The desolation of Tolkien

After suffering through the travesty that was Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" I was disinclined to "treat" myself to the subsequent installments I knew were coming. But I live in a family of geeks who live for epic fantasy both high and low, so I was compelled to drag myself and said family into the theater for "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug." I had made up my mind before the reel started rolling (We don't really have reels any more, do we?) that I was just going to sit back, remain calm and try to enjoy what would no doubt be a rollicking, action-packed adventure. Unfortunately, chapter two in the film trilogy is no better than the first. In fact, it's worse. Even if you haven't read The Hobbit it's difficult not to find this adaptation tiresomely hyperbolic. In spite of some additions that add emotional appeal, "The Desolation of Smaug" is another groan-worthy exercise that takes every charming element from Tolkien's beloved classic and turns it into something infuriatingly over the top.

As I sat glumly enduring action sequences aimed squarely at Red Bull chuggers, I couldn't help wondering whether Jackson was attempting to set some kind of onscreen record for creative beheadings. Seriously, does he have a quota he has to meet?

"No, I'm sorry, Mr. Jackson, you're three beheadings short. Why don't you have Legolas come in and do that thing where he crosses his short swords and scissor cuts some goblin's head off."

"But, but, but Legolas wasn't even in The Hobbit."

"Write him in. We need more stabbings and slashings and beheadings and body surfings."

"Body surfings?"

"Yeah, you know, have Legolas jump on some goblin or orc or something and surf down a hill on the body while shooting arrows like a machine gun at hordes of enemies. Good stuff, right?"

"If you say so."

"Oh, and have him shoot things with his bow at close range. You know, give him that feat from D&D; Point Blank Shot, I think it's called. Yeah, yeah. Have him shoot goblins that are standing right in front of him."

"Um, I think a lot of this is kind of defying the laws of physics, isn't it?"

"Physics? Physics? This is Middle-Earth, for crying out loud! We can do whatever we want!"

It was obvious to me from the trailers for "The Desolation from Smaug" that Jackson isn't even attempting to follow the book. In his defense, however, he was given the task of turning the The Hobbit into a trilogy of films, so he had to do something to fill up those empty hours. And it couldn't have been with scenes of dwarves sitting around a campfire swapping stories about the good old days. This whole enterprise seems to have devolved into that time-honored Hollywood tradition of milking as much gold out of a franchise as possible until everyone becomes positively fatigued with it. A certain SF franchise involving lightsaber-wielding Jedi knights springs to mind.

My biggest gripe about the many embellishments (and they're piling up so much now that's becoming difficult to discern the source material) is that he takes so many elements from the book that are simple and charming and elegant and explodes them into overblown melodrama. In my review of "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," I mentioned how he ruined the scene with trolls in which Gandalf tricked them into bickering with one another until the sun came up. In "The Desolation of Smaug" a similar butchering of one of the story's best scenes also occurs when the audience is robbed of subtlety of Bilbo's riddle game with Smaug. Time and again Jackson ruins moments like these with big-screen hyperbole.

Let's pretend for just a moment that we've never read any of Tolkien's books. Let's pretend that this is all stuff that Peter Jackson just made up. Even if we do that, there's an awful lot of silliness in this movie that we're expected to take at face value, including the close-up arrow shots to the eyeball, the arrow shots that pin to heads together, the surfing down hills on the bodies of fallen orcs, the beheadings, the beheadings, the beheadings. This kind of stuff in and of itself wouldn't be so bad--if this were intended to be a rollicking comedy. But it's not. It's juxtaposed with plot elements that are supposed to be quite serious. The one thing Jackson does well with his adaptation is remind the viewers that these events include foreshadowing of what is to come. One nit I must pick with these constant reminders is that the audience is continually bludgeoned with links to Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.  From an auteurist perspective this may seem necessary to ensure both trilogies cohere when they are eventually sold as a six-film box set.

Thus, we are treated to segments involving Gandalf's adventures away from the party he assembled. He does tend to disappear a lot in the books, and the only way the reader knows anything about what he's been up to is through Gandalf's own explanations to his traveling companions. Of course, because sinister plots are being hatched and prophecies are drawing nigh, Gandalf must be about some Very Serious Wizard Business. He's battling dark forces, mind you, so it's important that Jackson fill in those gaps of what he's been up to. The audience is thus treated to flashy Wizard Battles that remind me too much of video games. I did find myself wondering if much of what was included in the film was present as fodder for video game licensing. The thing about video games is that they must have very clearly defined boundaries for what exactly a character's powers are. Watching The Desolation of Smaug often felt like a video yanked straight from a video game--although it would have to be the best-looking video game ever created.

