The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Last year's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was an entertaining, if not somewhat overstuffed and bloated, film that felt like one big set up.  Which, of course, it was.  Now that we've reached the second installment, The Desolation of Smaug, the action picks up much quicker and there's a lot more of it also.  While there are still some pacing problems to be found, this is simply a better flowing movie than before, with a story that moves a lot better.  And of course, we also get to see more of Peter Jackson's stunning vision of Middle Earth.

However, I can't help but wonder how purists of Tolkien's book will react to the film.  While the basic outline of the story is the same, there's a lot of stuff that has been added, including a certain character from the Lord of the Rings trilogy who was not in the original story.  Some of the additional material comes from Tolkien's own notes on the book, while a lot seems to come from the mind of Jackson and his team of screenwriters.  I, for one, did not mind, and found a lot of the changes worked well within the context of the story.  But then, I have not read The Hobbit in a number of years, so I was not exactly expecting a word-for-word adaptation.  The stuff that I remember from the story is up there on the screen, and the stuff that was added did not upset me that much.  As long as you are aware of the changes walking in, you should not be in for that rude of a surprise.

The Desolation of Smaug picks up shortly after the original film, with hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), the grand wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and the thirteen dwarves accompanying them continuing their journey to the Lonely Mountain, where the fire-breathing dragon Smaug (voice by Benedict Cumberbatch) waits for them.  When Gandalf is called away on his own personal adventure, Bilbo and the dwarves must make their way through the mysterious Mirkwood Forest, where they are menaced by giant carnivorous spiders, and eventually captured by some forest elves.  Once Bilbo helps them escape, the heroes have a great battle with some orcs as they make their way down a river in barrels. (A spectacular action sequence, even if some of the stunt work is heavily aided by obvious CG, making the human actors look like video game characters at times.) While all of this happening, there are signs of war building all around, which hint at the events that will occur in the Rings trilogy.

The big news surrounding this film is the character of Smaug, a massive fire-breathing dragon who guards a massive treasure that he has stolen from the dwarves long ago, and now protects it with a jealous rage.  Not only has the creature been realized with the same kind of care and technical wizardy that made the equally miserable and jealous Gollum so memorable in the earlier films, but the vocal performance by Cumberbatch is amazing - sly, threatening, and pretty much what a massive dragon guarding a wealth of riches should sound like.  After his introduction, we are treated to a lengthy sequence where the heroes try to outrun and eventually outsmart the beast, which leads to some of the best visuals in the entire film.  It's worth sitting through most of the film just to get to this impressive climax.  Of course, the entire encounter ends on an appropriate cliffhanger that not only sets up a nice menacing tone for the opening of the next movie, but also leaves us wanting more.

But even before Smaug enters the picture, we are treated to much grander visuals than we saw in the last movie, and definitely some much better and faster-paced action sequences than before.  I already mentioned the sequence that occurs when the heroes try to make their way down the river while being attacked by orcs, but another highlight would be the battle with the giant spiders, who may not be realized as well as the dragon, but they don't need to be, since they are fairly minor in the scope of the while film.  There are smaller action sequences throughout (many of which involve the orcs, who are constantly tracking out heroes), which keep the pace from dragging too much.  And even though there is a much bigger emphasis on action this time, the plot and the characters never feel like they are getting shortchanged.  There is always a huge temptation to have the effects and the wonder take center stage in these kind of films, but Jackson wisely avoids it, and never lets the technical wizardry on display drown out the human element of the story.

I also think that the somewhat darker and more somber tone helps this film out a lot as well.  More than the last film, we get the sense that brave little Bilbo is up against a flurry of dark forces that he cannot even begin to comprehend or understand.  The stakes seem higher this time around, and the threats greater.  I also appreciated one of Jackson's own additions to the story - that being the female elf warrior, Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), who not only serves as a love interest to returning elf character Legolas (Orlando Bloom), but also adds a much-needed female presence to the story.  It was a risky gamble adding a completely new character to the story, but here, I think it works.  It does not feel out of place, and actually helps to add to the world the filmmakers have created.  I'm sure that there are many who will speak out about the character having not seen the film, but if they give it a chance, they may be surprised.

The Desolation of Smaug is still far from the wonder of the original Rings trilogy, but I have come to accept that.  When Jackson did his first series of films some 10 years ago, we had never seen anything quite like it at the time.  There is no possible way he can ever recapture that sense of wonder.  But what he can do, and what he has done here, is make a thrilling little adventure story that may not feel entirely new, but helps enhance the cinematic world he created.  If that is the point of The Hobbit series, then he has definitely succeeded.

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