Recently I have had the explainable desire to binge watch all of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings films, starting with the first Hobbit 'prequel', An Unexpected Journey and ending with the last LOTR movie, The Return of the King. As I was watching the three prequel movies, it occurred to me that the first two, An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug were, although subjectively the same in my opinion, they were very different objectively. The movie begins directly after the end of the last film, The Desolation of Smaug, as the terrible dragon flies towards Laketown in a fit of rage, seeking to destroy it. This is where my main issue objectively comes in; they kill the primary antagonist of the past two films within the first 10 minutes of the movie, thus hindering the plot by hurting the flow from that main issue to the next while also snuffing out the story arch of the original book. After Smaug is killed by Bard with the last (and almost conveniently lying around) black arrow, the transition into the rest of the movie does not flow nicely at all and feels very drawn out. Specifically after all the citizens of Laketown have gathered on the shoreline, the movie for a while does not seem to have a purpose until after all of the survivors relocate to the ruins of Dale. However, the damage has already been done and in almost every transition after Smaug is killed, the rest of the movie simply does not flow very nicely.
Despite the flaws described above I still personally loved this movie for not only it's very appealing visual effects but the actors and actresses that were cast to play the characters were perfect for the roles they cast in. Richard Armitage's performance as Thorin Oakenshield was exceptional and I though he did a very good job at embodying Thorin's character and really brought out his personality. In addition to this, the battle scenes in the film were excellent and really captured the scale of the fighting. The designs of the armor and weapons used by all of the races/armies were really detailed and helped to show the differences between the armies in not only their fighting styles but their culture and means of production as well. In summary, although the movie has some obvious flaws and is the lesser of the 'The Hobbit' series, it has many redeeming qualities as well and is still a Lord of the Rings movie, which makes it pretty great on it's own.
You've got some solid observations in this review, Ian, but you're holding yourself back by only using two paragraphs. The background with the other movies should have been its own intro paragraph, the visual effects should have been its own paragraph, etc. Use that organization to allow yourself to dive deeper into these pieces and break free from the MP1 OBJ/SUB format. Good crediting and context, but the organization would have helped you to express those ideas more effectively.
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