Started watching The Hobbit II last night. Only made it an hour in because I worked from 7a-1a yesterday. My only take away from the movie so far is I hate the Elves eyes. Jackson uses some type of CGI BS to enhance the Elves eyes to make them glow or something. It's horrible.
Also, I hate how the Dwarves and Bilbo go from one mission to another. They're on their journey and they come across some unseen event, of course, where their lives are threatened. The instant they escape death they run directly into another life threatening scenario. Rinse wash repeat for the 1st hour of the movie. It's IMO lazy story telling.
Hope you're watching in 3D.. It's really what makes the movie worth sitting there for 3+ hours. The latter half of the movie is good, but I agree, Jackson's storytelling does (and has always) seemed lazy. It seems he substitutes scope for script and direction.
His movies come off more like student plays at a poorly funded local community college rather than the theatrical works of an acclaimed director.
I think, looking back on his previous works which seem to exist in a previous universe, it's fairly apparent that he's not very skilled at his craft. At least, that's my take on it. He struck gold with Lord of the Rings, and stuck to the formula for what will be 6 successive times.
So while I feel the movies are visual spectacles it's the fact that I personally love the Hobbit and LotR books so much, I find it difficult not to enjoy the movies quite a bit. But maybe a great deal of that is
solely because I love the source material and the world Jackson is putting on the screen, far more so than anything that can be attributed to Jackson himself.
Hell, the one thing he has done that is worth praise is that he has mostly left his own marks on the story completely out of the films (mostly), which I am very much grateful for.
