Did I like The Hobbit? Was the Gollum sequence everything I could have asked for and more? He sang, he talked to himself, I was terrified and delighted all at once! But clocking in at 2 hours and 49 minutes (with, let’s say, an estimated 8 hours total for the trilogy) one can’t help but turn an eye to the ways in which the running time might have been trimmed. And while I’m no filmmaker and certainly wouldn’t presume to know more about what story elements should be cut, I do know THAT ADDING SH*T THAT IS NOT IN THE BOOK WILL NOT HELP YOU COME IN UNDER THREE HOURS. Yeah, sometimes you have to change stuff from book to film. Film is a different medium, yadda yadda yadda. But whereas the changes in the original Lord Of The Rings trilogy had to do with cuts (no time for hippies, Tom Bombadil…lo siento Faramir/Eowyn shippers), Jackson has gone the other way this time. What I’m saying is that he’s delved too greedily and too deep. I’m no Silmarillion-thumping purist, but here are five deviations that rubbed me the wrong way.
Caution, 75 year-old spoilers. Azog The Defiler: While it is strictly canon that an orc named Azog fought the dwarves at Khazad-dûm and that he killed Thorin’s grandpa, this pale mother*cker does not feature in The Hobbit. Not even a little bit. There is no “big bad” chasing Bilbo & Co. and, if there were, he certainly could have looked a lot better. An all-CGI character is tricksy to pull off. Doubly so if you don’t have the benefit of having Andy Serkis give it life, give it weight, make it real. No offense to this guy, but I’m not sure a featured role in “Spartacus” prepared him to bring the proper degree of menace to this role. Think of the thundering hooves of the Ringwraiths. Think of the terrifying snarl of the Uruk-hai. Now think of this weightless worm of a creature on his CGI’d Warg. Presumably we’ll see his pale, non-menacing face again in the second or third film, once things get a little tense between Laketown, dwarves and elves. Thankfully, however, I suspect whatever issues I have with Azog will not carry over to Smaug.
In Cumberbatch We Trust. The Galadriel and Gandalf Love Story: Who the what now? I was as happy as anyone else to see Cate Blanchett return. She’s not in the book. But what was THIS? What purpose did it serve? True, fine, it didn’t take up much time. Radagast The Brown: We don’t have time for Tom Bombadil but we’ll manufacture an entire sequence with some addled, guano-smeared wizard on a rabbit sleigh? Like Azog, Radagast is canon, but plays NO part in “The Hobbit.” Many will say that the sillier tone of the Radagast sequence fits with the child-like nature of “The Hobbit” itself. That thinking got me through the snot and bum jokes in the Troll sequence, but did nothing for me here. Sylvester McCoy did a bang-up job with what he was given, but what he was given was bird crap. And that Warg chase scene with Radagast, the dwarves, Gandalf and Bilbo was some of the sloppiest action I’ve seen in a long while. Amping Up The Role Of Legolas’s Dwarf Racist Party Dad, Thranduil: Okay, first of all, if you don’t know yet, that poncey, bitchy, stag-riding elf who coldly denied the dwarves when they were being slaughtered by Smaug?
That’s Legolas’s dad (aka Lee Pace). He’s a party dude and a bit of a racist. He’ll play a bigger part in the next film (along with, one assumes, Evangeline Lilly’s made-up elven warrior princess). The issue with playing up the racism angle is it makes both Thranduil and Thorin look like unreasonable asses. Thorin’s hysterics (and quick reversal) in Rivendell were particularly off-putting. The dwarf/elf racism was played for laughs between Gimli and Legolas in the original trilogy, but making it a serious issue is a mistake. If, however, this is just one big machination to bring back Orlando Bloom, well, then, I’m okay with it. The John McClane-ing Of Bilbo Baggins: “The Hobbit” is, at its core, a very small and simple story. For all the giants and wolves and trolls and goblins and dragons, this is a really story about a comfy little Hobbit who doesn’t really want an adventure. He’s blustered out the door by Gandalf (this plays out a bit differently in the movie where it’s much more Bilbo’s idea) and throughout his journey thinks back longingly on his cozy home.
Martin Freeman was perfectly cast. But the bravery that Bilbo eventually shows is a slow to come and hard won. It has a lot more to with the ring and nothing at all to do with charging out of a flaming tree and attacking Orcs and wolves. Bilbo is not an action hero. A clever, tricksy little hobbit who finds his courage when he needs it most. Bilbo is a bit craven, actually. Those shades of grey are lost when you turn him into a fighter. He’s not Frodo, nor would we want him to be. It’s the quiet moments that work the best in this film. Bilbo’s worried conversation with Bofur (the excellent James Nesbitt) or the cannily encouraging words from Gandalf. More of that and fewer sword fights please. This might all sound negative and finicky but I do want to reiterate that I enjoyed the movie. I just think it could have been better with a bit of restraint. I’d like to think that Peter Jackson made The Hobbit into three films because he loves Middle-Earth and couldn’t bear to leave it.
