be serving?Beyond a certain point, everything happening on screen feels like foreplay, killing time before the long-awaited reveal of the dragon. And when it comes, it's a triumph. Smaug is a more fully realised CGI villain than fans could have dared to hope for - articulate and paranoid and haughty and sardonic and very, very cunning, as completely Cumberbatch's performance as Gollum was Andy Serkis's.What's remarkable is that his sheer size on-screen doesn't undermine the sinister intimacy of his face-off with Bilbo, a genuinely thrilling scene that will carry a weird extra weight for fans of the BBC's Sherlock.It's only in the moments that Freeman's grounded, open-hearted performance gets sidelined that you spot the cracks in Desolation's foundations - Gandalf diverts off into a side-plot involving the shadowy Necromancer that mostly fizzles