[1]688 words
In his remake of King Kong, Peter Jackson dragged out the big ape’s death so long it felt like a lifetime. At the time, it merely seemed like a lapse of taste. In hindsight, it seems like the beginning of a whole new career characterized by megalomania, greed, one-upmanship, self-indulgence, and bad taste. It was just the first symptom of the dragon sickness that has now consumed him.
The Battle of Five Armies begins with Smaug giving Laketown the Dresden treatment, then moves on to a grand battle between elves, orcs, dwarves, and men, with some birds and bears and bats and wizards thrown in. There is also a battle of Sauron and the nine spectral Nazgûl against Saruman, Galadriel, and Elrond. In short, the movie is mostly fights and special effects: beautifully...
