The-Atlantean

What a dreary load of mawkish pap. If I have to see McKellen doing his puppy-eyes while watching Bilbo have a 'special moment' with someone, one more time, I'll be forced to join Sauron.

The latter half was just one more interminably drawn-out 'final' battle, all devoid of tension and ultimately, pointless. The film does well to highlight the story from the book, and how it isn't really a story. They all converge on the mountain, ostensibly to take the treasure, have an almighty row in which *spoiler* every army suffers huge casualties, the rightful king of the mountain dies, and then Bilbo goes home.

I guess the remnants of the five armies just wander off, whistling tunelessly. I know i did.

So, I don't know how many stars I'm going to give this, yet, as the film divided me completely. The setting and the Space 1999esque situation, the mock seriousness that ends up being funny, all the cinematic touches, screen shots, angles, pauses, were wonderful, and so artfully done, that for the first half of the film I did not mind that most of the characters were single-dimension and the only plotting came from character arcs that had happened before the film started.

And of course there is Captain Glenn. Head and shoulders above all the other characters, he's just brilliant. Liv Tyler was whatever. Certainly not detrimental to the role, but not really an asset either, but then Jessica's character only had relevance in the point she was making (a quite unsubtle one amidst a myriad delicate touches) of a woman with brains in a 70s space station. I must say I also enjoyed the awkwardness of pretty much every character - in an inverse way to how I absolutely hated such characters in so many mediocre and/or appalling films from the 70s, where everyone is unable to access their own feelings in any way...

But what finally let the whole thing down was the singular lack of anything even approaching a story, and all plotting merely devices for characters to react against, without consequence, except for the final one, which was underwhelming and symbolically,as empty as the whole film. Maybe the singular lack of any kind of story whatsoever may have been part of the parody...

Pretending to be meaningful in displaying a few tender moments in a set of lives otherwise as totally adrift and in space as the station itself, but for me this was a step to far, and left me rather disappointed at something which started with so much promise.