The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013, PG-13)

I’ll say this:  I enjoy The Desolation of Smaug quite a bit more than An Unexpected Journey.  Yes, it’s still way longer than it needs to be, it tries to wring too much epicness into a film that doesn’t call for it, and there’s at least an hour’s worth of completely invented subplot material that distracts from the actual story of the book.  However, it doesn’t drag nearly as much – it feels like far more physically happens, the action sequences are mostly cool enough to justify their length, and overall, it seems the film makes more of an effort to tell what resembles a cohesive story.

The movie benefits from the fact that the middle chunk of the book has a lot more entertaining plot stuff than the first.  For starters, we get the Mirkwood spiders, where Bilbo finds his courage (believably so – I think the butt-kicking Bilbo scene at the end of An Unexpected Journey feels really out of character.  He’s too bold, too ruthless, and too successful against a fully grown orc.  Here, he gets the job done, but he plainly has no idea what he’s doing, he’s running on fear, luck, and adrenaline, and plus, it’s clear that he’s being affected by both the ring and the forest.) 

We also get the wood elves.  I’ll admit that, in this sequence, the film-only bits work better than the book bits for me.  The barrel scene goes on far too long and far too crazily, but I really enjoy all the elf drama going on while the dwarves are indisposed.  Tauriel is a nice addition to the story, and even though I’m sure the last thing poor Evangeline Lilly wanted after Lost was another love triangle (sigh… seriously?), she’s a fine character in her own right, an excellent fighter with a strong sense of justice.  I also want to mention Lee Pace as Thranduil.  He’s awesome – cold and imperious with probing, ageless eyes that see everything.  His scenes were some of my favorites, and it fun to see him get to do something after essentially being window-dressing in the first movie.

And, as the title suggests, we get the big sequence with Bilbo and Smaug, which is even better than Bilbo and Gollum in An Unexpected Journey.  I love how smart and quick on his feet Bilbo is, even though he’s obviously terrified.  Our little hobbit has such a clever tongue, and he really knows how to keep the monsters talking just long enough for him to find an escape.  Not to mention, Smaug himself is fantastic.  The lackluster creature effects elsewhere don’t extend to the dragon – he looks great and is well-integrated into the scene.  Benedict Cumberbatch is suitably menacing in the role, and both he and Martin Freeman are so wonderful, you’d never guess their parts were filmed separately (well, aside from the fact that Freeman is a speck compared to Cumberbatch’s colossal beast.)

Most of Gandalf’s screentime, unfortunately, happens away from the party in supplementary scenes, so that’s a bummer.  Plus, as much as I like to watch elves fighting, their extended presence is really shoehorned in.  Lastly, considering where the film ends and the title of the final installment, I have a sinking feeling that the last movie will largely be one never-ending battle (possibly with countless faux-denouements like The Return of the King.)

Warnings

Fantasy violence with lots of battle scenes, and some general scariness.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012, PG-13)

Sometimes, part-one movie-to-book adaptions are Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:  Part 1or Mockingjay:  Part 1, and sometimes they’re An Unexpected Journey.  I’ll see The Battle of the Five Armies when it comes out, as a fan of Middle-earth, Martin Freeman and many of the other actors, and the original Lord of the Rings films, and as such, I’m rewatching parts one and two in preparation, but there’s no getting around it.  There is no earthly reason that The Hobbit needed to be three movies, and there’s no godly reason each of those movies needed to push three hours.  I could have maybe seen a pair of hour-and-forty-minutes-max movies, but I’m so annoyed at this bloated, indulgent, tonally-haphazard mess we’ve been given.  Though I like Peter Jackson, and I love his vision of Middle-earth, his out-of-control ego re:  The Hobbit has done the franchise an enormous disservice.

Let’s start with what works, because it might otherwise get overlooked in the diatribe to come.  Martin Freeman was absolutely born to play Bilbo.  He has such a knack for playing everymen dragged unwillingly into extraordinary situations, and he’s pitch-perfect throughout the film.  He shines especially in scenes that highlight Bilbo’s quick thinking and talent for stalling.  The “riddles in the dark” scene naturally comes to mind – this delectable thespian battle royale between him and Andy Serkis’s motion-captured Gollum is easily the highlight of the movie.  The other actors are likewise terrific, giving their all to their roles.  In particular, you wouldn’t have known Sir Ian McKellen had ever stoppedplaying Gandalf.  Beyond that, Middle-earth looks as amazing as ever.  The loving detail paid to the costumes and sets, as well as the luscious New Zealand landscape-porn, are a real treat.

Unfortunately, none of these great elements are given a very worthwhile movie.  It’s needlessly long, painfully slow.  Scenes drag on far longer than they have any reason to, stray world-building details are pointlessly transformed into interminable action sequences, and the plot is stuffed with stray elements that don’t have any business being in The Hobbit.  There’s this overbearing drive to make it an epic like The Lord of the Rings, so there are unrelated tangents foreshadowing the rise of Sauron and the dark days of the trilogy.  This grimness and high drama jars with the actually story, a light adventure about 13 dwarves, a wizard, and a hobbit who discovers the world outside his door; the movie careens confusedly between sober, buoyant, disturbing, and goofy, and it doesn’t make sense as a whole.  Furthermore, all these disconcerting signs of a rising evil make the good guys look for morons for recognizing the signs but then sitting on their heels for sixty years before doing anything about it.

And this is a small note, but I still think it’s worth mentioning, because it’s something that the original trilogy received so much praise for:  a lot of the CGI is nothing to write home about.  The orcs are unconvincing, the goblins look downright cartoonish, and while Gollum was a stunning achievement in The Lord of the Rings, that was over a decade ago, and he still looks exactly the same.  CGI has come a long way since then, and we’ve come to expect more, but it’s like they didn’t even bother trying.  Tsk, tsk.

Warnings

Battle violence, a few bits of gross-out humor, and frightening sequences.