"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" - directed by Peter Jackson
It seems that I can't mention The Hobbit movies without people immediately commenting on how ridiculous it is that Peter Jackson is making three movies out of a 400 page book when the 1069 page Lord of the Rings book was made into the same number of films- three.
I usually spring to Jackson's defence noting that the Hobbit book often uses scant few words to describe what on film would take 15 or 20 minutes of screen time.
Plus the Hobbit films are using appendices from all of the books to fill out the story so it is not quite fair to criticise based solely on the number of pages.
After the first movie "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" hit my defence was a little harder to stage.
Structurally it made some odd choices.
Keeping the 'action' in the Shire- and more specifically in Bag End itself- the first third slowed to an absolute crawl.
It is a common fault with Jackson's movies since 2001 - he just doesn't know how to cull extraneous footage.
Not to say that the first Hobbit movie wasn't damned good- it certainly, clearly was.
It's just that I got a sort of 'second album' vibe off it as the maestro tried to re-capture the magic and whimsy of the LOTR trilogy almost a decade later.
It was the same song but it was just a little.... off.
Not totally his best.
With the second Hobbit movie the need to set (re-set?) the scene is no longer there.
We know the characters and we know their goal.
We are all set to hit the ground running this time.
And funnily enough....
"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" sets a darker tone from the first couple of scenes and even if Jackson drops the ball on the title reveal ("The Desolation of Smaug") by presenting it clumsily without his usual eye for just the right moment, there is the very definite feeling that this movie has places to go and is not going to waste time getting there.
This is after a flashback sequence showing Thorin in the town of Bree (complete with that famous carrot muncher again) being informed by Gandalf that he has a price on his head.
Flash to the present and we see that the Dwarf, Wizard and Hobbit party is being pursued still by the grim band of orcs that they faced off against last time we saw them.
Interestingly Gandalf splits from the party to investigate important things as he is wont to do.
This leaves the dwarf party alone in a very threatening forest to face fifteen minutes of something that any arachnophobes in the audience will have quite a tough time with themselves.
If Shelob bothered you in The Return of the King you ain't seen nothin' yet.
It's a great sequence and one of three action scenes in the film that justify the ticket price.
Most of the compelling action involves fan favourite Legolas and his companion Tauriel.
Played by the lovely Evangeline Lilly, Tauriel is a creation born of the minds of Jackson and his writers rather than J R R Tolkien.
They freely admit that she is there to bring some level of gender balance to proceedings but in reality what she does is introduce some pretty serious ass-kicking.
She is easily the equal of Legolas when it comes to dispatching Orcs.
Lilly is absolutely perfect in this role and any trepidation surrounding Tauriel's non-Tolkien creation should vanish pretty quickly for all but the most stubborn fan as she gracefully glides and maneuvers around the scenery slicing and decapitating all who dare get in her way.
It is akin to watching a prima ballerina perform assassinations- such is the grace of the choreography and the staging of the action.
Even during the barrel escape which is centred largely on the Dwarf party and which features a riotous sequence with Bombur, the addition of Legolas and Tauriel ramps up the excitement even further.
If it sounds like I am more enthusiastic about this movie over its predecessor it is no accident.
In terms of spectacle and action it is simply a better film.
Performances too are provided considerably more room to flourish.
Martin Freeman's Bilbo looks more worn in this film. Older even.
The toll of carrying the ring is showing and Freeman does a fabulous job displaying this.
Sure- there is makeup and costume but he gives Bilbo a greater confidence and still manages to hint at an underlying tiredness.
Top points however go to a terrific Luke Evans as Bard.
He is a commanding presence and in lesser hands I doubt that the sympathy that he generates would exist.
Sadly Evans' performance cannot alleviate the dreaded bloat that I had feared would re-emerge and unfortunately does.
As soon as the party gets to Laketown the film takes a dive into the bowels of talky despair.
The greatest issue that I had with An Unexpected Journey was that much of the film did nothing to drive the plot forward.
The same- albeit to a lesser degree- creeps in here.
There are shades of Grima Wormwood as Stephen Fry's Master of Laketown and his sniveling lackey plot to retain power in the waterbound town.
It is the last stop on the way to the lonely mountain and the domain of the dragon Smaug which is of course what we are really here to see.
It is understandable that the film slows itself a little in readiness for the climax.
It's the intake of breath before the adrenalin burst of the finale.
Smaug himself is an incredible creation. The huge beast is perfectly rendered with ominous, deep voice work by Benedict Cumberbatch. Fans will have been waiting for the full reveal of Smaug with huge anticipation and the end result does not disappoint.
So it is with some amazement that I found myself getting bored during the Smaug confrontation.
Without wanting to give anything away there is not much by way of resolution in The Desolation of Smaug.
