The Hobbit: The Desolation of Money

It’s a good sign when a film’s poster contains multiple characters that were not in the source material.

It’s no secret that I despised The Hobbit Part 1, and I wasn’t looking forward to watching Part 2. In fact, I waited until it aired on HBO, because there was no way in hell I was shelling out my hard earned cash on this travesty. And as impossible as it sounds, Part 2 is actually worse than Part 1. Somehow, Peter Jackson managed to pull it off.

To be fair, I will admit that the beginning of the movie was pretty good. The dwarves and Bilbo enter Mirkwood Forest, get lost, are waylaid by spiders, and eventually are rescued. This hewed fairly close to the source material, and ended up being the highlight of the movie. Similarly, the only good scene in Part 1 was the Riddles in the Dark scene, which again, was the only scene that stuck to the source material. Hey, Peterson Jackson, guess what? Following the source material for the whole fucking thing would have been a good idea.

The Hobbit: An Expected Cash Grab

It’s all about the Benjamins.

Peter Jackson can go suck a fuck. Yeah, that’s right, you heard me. I’m using Donnie Darko references over here. Jackson has become the George Lucas of Lord of the Rings. Lucas went back and filmed three shitty prequels to his revered Star Wars trilogy, and Jackson has made the exact same mistake with The Hobbit.

I’m not going to argue that The Hobbit as a film shouldn’t exist. In fact, it should. The 1937 book written by J.R.R. Tolkien is beloved by millions of people the world over. And since his later Lord of the Rings books were turned into films that became venerable smash-hits, it only makes sense that there should be a film of The Hobbit. Unforeseeable by anyone, the worst person for the job would be the same person who directed the Rings films.

Clearly, Peter Jackson caught lightning in a bottle when he directed the Rings films. He tried to recapture that magic from a decade ago, but failed miserably every step of the way. The tone of The Hobbit is vastly different from the later Rings books. It is lighter, faster-paced, and has more of a sense of wonder. Jackson, being a goddamn moron, tried to bend the material to fit into the exact same style of the Rings films. He tries to make it dark, somber, and epic all at the same time. For material that is inherently light and fun, this just doesn’t work. Scene after scene fails on almost every level. Technically, they look and sound great, but that’s about it. The writing doesn’t work, the acting is awkward, and you get a sense that nobody really knew what they hell they were doing when making this monstrosity.