Movie Review: Desolation of Smaug

Part 2 of The Hobbit trilogy is visually stunning, but Peter Jackson lacked self-control in making this 2 hour 40 minute film. The Desolation of Smaug beats you over the head with special effects and has too many subplots going on. The drama of the quest is noticeably lacking, replaced with an unusual fight for survival and, of course, gold. As a result, it doesn’t match the epic power of LOTR, but instead resembles the summer blockbusters of this year: shiny but shallow. I guess the “feels” of the series will be in the first and last movies only.

The Desolation of Smaug takes you from the goblin mountain to the Lonely Mountain and the lair of the dragon himself. The movie stays partially true to the book but tends to shorten a number of their challenges while making sure most of them made it in. The dialogue early on is short and quick, with Bilbo taking on a new measure of courage. The side plot of Gandalf is from a different book and makes little sense. It is hard to understand what is going on and why he insists on taking things on alone. He witnesses the gathering of the dark armies, identical to his experience at Isengard.

The visual effects are amazing but overwhelming. The river scene is nauseating, with rapid changes in perspective, and full speed action. It’s impossible to perceive what is going on. The elves and dwarves have ridiculous reflexes and perfect aim, which makes it feel like everything is comes easy to them. The quest is a lot less daunting when you see their skill.

Peter Jackson made a mistake turning this into three movies. The two plots (Bilbo/Dwarves and Gandalf) don’t fit well. There is too much going and and too many scenes and battle sequences which go so fast you have no idea what is happening. It is as if Jackson is taking the world’s love of Tolkien for granted and simply making a Middle Earth buffet, with not much structure to make it a great movie. It made me much less excited about the third one.

If you love Tolkien, you’ll probably love it. But for me, it tried too hard to be a summer blockbuster (released in December mind you), deviating away from the classical epic fantasy motif. Without Gollum and the cute dwarf banter, this movie lacks some of the nostalgic appeal of the first movie and LOTR. 3 Stars from me.

J

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