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.

Unexpected Journey Indeed

I have been a fan of Tolkien’s books for many years. When my son was younger, I read to him from The Hobbit each night at bedtime until we’d finished the book. From there we moved on to the “Lord of the Rings.” Before that, I wasn’t sure he even had much interest in books, but something about Tolkien’s works sparked his imagination, and he’s been an avid reader ever since.

One of the appeals of Tolkien’s works is the great care he takes in describing the settings and their history. He weaves a rich, multicolored fabric that is both enthralling and believable. Immersed in a Tolkien story, one does not doubt for a moment that eagles can be gigantic and noble and fierce or that wargs can talk and be sinister or that trolls come out at night and turn to stone when exposed to sunlight.

So it was that I anticipated Peter Jackson’s big-screen adaptation with impatience and enthusiasm. The idea of the sprawling adventure unfolding before my eyes was too much to resist. I couldn’t wait to share in the adventure with my son.

Unfortunately, this film falls into the same trap that snares far too many big-budget Hollywood projects in believing that nonstop action, CGI and over-the-top fight scenes always make for a winning combination. In this case, it just plain ruins everything.

From the overblown computer-generated effects to the preposterous story embellishments and obtrusive additions, Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” robs the original story of the magic and charm that makes it one of the world’s most enduring works of literature.

Jackson makes no pretense about the embellishments. We are forewarned by the very title that this is not Tolkien’s work, and a fitting title it is because I was, in fact, taken on an entirely unexpected journey.

Jackson uses Gandalf to give voice to how he has taken liberties with the beloved prelude to “The Lord of the Rings.” After relating the tale of Bilbo’s great granduncle Bullroarer, Gandalf remarks that every good tale deserves some embellishment. But by this point I had already become unsettled as I sat waiting patiently for the real story to begin. Jackson chose to open the movie with scenes from his previous Tolkien epics. In fact, throughout this film reference after reference to--you know--those other movies crops up time and again, as if Jackson is either paying homage to his greatest success or trying to bludgeon the audience into remembering what comes after these adventures. Oh, and by the way, the many flashforwards seem to warn, something really bad is coming, really, really bad. As if anybody needed reminding at this point.

Jackson’s embellishments are many, and it is not my aim to catalog them all, but to point out how those embellishments are thievery, pure and simple, and his victims are those of us who loved the original tale as it was told by a real storyteller. Why, this man could rip the magic clean out of Hogwarts, I tell you, and not shed so much as a single tear.

Many Tolkien purists took exception with Jackson’s embellishments in the “Lord of the Rings” films. I forgave those transgressions because he still spun a rip-roaring adventure tale and gave some depth to the characters that was lacking in the books. It was a fair trade-off, I felt.

In “The Hobbit” it’s entirely different. The movie is a patchwork quilt of events and scenes and references in the book all sewn together into a raggedy quilt that doesn’t feel at all like the source material, quite often doesn’t make much sense and, more often than not, deteriorates into utter absurdity.

His depiction of Radaghast is nothing short of criminal. First off, Radaghast doesn’t even appear in The Hobbit. He’s mentioned in passing in a conversation between Gandalf and Beorn, who, you might have noticed, isn’t in this first film of the trilogy. But what does Jackson do to him? Turns him into an addle-brained, hare-sleigh mushing fool who carries a bird’s nest on his head and has hair matted with bird droppings. Bird droppings! He seems like a funny character, but, really, he’s just absurd--far too absurd for this story, if you ask me. I understand Jackson’s wanting to give some depth to the characters. One of the appeals of Radaghast is that he’s such a mysterious character. Tolkien manages to drop his name here and there throughout the books without really giving us a good look at the man except for Gandalf’s secondhand account of having met with him.  I just hate it that Jackson turned him into such a foolish figure, perhaps taking his interpretation from Saruman’s derisive assessment of the wizard as a bird lover. And, unfortunately, this is how everyone will forever think of Radaghast.

Everything in Jackson’s film has to be hyperbolic to the extreme. The storm giants Bilbo sees in the distance hurling rocks back and forth become the very mountains they’re attempting to navigate, and the whole party is nearly crushed in the fray. The whole scene is comically overdone Saturday morning fare and ridiculously contrived.

Worse by far is the charm Jackson wrenched from the scene in which Bilbo and dwarves fall onto the menus of hungry trolls. The book shows off a bit of Gandalf’s magic and cleverness, but the movie’s got to make it a big, action-packed spectacle. Never mind that Bilbo got nabbed trying to pilfer something from one of the troll’s pockets, and never mind that the dwarves all got popped into sacks coming to find out what the racket of the trolls’ bickering was all about. But that whole business of Gandalf smiting the side of a hill with his staff and cracking it in two so the sun could shine through and petrify the hungry monsters was infuriating to me. The scene in the book is full of so much humor, and the manner in which Gandalf saves the party from the stewpot is clever and funny at the same time. The movie ruined it, positively ruined it.

The dwarves are also problematic. The dwarves of The Hobbit are polite, bungling and cheerful. Thorin is a bit more stern, but they’re dwarves, and they’re comical. Jackson makes a big show of turning them into these big screen movie warriors who whirl about with swords and fancy attack moves and slice and dice everything and loose arrows with deadly accuracy. Yes, as we see in many parts of the books, dwarves are stout warriors, fierce and brave, but Jackson’s interpretation of them entirely robs the story of its character. Yes, again, I understand his wanting to give each and every dwarf some kind of unique identity and depth. He manages that pretty well, but I’m certain he could have done it without ruining the story.

Don’t get me started on the albino orc. Where that comes from I have no idea. And the animosity between the dwarves and elves? Not in the book and taken to the extreme in this version of the tale. Contrary to what Jackson would have us believe, Thorin treats Elrond with respect and reverence in the book. Every single detail from the book depicted in the movie is magnified and embellished to such a degree as to hardly resemble what actually happened. Someone ought to tell Jackson that a little subtlety can go a long way and that if a work has a certain charm about it because of its humor and lightheartedness, then sometimes it’s best to try to preserve those qualities instead of trying to turn the whole thing into something it shouldn’t be. I’d hoped for an honest, faithful rendition of the story, but Jackson’s version is a violation of everything that makes the book worth reading.

I never dreamed it could be possible, but I sat for most of the movie wishing for it to be over. Not even the fast pace and oooh, looky-looky special effects could save this film from being a tiresome affair. The only positive thing I can say is that Martin Freeman was pretty good as the young Bilbo. I like Martin Freeman. And Gollum was okay. The CGI has gotten really good. You’d almost never know he wasn’t really there.

All I can do now is let out a long sigh as I realize I haven’t the slightest desire to see the next installment. I’ll just go read a book instead.