In case you haven't been around on the Earth lately, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is the sequel to last year's An Unexpected Journey and is the fifth incarnation in Peter Jackson's Middle-Earth series, the Hobbit films serving as prequels to The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit films also serve as a three-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's 300-some-page book of the same name. As you can guess, purists are a bit miffed that The Hobbit is being stretched out so wide. But even though The Hobbit is one of my favorite novels, I still enjoy these movies without faithfulness to the novel being a big problem.
The Desolation of Smaug picks up right where An Unexpected Journey left off as the eponymous Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman, Sherlock, The World's End), wizard Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen, The Lord of the Rings, X-Men), and the thirteen dwarves flee from orcs and wolves to reach Erebor and reclaim their treasure. What awaits in Erebor? Why, nothing but the massive fire-breathing dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch, Sherlock, Star Trek Into Darkness)! However, the road to Erebor is not simple, as they run into several more obstacles along the way, opening the way for wood-elves Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly, Lost, The Hurt Locker) and Legolas (Orlando Bloom, The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean) to begin their adventures.
I had but a few complaints with this film, but first, let's reflect on some of the pros of this film. Desolation of Smaug is much better paced than An Unexpected Journey and is much less boring (a point I did not emphasize in my original review). Since there was no true resolution to An Unexpected Journey, the heat is still on, and Jackson makes that very clear in the enemy orcs' early appearances, and the much-talked about barrel sequence is no exception. A constantly exciting ride, it is rightfully the highlight of the film. Benedict Cumberbatch voices Smaug to sinister perfection and is almost unrecognizable in his voice performance. His verbal showdown with Bilbo, which we got a glimpse of in one of the trailers, had me smiling because it was so good. Even though Smaug's dialogue is digitally altered, you can still pick out the slight emotions and menacing articulation in his words, making the character of Smaug a prominent and fearsome force. And even though Gollum is absent in this film, Martin Freeman's nuances with Bilbo's character, especially when it's concerning his new Ring, is so great to see. This film is very much an action piece, but one of these scenes towards the beginning where we see this side of Freeman's Bilbo grounds the film on an emotional level and a level that works with connecting the mythology.
A lot of people, as I said before, are very unhappy with the many additions that Jackson added in order to tie in with The Lord of the Rings. If I'm being quite honest, it's these additions that I love most. The last Dol Goldur sequence (Dol Goldur is where an ominous Necromancer resides), although lacking slightly in the CG department, was the part of the film that had me smiling them most--it was epic! When I own the film next year, that will still be my favorite part. I can't stop thinking about that sequence; I wish I could nerd out in front of you all, but doing so would ruin much of the fun and potential surprise in the film, and I won't do so here. Also, Jackson's inserted the character of Legolas from The Lord of the Rings films and added the new character (not in any of the books) Tauriel. Their additions will definitely be the deciding factor of whether people liked the movie or hated it. Here's my view: Their characters are welcome additions, as they are the most exciting parts. I like the tie-ins to The Lord of the Rings, so I like how they're handled--if Peter Jackson shoehorned them in there, but no attempt to make it just, I would be like Catching Fire fans when narration wasn't in the movie. The only thing I'm unsure about is an added love triangle, which I believe, at face value, is supposed to mirror the Aragorn-Eowyn-Arwen love triangle from The Lord of the Rings. It's completely original to the films, but I'm not sure if it works--YET! I feel my complaints with it will be addressed in the sequel The Hobbit: There and Back Again, so as for now, I have no opinion. I'll just warn you that if you're a Tolkien purist, you may want to make a bonfire and burn every reel of film that exists of this film...thank God it's digital!