One embellishment that I couldn't resist was the relationship between Tauriel and Fili. No, it's not even close to anything that ever happened in any of Tolkien's books, but it nonetheless provided a nice distraction from the goblin-battling inanity that populates most of the film. The characters in Tolkien's books are fairly flat. We know a lot about their history and their brave deeds, but not much is shown about what they feel and think and dream. Jackson's films have done much to turn Tolkien's characters into multi-dimensional people. So even though it's a wide departure from The Hobbit, I was taken in by the charm of the dwarf with a crush on an elf and the elf with a soft spot for the injured dwarf.

My review of "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" was a passionately negative one, decrying Peter Jackson's thievery because he has, in fact, stolen from his audience any possibility of enjoying the true delight of the work on which these films are based. "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" continues this larceny, albeit on an even larger scale. I cannot be as passionate in my dislike of "The Desolation of Smaug" because it's such a huge departure from its source material that it scarcely warrants the effort.

Jackson has utterly missed the point of Tolkien's works and has completely misunderstood what makes The Hobbit such a joy to read. My advice to anyone who is inclined to watch any of "The Hobbit" films is just to skip it and read the book instead. I promise you, it's much more satisfying and enjoyable.

Lone Ranger (2013)

When I first saw trailers for Gore Verbinski's "The Lone Ranger," I found myself wondering, "Why is Johnny Depp playing Tonto?" After recently streaming the movie through Vudu, I'm still wondering. This was one of those films I just plain had no desire to see when it was released in theaters. The casting of Depp as Tonto spoke volumes about how Verbinski would be interpreting the classic story of the Texas Ranger-turned-vigilante. While this choice isn't the single biggest issue I have with "The Lone Ranger," it's one that stands out as simply inexplicable and points to the flaw that just plain sinks it--the movie just isn't quite sure what it wants to be, and the result is a mess that really isn't very entertaining.

There can be little doubt that "The Lone Ranger" is a comedy, but exactly what kind of comedy is it? And that's where the problem lies. It's too over-the-top to fall into the genre of the typical adventure comedy. In typical adventure comedy you have to be able to suspend disbelief at least to some level for any of it to be funny. Take the buddy cop movie "The Heat," for example. It's an outrageous affair, but you accept Sandra Bullock's Ashburn as the straight-laced FBI agent and Melissa McCarthy's Mullins as the tough, independent street detective. Though "The Lone Ranger" is a western, I argue that it clearly falls into the buddy cop formula. The two are always reluctant partners who are forced to learn how to work together and then form a bond of friendship. But it's too much of a leap to see Depp as Tonto unless this is a buddy cop formula more in line with Will Farrell and Mark Wahlberg's "The Other Guys." At least "The Other Guys" makes no pretense about its outrageousness, which is clearly established when Highsmith and Jansen jump off the top of the building.

If you're going to cast Depp as Tonto, then you need to go all-in with the absurd because that's ultimately what this movie is--just plain absurd. It fails because it doesn't understand the level of its absurdity and doesn't throw itself wholeheartedly into that mode.

It's got plenty of the formulaic elements for a hilarious western parody: the over-the-top villain who cuts out and eats the hearts of his victims, the sidekick who is more competent than the initially inept titular hero, neckbearded henchmen who vacillate between cruel and foolish, a good-hearted hero who just isn't very heroic. So why isn't this movie funny? I think I'd rather just queue up Don Knotts in "Shakiest Gun in the West." That movie understands what it wants to be, and it's funny, genuinely funny.

Most of the jokes just come off as lame and contrived. It's obvious "The Lone Ranger" doesn't take its subject or source material seriously. The action sequences are too hyperbolically impossible to be seen as anything other than cartoonish, but it's presented as if the audience is expected to accept it in the same way that certain absurd events occur in the Indiana Jones films, particularly in "Temple of Doom." For scenes such as the train wreck to be hilarious, some part of it must be accepted at face value, but it just doesn't work. It's always the contrast between the serious and the absurd that makes action movies funny and enjoyable. If you don't believe me, just go back and watch any of the Indiana Jones films or, for that matter, even "Romancing the Stone," the poor man's "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

I confess that I didn't watch all of "The Lone Ranger." I just didn't see any point in it. If they'd attempted to do an honest big screen treatment of the radio and TV character, it would have been one thing. If they'd attempted to do an utterly over-the-top parody, that would be another. I'd watch either of those movies no matter how bad they were. I can't watch this one because it's straddling the fence too much between the two. That just plain makes for a flat experience worthy of little more than background noise for a good nap.