The One-Sentence Movie Review: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The Deal

I've seen over 3,000 movies, TV shows, and short films, and while I seem to be a little harder to impress than most, I don't need a film to tell me something about the world (although it's nice when that happens); it just needs to involve me or entertain me.

Movies are extremely subjective in many ways, and as such, I'm not really trying to do anything more profound than let you know the impressions a movie made on me, and maybe that will help you figure out whether or not you want to see it.

Anyway, you don't want a big, long review—who has time for all that? You just want to know if the movie is good or not before you get it from Netflix. And yes, probably I hate something you dearly love. Sorry. It happens.

Here are my scores, plus some quick reviews, with everything sortable and conveniently linked to IMDB.com.

By and large, we'll steer clear of spoilers, although there may be some vague ones here and there for older films or if I can get a decent joke out of it.

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Friday, May 9, 2014

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) – It’s certainly a pretty film, if way too CGI-reliant (it’s practically a cartoon), but it’s lost the spirit of the book entirely, and with bloating from silly and tiresome subplots and a truly brain-damaged final act (Smaug is apparently developmentally disabled), not only is it difficult to take seriously, it’s also strongly reminiscent of bad fan fiction (every George Lucas comparison Peter Jackson gets for this film is deserved). 5