The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

I went into this movie with "The Two Towers" in the back of my mind. There are similarities between both films but the slight problem I had with "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" is that it lacked a formal opening and some climatic resolution I was hoping for. Other than that, I enjoyed the experience. I was optimistic that its faults would no longer matter after the final installement but then that movie had a few more shortcomings. "The Desolation of Smaug" however offered everything one might expect from Peter Jackson: special effects and an entertaining adaptation of the book. IMAX was a great way to see it for the first time. This almost became my favorite film from 2013 until I saw "Saving Mr. Banks". The ending of this sequel was well handled despite the lack of climatic resolution.

In order to conclude on the positive, I will begin with the lone aforementioned problem I had with this show. "The Two Towers" at its beginning took some time to quickly reintroduce the members of the Fellowship. Both the theatrical and the extended versions had scenes that allowed us to reconnect with our heroes. The first Hobbit film had characters arcs and a clear resolution leading into this, the second chapter. As for "The Desolation of Smaug", we seemed to just dive right in. Sure there is the flashback with Gandalf and Thorin but "The Two Towers" had both the flashback with the Balrog fight and the reintroduction of the characters. In the last Hobbit movie, our heroes had escaped from Azog but that didn't seem to matter because suddenly he had caught up to the company at the start of this film. I would have enjoyed a bonding scene with Bilbo and the others before realizing that Azog was back. Skipping to the end of the movie, I felt there was a lack of a climax but that was intentional. Also, because I have read the book, I knew the direction that the story was headed. Had I been in the dark as with "The Lord of the Rings", I probably would have enjoyed the ending of "The Desolation of Smaug" even more. In summary, this film will connect "An Unexpected Journey" with "The Battle of Five Armies" but unlike "The Two Towers", "The Desolation of Smaug" is not quite able to stand on its own story-wise.

To have the movie start with Peter Jackson's cameo was awesome. He even reprises his role from "The Fellowship of the Ring". It was also cool to be back at the Prancing Pony. I enjoyed the spider sequence. Jackson is afraid of spiders and I could tell that he wanted to create these monsters in such a way that it would give him the creeps. It gives my sister-in-law the creeps. That is the approach he took with Shelob on "The Return of the King". The voice of the spiders is what made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I took interest in the moment when Biblo realizes the effect the ring is having on him. When I had the book read to me as a kid, I imagined the Wood-elves to be much more evil in nature. They were quite different in my mind from the elves of Rivendell. Over the years since the book was read to me, I had even forgotten that it was elves that capture the company in Mirkwood. As a result when I saw Wood-elves in "The Lord of the Rings", I didn't make the connection. Going into this movie, I was expecting goblins or something else would capture our heroes. Legolas still has the moves but I am glad he saves his best fighting moments as it were for the original trilogy. I was so happy that Legolas and Gloin have a moment. The romance between Tauriel and Kili is exclusive to this film and I was curious as to its outcome. Their scenes were well written and performed. The river battle was lots of fun, especially Bombur's part. Bard to me reminds me a lot of Legolas for some reason. Despite this, his depiction in the movie is good. We sympathize with him as well as with the rest of Lake-town. It wasn't until this movie that I realized that Balin is the same Balin who is later killed in Moria. We see his tomb in "The Fellowship of the Ring". I like him even more now. He is officially my favorite dwarf in "The Hobbit" movies. I am embarrassed that it took me this long to make that connection. I then learned after watching the special features for "The Hobbit" that Ori ends up as the skeleton in Balin's tomb who wrote the old journal that Gandalf reads from. Bilbo and Balin always have the best moments, such as when Bilbo is about to go alone into Erebor. It is at this point where Smaug rises from the gold. Upon first viewing, there wasn't anything grandiose about him. He seemed like the cliche fantasy dragon. "The Two Towers" introduced us to Gollum to amazing effect and I was hoping for a similar impact, which was probably the wrong attitude going in. As the scenes in Erebor progressed though, it was the Smaug's performance that won me over. Jackson it turns out didn't have anything special in mind for this character except he wanted Smaug to be really large. In hindsight, Smaug was worth waiting a year for. I also was impressed by the reveal of the identity of the Necromancer. From a special effects standpoint, it was neat. As I mentioned, this movie lacks the climax I was hoping for but the truth is that I love the ending because of the audience's reaction to it when I first saw it. Peter Jackson is great at endings like this. These three movies are meant to be one big multi-hour film just like the other trilogy but unfortunately, the resolution I was hoping for in the next movie fell a little short of my expectations. The trilogy as a whole did not have a flowing narrative.

Because all three movies were filmed at once, I will focus on those new actors in this installment. The two main actors from TV's "Sherlock" perform together in a sense in this film: Martin Freeman as Biblo and Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug. Despite the fact that Smaug is CGI, Freeman and Cumberbatch were on set together during all their scenes. I had heard that motion capture wasn't working for this character and so they animated him traditionally. Then I heard that Smaug was motion capture after all. Whatever the case, the facial performance of Smaug was noteworthy. Cumberbatch is great in any performance of his. I had seen Evangeline Lilly before in "Reel Steel" and she did her job fine enough on this movie. Luke Evens created a likeable hero and Lee Pace was okay but I liked him a lot better in "Lincoln". Stephen Colbert apparently has a cameo in Lake-town as a spy and I will have to keep my eye open for him. Another cameo in the Prancing Pony was the actor playing the hobbit (he worked on "The Lord of the Rings"). The high frame rate was better than the last movie, just like I knew would happen. Just because there were a few problems the first time around doesn't mean this new technology would stay that way; technology gets better as time goes on.

This movie was nominated at the Oscars for both sound catagories and for Visual Effects (I wanted it to win for Sound Mixing but "Gravity" took home all three of those awards). Unlike other critics, I like the first film better. "An Unexpected Journey" had a slightly better story structure. That is not to say that I did not like "The Desolation of Smaug". "Attack of the Clones" may be my least favorite Star Wars movie but I still like it as much as the other films in that franchise. I was hoping that the second Hobbit film was leading us to a great climatic film that would link this trilogy with "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy but too bad we got a moderate film instead in the form of "The Battle of Five Armies". "The Desolation of Smaug" had great special effects, a smart ending and was a pleasure to see in IMAX. I thought this movie would get better once all the films were released on Blu-ray and once I saw all the extended versions and that could still happen but so far, all the films seem to be losing their value.

4 Stars