This was released in 2013 and was another huge success for the Peter Jackson directed movies. This was made on a budget of $191.2m which is eye watering amount of money but when you see that they made $958.4m at the box office it all makes sense. It stars a heaped number of names but I will go with just a few with - Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Benedict Cumberbatch (the CGI Dragon), Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Luke Evans, Ken Stott, James Nesbitt and Orlando Bloom. It wasn’t scored as highly as me so the scoreboard HAS been changed. Yes I finally get to mention the Tri-Critic Sync Challenge again as this one hit the outer rim again with a 7% coverage between us. IMDb gave it 7.8 out of ten which means that Rotten Tomatoes gave it 74%. So I do have a reason to put up the chart just before the number 100 review. On to the non-spoiler plot.
From the previous film the Dwarves are still on the move and being chased by the gang of Orc. With the support of Gandalf they run to the Beorn a kind of Were-Bear who is out on the prowl as they arrive at his house. The chief orc is summoned away to lead a new army so he tells his son to continue the chase of the Dwarves. The Were-Bear de-furs the next morning and then takes the gang onward to the edge of Mirkwood (the dark woods) getting a message Gandalf leaves the group and tells them to stay on the path. As soon as the rest of the group enter the forest they end up in battle with giant spiders. The spiders are eventually beaten off with the help of elves (some from the LotR films) who are not in actually in the book but hey ho. The dwarves moan about the past battles between the species and they are imprisoned until Bilbo uses the ring to help them escape in barrels down the river. To set up the next movie Bilbo finds the entrance to the mountain hideout of Smaug, some of the dwarves fine the human town of Lake-town and others enter the Lonely Mountain to steal the treasure of the Dragon. OK way too much plot there or you could argue it was a bit thin for a three hour movie but there you go, its done get over it.
In truth this is the lowest rating on the 81 percenters but due to an admin error I cannot realign Evil Dead to where I want to put it without changing every single entry so no I am not going to change it. It is where it is and its staying!! I maybe contradicting myself if you compare my comments of the Omen trilogy with this trilogy. The real reason I put this one ahead of the other movies as it (for me) contained more of the story than the others but probably in honesty they are all the same in terms of the amount of extending the story to fill an epic film length as this was an attempt to piggy back the Lord Of The Rings success. From memory this had the most of what I remember which means I prefer it more than the other ones. These are all (when I say these I mean the Lord Of The Rings and the Hobbits) epic movies which by default mean they are great films. They just appear bigger and better than the others out there. In my eyes it doesn’t make them a better movie than the others out there but they are good and enjoyable. I realise that what I am saying is going backwards and forwards and I am trying to get to the point that when you watch these movies you are almost in awe of them. It doesn’t mean they are going to clean up at the Oscar’s and make billions at the box-office as they still need to have that hook and the entertainment value to make it what it should be and that’s a good movie. This is an enjoyable movie and fun but it is not as ‘epic’ as it claims to be. My advice is to go watch it, if you enjoyed the Lord Of The Ring then you will enjoy this as well.
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