The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug [M]

Bilbo Baggins is a long way from the Shire and his hobbit-hole now, but his adventure to the Lonely Mountain is just getting exciting and continuing to bring out surprises in him that nobody could have imagined, including Bilbo himself. Gandalf, Thorin, and their company are halfway to the Lonely Mountain, but the worst of their adventure is yet to come. Between them and their goal lies the dark forest of Mirkwood where the wood elves reign, a freezing lake and the stricken Lake Town; home of men, and then the dragon Smaug in the heart of the mountain. With time slipping away from them and an orc pack on their trail, the quest is beginning to look lost and what is worse, the shadow of war is beginning to creep over Middle Earth. 

The second instalment in The Hobbit trilogy, The Desolation of Smaug harbours more action, adventure, and new characters as well as the resurgence of some familiar ones: the biggest being the reappearance of Orlando Bloom as Legolas, prince of Mirkwood (before anyone gets annoyed and claims that I spoiled it for them, he’s featured in the adds and there are posters of him on the bus stops so we all know he’s there). I’d like to just say that this irritates me, which is ironic because as he was my first celebrity crush you’d think I’d be really jazzed to see him in his blonde wig again. Sadly not the case: his whole presence, which was not in the book I’ll just point out, really doesn’t serve any purpose here and, to me, proves to be nothing more than a method for a) padding out the story so that a book a mere 300 or so pages long can be made into three movies, and b) to give the young girls in the audience someone to perve on (as though Kili is not enough). 

Now having said that, let’s get onto what’s great about this movie… 

Bilbo Baggins is a long way from the Shire and his hobbit-hole now, but his adventure to the Lonely Mountain is just getting exciting and continuing to bring out surprises in him that nobody could have imagined, including Bilbo himself. Gandalf, Thorin, and their company are halfway to the Lonely Mountain, but the worst of their adventure is yet to come. Between them and their goal lies the dark forest of Mirkwood where the wood elves reign, a freezing lake and the stricken Lake Town; home of men, and then the dragon Smaug in the heart of the mountain. With time slipping away from them and an orc pack on their trail, the quest is beginning to look lost and what is worse, the shadow of war is beginning to creep over Middle Earth. 

It occurred me about halfway through this flick that I’ve been watching it in the wrong sort of manner really. Contractually and cinema-graphically, this isn’t just an adaptation of a book. It’s a prequel trilogy to The Lord of the Rings. What’s happened here is like the Star Wars saga, chronologically anyway. Therefore, I became aware that it actually does work for them to use bits from The Lord of the Rings and tie in whole thing with the Necromancer and Sauron because, when you think about it, this would have been going on. It’s just not present in the book because The Hobbit was written before The Lord of the Rings and therefore all these little things don’t have attention drawn to them. But in the movie, it works because audiences already know and are anticipating what’s going to happen after Bilbo has his little adventure, therefore it does work for a few familiar faces and a few little precursor-like scenes to be injected here and there. Having said that, there are a fair few large chunks and parallel stories in this movie that just really don’t have to be there and are merely used for the purposes of special effects gawping and padding out the trilogy. 

The Desolation of Smaug proves to be quite like Attack of the Clones in that it really is just this filler between the beginning and the end. Yeah some cool stuff happens; we meet new characters, there are some memorable action sequences and fights, and the scenery and achievements of the art and set design departments are enough to take your breath away, but ultimately it doesn’t keep you enthralled from beginning to end. Your eyes can wander off for a time and nothing will be missed. 

Starring Martin Freeman, Sir Ian McKellen, James Nesbitt, Richard Armitage, Ken Scott, Graham McTavish, William Kircher, Stephen Hunter, Dean O’Gorman, Aidan Turner, John Callen, Peter Hambelton, Jed Brophy, Mark Hadlow, Adam Brown, Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Mikael Persbrandt, Sylvester McCoy, Luke Evans, Ryan Gage, John Bell, Stephen Fry, Cate Blanchett, and Benedict Cumberbatch, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is a visually wonderful film, but by now we’ve already become accustomed to the wonder of Lord of the Rings and therefore everything in this precursor-trilogy just seems already so familiar. Filled with action, suspense, drama, romance, dazzling special effects and art direction, and comedy, it’s still pretty damn good.