Now for the not-so-great. Halfway through the film, the traveling gang sans Gandalf make their way to Lake-town where Bard the Bowman resides. I felt that this was the worst part of the film, bar none. In short, most of this section felt very goofy and cartoony, with Stephen Fry, who I very much liked as Mycroft Holmes in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, playing an over-the-top caricature of Louis XIV of France as the Master of Lake-town, with a lackey to match. I don't remember if a part of this section was in the book, but I just thought it clashed with the more serious tone the rest of the series had brought on. Speaking of clashing, it's around this point where Thorin becomes a really big jerk (to put it lightly), more so than he was in the novel. In the novel, he was arrogant; in here, he coldly drops the expendable few. I found this jarring and that its only usefulness was to tie-in with the added material; I didn't find it necessary. Also, the dialogue in this film just isn't that great--or audible. Somehow when this was being edited, it was decided that the dialogue be very hard to hear, and after 10 or 15 minutes, I just gave up on trying to pay attention to it. That's a technical nitpick, but An Unexpected Journey had a similar problem on repeat viewings. Although it couldn't hurt to make an action movie a tad bit louder, could it? Regardless, the dialogue is mostly there to move the action, rather than the story, along. There's not many memorable lines here, at least that I can recall. In The Lord of the Rings, you have Frodo's monologue about Samwise Gamgee being the most important character should their adventures to Mordor be written in a book, or "My friends, you bow to no one," in The Return of the King, or even Bilbo's monologue to Thorin Oakenshield in An Unexpected Journey about the little hobbit with a home helping the dwarves reclaim the one they no longer have. Desolation has few of these, and it's kind of disappointing. Desolation is a visual adventure, not an emotional one with sentiment. Then again, it's not supposed to be. Desolation's purpose is to prepare for The Lord of the Rings and There and Back Again through plot and visual cues--an action movie to prepare us for the epic scope of the finale. In that, it's job is done well. Another thing to note is that, like it's predecessor, Desolation lacks a definitive resolution--in fact, it's a cliffhanger much in the vein of The Empire Strikes Back. Because I knew from the start that this was going to be three films, I didn't mind it--I walked out eager for the finale. However, every time I see one of these movies, there is a resounding groan amongst audience members who felt cheated because it ends on a cliffhanger where the stakes are highest. If you go into this knowing of the split, you'll probably feel less ticked. Just some helpful advice from your good old friend here.
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| The barrel sequence is rightfully the highlight of this film. |
So have you seen Desolation, and what did you think of it? Are you a Middle-Earth kind of guy (or gal)? Do you enjoy these kinds of movies? Whatever you have to say about me or the movies, comment below!
As a side note that doesn't affect the score: due to certain circumstances, I saw this 2.5-hour film as a 3D showing. Is it worth it? A few sequences benefit from the 3D, like the barrel sequence, some of the elf fights, and the Mirkwood scene, but otherwise, you won't get that pop-out effect that you would typically expect in a 3D movie. The 3D also takes a lot of getting used to. During the prologue, I was worried that I would end up with a headache due to the live-action 3D. I got through it, and it didn't particularly bother me, but it was a bit of sensory overload. Personally, I prefer the brighter color scheme in The Hobbit movies, and you won't get much of that if you see it in 3D. Personally, I would see The Hobbit the same way you saw The Lord of the Rings--in 2D, although you may enjoy seeing it in IMAX--a much larger, and louder, screen. That's just my two-cents.
Because I feel I have to elaborate a bit on some of the tie-in features, below is a SPOILER HEAVY section for Desolation of Smaug. Feel free to read and discuss, but know that I warned you ahead of time.
One of my biggest uncertainties with The Hobbit is the addition of the love triangle between Legolas, Tauriel, and the dwarf Kili--this was not in the book. However, I feel that in the end, Jackson will use this love triangle to shape Legolas's character for The Lord of the Rings. How so? In Desolation, Legolas is extremely aggressive towards dwarves, even mocking a picture of his future partner Gimli, but in The Lord of the Rings, he treats Gimli as a blood brother. Why the change? I feel that Jackson is going to use Tauriel as a catalyst to shape Legolas as a compassionate character--it's possible for an elf to even love a dwarf. There are no boundaries that need to be set if united we stand. I trust Jackson, and it's sequences like Gandalf the Grey's light versus Necromancer Sauron's darkness in Dol Goldur that give me faith. It's these uncertainties that many critics and audiences are receiving as negatives, though I think Jackson is confident enough in his work to leave this open ends in a move that requires a lot of cajones--splitting a small book into three parts. When it's all said and done, I feel that we will look back at these movies, though they are not perfect, and recognize the vision, to make us see this trilogy as near-equal to The Lord of the Rings.
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