It ends with a cliffhanger that while suggesting great things to come nonetheless does undo some of the thrill from the previous couple of hours.
The Smaug sequence lasts far too long with Dwarves and Hobbit scampering around the piles of gold and up and down flights of stony stairs avoiding a very talky Smaug.
It is as if Jackson was so excited to have the commanding voice presence of Benedict Cumberbatch adorning Weta Digital's superb creation that he assumed more screen time would naturally be the order of the day.
It comes off as stalling though - made worse by the baffling intercutting of Tauriel administering medical aid back in Laketown.
There is some action in both locales but the length of this portion of the film does little to dispel the notion that Jackson's trilogy could well have been reduced to two 2.5 hour films instead of (presumably) three 3 hour ones.
With a little more editing and a greater focus on moving the story forward the giddy heights he reached with his Lord of the Rings trilogy await.
That is about as negative as I can be however and taken as a whole
this is a terrific piece of entertainment that contains enough action
and excitement to make its flaws forgiveable.
If Jackson improves by the same margin between films two and three as he did one and two then then the final movie a year from now will be a treat indeed.
I love Tauriel and it is great to see Gandalf and Legolas back on the screen again.
It seems redundant at this stage to say it but Weta Digital and Weta Workshops digital, prop and makeup teams have pulled off miracles yet again and should be praised loudly and often.
The Desolation of Smaug is a stunning looking film filled with shots that would not be out of place framed and hung on the walls of ones home.
Jackson and his team are masters at this sort of spectacle and pretty much without equal.
Casting by Liz Millane and her team is spot on.
The cast list on this review is as long as it is because I couldn't bear to leave any of them off.
There are some big names there but it is some of the lesser known ones that shine brightest and as with Orlando Bloom, Viggo Mortensen and many others from the Rings Trilogy I expect these films to make a few new stars before they're done.
"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" is clearly a must see.
I prefer the 3D high frame rate version myself - the scene with the bumble bees hovering in the audiences face alone is worthy of seeing the film this way.
Whether in the high frame rate 3D version which is a little toned down from the previous film or in standard 2D 24 frames you are in for a great few hours in the cinema.
I usually spring to Jackson's defence noting that the Hobbit book often uses scant few words to describe what on film would take 15 or 20 minutes of screen time.
Plus the Hobbit films are using appendices from all of the books to fill out the story so it is not quite fair to criticise based solely on the number of pages.
After the first movie "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" hit my defence was a little harder to stage.
Structurally it made some odd choices.
Keeping the 'action' in the Shire- and more specifically in Bag End itself- the first third slowed to an absolute crawl.
It is a common fault with Jackson's movies since 2001 - he just doesn't know how to cull extraneous footage.
Not to say that the first Hobbit movie wasn't damned good- it certainly, clearly was.
It's just that I got a sort of 'second album' vibe off it as the maestro tried to re-capture the magic and whimsy of the LOTR trilogy almost a decade later.
It was the same song but it was just a little.... off.
Not totally his best.
With the second Hobbit movie the need to set (re-set?) the scene is no longer there.
We know the characters and we know their goal.
We are all set to hit the ground running this time.
And funnily enough....
 |
| The adventures of Bilbo Baggins, Grandalf the Grey and Thorin Oakenshield continue |
This is after a flashback sequence showing Thorin in the town of Bree (complete with that famous carrot muncher again) being informed by Gandalf that he has a price on his head.
Flash to the present and we see that the Dwarf, Wizard and Hobbit party is being pursued still by the grim band of orcs that they faced off against last time we saw them.
Interestingly Gandalf splits from the party to investigate important things as he is wont to do.
This leaves the dwarf party alone in a very threatening forest to face fifteen minutes of something that any arachnophobes in the audience will have quite a tough time with themselves.
If Shelob bothered you in The Return of the King you ain't seen nothin' yet.
It's a great sequence and one of three action scenes in the film that justify the ticket price.
Most of the compelling action involves fan favourite Legolas and his companion Tauriel.
Played by the lovely Evangeline Lilly, Tauriel is a creation born of the minds of Jackson and his writers rather than J R R Tolkien.
They freely admit that she is there to bring some level of gender balance to proceedings but in reality what she does is introduce some pretty serious ass-kicking.
She is easily the equal of Legolas when it comes to dispatching Orcs.
Lilly is absolutely perfect in this role and any trepidation surrounding Tauriel's non-Tolkien creation should vanish pretty quickly for all but the most stubborn fan as she gracefully glides and maneuvers around the scenery slicing and decapitating all who dare get in her way.
It is akin to watching a prima ballerina perform assassinations- such is the grace of the choreography and the staging of the action.
 |
| Evangeline Lilly (left) and as Tauriel (other images).... amazing. |
If it sounds like I am more enthusiastic about this movie over its predecessor it is no accident.
