The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Director: Peter Jackson
Screenplay: Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson & Guillermo del Toro (based on the novel The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien)
Stars: Ian McKellen (Gandalf), Martin Freeman (Bilbo Baggins), Richard Armitage (Thorin), Ken Stott (Balin), Graham McTavish (Dwalin), William Kircher (Bifur), James Nesbitt (Bofur), Stephen Hunter (Bombur), Dean O’Gorman (Fili), Aidan Turner (Kili), John Callen (Oin), Peter Hambleton (Gloin), Jed Brophy (Nori), Mark Hadlow (Dori), Adam Brown (Ori), Orlando Bloom (Legolas), Evangeline Lilly (Tauriel), Lee Pace (Thranduil), Cate Blanchett (Galadriel), Benedict Cumberbatch (Smaug / Necromancer)
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Year of Release: 2013
Country: U.S. / New Zealand
The Hobbit: The Desoluation of Smaug
The Hobbit: The Desolation of SmaugMore tightly paced and action-oriented (not to mention 10 minutes shorter) than its predecessor, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, the middle entry in Peter Jackson’s ambitious cinematic rendering/expansion of J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved fantasy novel, is a slightly better film, albeit one that still feels overly packed and overlong. In trying to align the Hobbit films with his groundbreaking Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003), Jackson has bloated the material in an attempt to turn a cliffhanging adventure story aimed at children into a mythopoeic lead-in to the modern era’s ultimate mythopoeic epic. Granted, Jackson has done this kind of thing before, as his remake of King Kong (2005) successfully turned a short, classic adventure yarn from the ’30s into a three-hour magnum opus about love, greed, and inhumanity. Say what you will about Jackson, but the man thinks big.

The problem with The Hobbit films is that the narrative stakes simply aren’t big enough, which is why Jackson and his coscreenwriters Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Guillermo del Toro (the latter of whom was originally slated to direct) have borrowed material from other Tolkien works, most notably the opening scene from “The Quest of Erebor,” which was posthumously published in the 1980 collection Unfinished Tales. They have also—horror of all horrors to Tolkien purists—invented a character wholesale and brought in a familiar face from The Lord of the Rings who doesn’t appear in Tolkien’s novel, both of which attest to how desperately Jackson wants us to view the two trilogies together, or more specifically, apply our goodwill from his monumental achievement a decade ago to his new endeavor.

This is not to say that there isn’t much to enjoy in The Desolation of Smaug. Quite to the contrary, it is crackling with high-flying action sequences and hairpin escapes (some of which become almost absurd in their Rube Goldberg-esque delirium), not to mention overrun with all sorts of memorably nasty creatures, from slobbering orcs, to hissing giant spiders, all of which are rendered with Jackson’s loving attention to grotesque detail (only Sam Raimi can be said to have more flair with gnarly skin and gross bodily fluids). Martin Freeman continues to add layers to his performance as the unassuming hero Bilbo Baggins, especially as he becomes more and more enamored of his newfound magical ring and its powers of invisibility, unaware that he is holding the lynchpin of impending doom in Middle-earth.

The story picks up right where last year’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey left off, as Bilbo, the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen), and a band of 13 dwarves led by the determined Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) continue to make their way through Middle-earth toward the Misty Mountain, where the dwarves intend to reclaim their ancestral treasure from a giant dragon that has been sitting on it for several generations. Much of the new material involves a subplot in which Gandalf leaves the dwarves and discovers developments that tie directly into the impending war that fuels The Lord of the Rings. The wholly manufactured character is an elf named Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), who becomes engaged in a love triangle of sorts with the elf Legolas (Orlando Bloom), who has been borrowed from The Lord of the Rings, and Kili (Aidan Turner), who is both the tallest and the least hirsute of the 13 dwarves (I guess elves just don’t go for short and heavily bearded). Tolkien purists can debate just how many shades of blasphemy are involved in creating a new character and plopping her in the middle of the Tolkien universe, but my issue is that Tauriel adds little of interest or substance to the narrative outside of providing a powerful female presence to an otherwise male-centric tale. Perhaps her narrative arc will take on some weight in the third film, but as for now she is little more than another sleek elf warrior, whose prowess with a bow and blade are matched only by the shampoo-commercial shininess of her hair.

It is telling that the standout sequence in the film, Bilbo’s encounter with the dragon Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch), starts wonderfully but ultimately overstays its welcome. While much of the film is hectically paced, jumping from one action setpiece or last-minute rescue to the next, Jackson slows down and allows this sequence to unfold with tense grandeur. For all the larger-than-life scenery and booming camera movements that Jackson uses to punctuate virtually every scene, there is no moment in the film so intense or memorable as when part of the massive pile of coins in the great dwarf hall slides away to reveal Smaug’s still closed eye. With only that brief glimpse, we suddenly realize that he is literally everywhere, similar to that horrifying moment in James Cameron’s Aliens (1986) when the gun-toting survivors discover that the encroaching aliens are already in the room with them, crawling above their heads inside the ceiling panels. When he fully emerges from beneath the ocean of golden treasure, Smaug is as grand and as terrifying as he should be, and Cumberbatch voices him with a thunderous, gravelly baritone that imbues his devastating power with a lethal smugness. And, while the sequence ultimately stretches further than it needs to, it prefaces a perfectly timed cliff-hanger hinging on Smaug’s self-important declaration “I am death” that should leave Middle-earth fans clamoring for next Christmas to arrive early.

(Note: I did not want to mention it in my review proper, but I did get the chance to view the film in Jackson’s preferred high frame rate 3D presentation, which I found to be not just underwhelming, but generally unpleasant, and I hope that it does portend the future of movies, as Jackson claims. While the presentation of this film may improve on the previous one (or so I have read), it is still highly artificial looking, with little in the way of cinematic qualities.)

Copyright ©2014 James Kendrick

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All images copyright © New Line Cinema / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer / Warner Bros.

Overall Rating: (3)




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