So what's the third movie going to be? Just Smaug firebombing Laketown for 3 hours? Does Stephen...fry?
[SPOILERS]
Saw it again in HFR - which had smoother action sequences e.g. the Donkey Kong gag was cool. But the best bit was the slow revealing of Smaug. Just awesome CG and sound design. The initial exchange between Bilbo and Smaug is one of those iconic sequences from the books (just like Riddles in the Dark, and the Balrog) that have be done faithfully.
For the rest, the editing is so sloppy - once again, dialogue, action, and humour beats just go on too long.
Martin Freeman's acting is opaque to me: he does this thing where he pauses, goes to speak but doesn't, puts his finger in the air, pauses, turns. I don't know what he's doing. I don't know if he wants to be there or not. Is he scared? Is he brave? Is he stoopid?
In one scene, Bilbo fights this crab-thing (WTF?) and then does these random grimaces for, like, ever.
Dwarves are still interchangeable, and often retarded. Half don't even seem to have any lines. Wish they had lost a few along the way.
Kate gets a lot of half-profile shots - that angle must show off her cheekbones the best.
Legolas clocks up 98,541,582 orc kills, for the cost of a nose-bleed. The PG stabbing starts to get wearisome by about kill #53,541. Sometimes it looks like he's barely touched them. Orc Candy Crush: push three in a row and they fall down.
Funny joke re: Gloin's wife - and Legolas gives the Mr Spock one-eyebrow look. Good to have some actual humour that works, after every joke fell flat in AUJ.
No Gollum - hope he returns.
No songs this time, although there might be some in the extended edition.
Not much NZ landscape porn either. It's getting less each movie.
Some inexplicable edits: when Bilbo wakes up in the Bear's house, there's a strange edit as if it's a mistake. And they inserted some low-res video footage from the POV of the barrels in the water. How'd that slip in? Must have been running out of time in the end, and the pre-vis temp shots remained in, or something.
The spiders, bear and dragon were all superb - better than the human actors imo.
Looking forward to #3 and, even more, to the behind-the-scenes.
not long to go now...