In terms of spectacle and action it is simply a better film.
Performances too are provided considerably more room to flourish.
Martin Freeman's Bilbo looks more worn in this film. Older even.
The toll of carrying the ring is showing and Freeman does a fabulous job displaying this.
Sure- there is makeup and costume but he gives Bilbo a greater confidence and still manages to hint at an underlying tiredness.
Top points however go to a terrific Luke Evans as Bard.
He is a commanding presence and in lesser hands I doubt that the sympathy that he generates would exist.
Sadly Evans' performance cannot alleviate the dreaded bloat that I had feared would re-emerge and unfortunately does.
 |
| Luke Evans - takes the acting honours |
The greatest issue that I had with An Unexpected Journey was that much of the film did nothing to drive the plot forward.
The same- albeit to a lesser degree- creeps in here.
There are shades of Grima Wormwood as Stephen Fry's Master of Laketown and his sniveling lackey plot to retain power in the waterbound town.
It is the last stop on the way to the lonely mountain and the domain of the dragon Smaug which is of course what we are really here to see.
It is understandable that the film slows itself a little in readiness for the climax.
It's the intake of breath before the adrenalin burst of the finale.
Smaug himself is an incredible creation. The huge beast is perfectly rendered with ominous, deep voice work by Benedict Cumberbatch. Fans will have been waiting for the full reveal of Smaug with huge anticipation and the end result does not disappoint.
So it is with some amazement that I found myself getting bored during the Smaug confrontation.
Without wanting to give anything away there is not much by way of resolution in The Desolation of Smaug.
It ends with a cliffhanger that while suggesting great things to come nonetheless does undo some of the thrill from the previous couple of hours.
The Smaug sequence lasts far too long with Dwarves and Hobbit scampering around the piles of gold and up and down flights of stony stairs avoiding a very talky Smaug.
It is as if Jackson was so excited to have the commanding voice presence of Benedict Cumberbatch adorning Weta Digital's superb creation that he assumed more screen time would naturally be the order of the day.
It comes off as stalling though - made worse by the baffling intercutting of Tauriel administering medical aid back in Laketown.
There is some action in both locales but the length of this portion of the film does little to dispel the notion that Jackson's trilogy could well have been reduced to two 2.5 hour films instead of (presumably) three 3 hour ones.
With a little more editing and a greater focus on moving the story forward the giddy heights he reached with his Lord of the Rings trilogy await.
 |
| Production values are typically high with scenery once again breathtaking |
If Jackson improves by the same margin between films two and three as he did one and two then then the final movie a year from now will be a treat indeed.
I love Tauriel and it is great to see Gandalf and Legolas back on the screen again.
It seems redundant at this stage to say it but Weta Digital and Weta Workshops digital, prop and makeup teams have pulled off miracles yet again and should be praised loudly and often.
The Desolation of Smaug is a stunning looking film filled with shots that would not be out of place framed and hung on the walls of ones home.
Jackson and his team are masters at this sort of spectacle and pretty much without equal.
Casting by Liz Millane and her team is spot on.
The cast list on this review is as long as it is because I couldn't bear to leave any of them off.
There are some big names there but it is some of the lesser known ones that shine brightest and as with Orlando Bloom, Viggo Mortensen and many others from the Rings Trilogy I expect these films to make a few new stars before they're done.
"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" is clearly a must see.
I prefer the 3D high frame rate version myself - the scene with the bumble bees hovering in the audiences face alone is worthy of seeing the film this way.
Whether in the high frame rate 3D version which is a little toned down from the previous film or in standard 2D 24 frames you are in for a great few hours in the cinema.
| Rated | M for violence- hacking and decapitations but largely bloodless |
| Running Time: | 161 minutes (2hrs, 50mins without end credits) |
| Starring: |
| Martin Freeman | --- Bilbo Baggins |
| Ian McKellen | --- Gandalf |
| 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 | --- Thradruil |
| Cate Blanchett | --- Galadriel |
| Benedict Cumberbatch | --- Smaug (voice) |
| Sylvester McCoy | --- Radagast |
| Luke Evans | --- Bard / Girion |
| Stephen Fry | --- Master of Laketown |
| Manu Bennett | --- Azog |
| Lawrence Makoare | --- Bolg |
| Craig Hall | --- Galion |
| Stephen Colbert | --- Laketown Spy |
| Christopher Lee | --- Saruman |
| Ian Holm | --- Bilbo Baggins (older) |
| Billy Connelly | --- Dain Ironfoot |
| Andy Serkis | --- Gollum |
| Hugo Weaving | --- Elrond |
| Mikail Persbrandt | --- Beorn |
| Sylvester McCoy | --- Radagast |
| Manu Bennett | --- Azog |
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