Sunday, December 15, 2013

The Desolation of Film

 This weekend we had plans to celebrate Diana's birthday.  I had signed both her and my dear friend Gwen up along with me for a second chocolate cooking class on Saturday morning.  Friday night we had word that the class was canceled due to weather.

I made Diana's favorite cookies and a nice meal at home instead and we waited for the snow to ease up so we could go see The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug on Saturday evening.  I had gotten discounted vouchers ahead of time and the kids went to pick up the tickets earlier in the week.  Alas, the theater was closed Saturday night due to the weather.

We decided to go tonight instead since the theater said they'd honor the tickets for another showing.  There was just one problem.  The tickets were no where to be found.  They vanished into thin air.  Fortunately, I still had the receipt for the vouchers so I was able to get replacement tickets at no extra charge.  I was quite annoyed by the thought I might have to buy these tickets twice and glad to not have my wallet further depleted.

Dear readers, I think perhaps we should have eaten the loss.  It may have been the universe's way of trying to keep us from the onscreen tragedy....unintentional though it was.  The movie was among the worst I have ever seen.  The couple next to me left early.  The audience laughed and groaned in places where the director surely did not intend.  I would not have been surprised to see popcorn lobbed at the screen.

I'd sum up my review with the following image.


Diana's review, however, was far more poetic.

"When Peter Jackson lost all that weight half was from his brain, the other half from his soul. He lost all connection to art and reason then ruined my favorite book."

I'm now doubly glad I didn't pay for this mess twice!

14 comments:

joeh said...

I don't go to very many movies...I will definitely miss this one.

THanks

Secret Agent Woman said...

Ouch. There are so many times when I wish I'd heeded the Universe's warnings!

Craig said...

Oh no! We are a family of Tolkien-o-philes, and Desolation is unavoidably on our to-watch list. Now I'm filled with a dread sense of foreboding, reminiscent of when I trudged to the obligatory viewings of the Star Wars prequels. . .

(*sigh*)

But thanks for the warning, anyway. . .

stephen Hayes said...

How interesting, Until now I've only heard good things about this second installment. I wasn't impressed with Part I of the Hobbit.

lime said...

joeh, glad you've learned from my mistake.

secret agent, yeah, this was just a horrid waste of time and money.

craig, if you are obligated i can't help you. just make sure to go to the cheapest place you can find to see it. there is a theater where i grew up that has $1.50 seats and should get the movie sometime in july. go for something like that.

stephen, i dunno who thinks this is a good movie. part 1 didn't thrill me either but this was just plain awful.

Hilary said...

Well now that's disappointing. Downhill for sure from LOTR. And with this one worse than the first... it sounds like it's become Hobbitual.

Leave It To Davis said...

Thanks for letting us know....I'll pass that onto my sons so they won't waste their money!!

Anvilcloud said...

I will see it anyway because that's what I do. I loved LOTR but not the first Hobbit so much. Apparently, I will love the one even less.

Suldog said...

The Swedish Chef cursing just totally cracks me up. Every time.

~Tim said...

I hate it when directors decide they can't fit a story into a single movie. The LotR was a trilogy of books, so three movies was okay. The Hobbit was one book. Failing to make that into one movie makes Jackson look incompetent and greedy. IMHO.

Kat said...

Oh no!!!! It sounds as though some unseen force REALLY wanted to ruin Diana's birthday! Cripes! The deck was stacked against her from the start!
Sorry to hear about the movie too. We were just getting around to watching the first Hobbit movie, but now knowing the second was so awful we may just skip it altogether. Ugh.

Anyway, Happy Belated Birthday to Diana!

Ed & Jeanne said...

And here I thought I was so smart by getting free tickets to it that were a week before it came out only to find that they always oversell those early promo showings and we had to wait in a two hour line and still get into the second to front row where I refuse to see movies. Then to top it off it was in 3D which I hate unless its Life of Pi or Avatar. And finally, I couldn't see anything much anyway so I guess its fitting that it sucked. All I can remember of it now was that Legolas looked like he'd eaten too many of those Elvish breads...

Jocelyn said...

REALLY? And here we'd read this one was soooo much better than the first one. I was actually ready to go see SMAUG.

Now, not so much.

Here: are you up for a blogging prompt? I'd like to you to write about an irrational fear you have. For me, it's the whole rodents thing. How about you?

Craver Vii said...

I actually enjoyed it. I recognized Benedict Cumberbatch's voice right away, and I really, really like the way Martin Freeman portrayed Bilbo.