The cynic in me thinks it feels like a money grab. Then again, Jackson gave us so much. Haunting dwarfsong, a game of riddles and a Conchord. For that, we thank him. Mindhole Blowers: 20 Facts About 'Batman and Robin' You Probably Don't Know Or Actively Repressed | Mindhole Blowers: What Could've Been Edition -- Early Casting Choices for Twenty 2012 FilmsI used to 100% every LEGO game, but as the levels keep getting longer and more complex, my desire to re-play them to collect everything has completely evaporated. On the other hand, as the open world hubs have grown and gotten more interesting, I find myself grinding through the increasingly bland story missions so I can unlock the actual fun stuff. The good news is that LEGO Marvel's Avengers has some of the best open world hubs the series has had yet. The bad news is that it also has some of the most bloated, boring, and un-fun story missions we've seen in a LEGO game in a long time. See all of the details here.
LEGO Marvel's Avengers focuses mainly on the two Avengers movies for the bulk of the story missions, but there are also levels based on scenes from "Iron Man 3", "Captain America: The First Avenger", "Captain America: The Winter Soldier", and "Thor: The Dark World". They are presented in a jumbled, out of order mess, though, so unless you've seen all of the movies it can be confusing as to what exactly is going on and when it's supposedly happening. The game features more than 200 characters including Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Captain America, and Hulk along with a surprising amount of totally obscure Marvel characters you probably won't recognize. Strangely, popular characters like Spider-Man, any X-Men or other mutants, or the Guardians of the Galaxy are totally absent. This is disappointing, but does serve to truly separate this game from LEGO Marvel Superheroes, so it is understandable why it was done.The core LEGO gameplay is present and accounted for, of course.
You break blocks, collect studs, build stuff, and different characters have unique abilities required to interact with different types of LEGO blocks. Unlike LEGO Jurassic World, which was mostly puzzles with limited combat, LEGO Marvel's Avengers gives you large helpings of both, which is where the first problem comes in. Combat is bad here. Unless your character is a super powered hero, which you'd think would be the norm in a game like this but most characters are actually normal-strength folks, beating enemies takes a really, really, really long time. Using Thor or Hulk lets you plow through enemy hordes easily. This makes combat an absolute chore. You do have team up moves where two characters perform a power move, as well as sort of instant kill moves where you can take out an enemy in one hit after you build up a meter, but these take several precious seconds to execute every single time, so you get tired of seeing them pretty quickly. Another issue is that the game does a surprisingly poor job of telling you what to do next.
I have played through almost every LEGO game, so you'd think I'd have a handle on how to solve puzzles and what to do, but there was at least one point in every single level where I didn't know what the heck to do. The solution was always that I needed to destroy some single block somewhere or hit a switch or pull a lever I couldn't see so it was always simple, but to get hung up somewhere on every single level was very, very frustrating. And this is supposed to be a kids game! On top of that, enemies infinitely respawn in many areas while you're trying to figure out how to make progress, and considering the combat is only mediocre to begin with, it isn't a very good experience. I genuinely miss the shorter and simpler levels of the original LEGO Star Wars games. Once you grind out the 15 or so story missions, the game opens up and the real fun begins. There are several hub worlds in LEGO Marvel's Avengers, including Manhattan and smaller areas in Asgard, Washington D.C., and a couple others.
Each of these hubs offer side missions, unlockable characters, and more. Manhattan is the largest, of course, and is mostly the same as in LEGO Marvel Superheroes, but now there are also random crimes to stop all over. Switching characters at will, puzzles that require actual thought instead of just smashing everything, being able to explore iconic locations in the Marvel universe - I've felt that the open world hub sections have been the best parts of recent LEGO games, and that is definitely the case once again here. Here's hoping the next games skip the dedicated story levels and just make a big fun open world with missions spread around that world a'la Metal Gear Solid V. Visually, LEGO Marvel's Avengers does look very good. The level backgrounds look fantastic and special effects for all of the different super powers and weapon blasts flying all over the screen look great. The sound is also good, for the most part. Music and sound effects are taken right from the movies and, just like LEGO Jurassic World, dialogue from the movie is re-used here.
The sound quality of the dialogue is a little sub-par, though, and sounds pretty muffled compared to the louder and clearer quality of everything else. In the end, LEGO Marvel's Avengers is one of the weaker LEGO titles we've seen in a while. Similar to LEGO The Hobbit, efforts made here to make it bigger and more complex and more cinematic have ultimately made it too big and boring and too much of a grind to get through. It isn't that I'm tired of LEGO games like a lot of reviewers seem to be - I really loved The LEGO Movie Game and LEGO Jurassic World here lately (enough I played them both twice to get all of the achievements on 360 and XONE) - it is simply that LEGO Marvel's Avengers just isn't that good. If you love the movies the game features there are definitely some cool moments and some fun to be had in LEGO Marvel's Avengers, but if you aren't a die-hard Marvel Cinematic Universe fan you can probably skip this one.Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher.