When approaching a nearly three-hour opus like The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, one should have a pretty decent idea going in if this reverent fealty paid to the imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien is for them. Perhaps the ultimate Rorschach inkblot, Peter Jackson’s ponderous Hobbit Trilogy has become the rarest of things: A cinematic litmus test for how far down the rabbit hole of fandom, in this case Tolkien, you’re willing to go.
Handsomely mounted and wonderfully acted, Desolation of Smaugshares much in common with its 2012 predecessor, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, in that they are both greatly endured labors of love, albeit for much of the audience they are simply to be endured. At 161 minutes, the second Hobbitis a lot of movie, but for the converted these are happy tidings.
Picking up moments after An Unexpected Journey, this Hobbitfinds our wayward band of heroes still led by the grumpy Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) and slyly cryptic Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) on the road to the Misty Mountain. Of course, our vantage point truly lies with the titular halfing played ever unpretentiously by the charming Martin Freeman. Still all smiles, save for the flummoxed pangs of terror, Freeman’s Bilbo Baggins captures the everyman quality imbued in the character by Tolkien nearly a century ago and is a joy to watch. Unfortunately, while Desolation of Smaug proves to be the better movie overall, it is less the story of a hobbit now. Indeed, save for an amazing finale and other clever uses of Bilbo’s newfound “precious” ring, he is rather peripheral in a film about the importance of dwarves.
For in this movie, it is the dwarves’ quest to reclaim the mines, lands, and gold hidden within the Misty Mountain from the dragon known as Smaug that dominates the narrative, and it is Thorin’s decisions—and those informed by wise dwarf Balin (Ken Scott)—that dictates the direction of this quest. Even Gandalf relinquishes command early when he is drawn onto “other business” away from the quest, ultimately serving as Lord of the Rings prequel material invented for this film. However that leaves a movie, based on Tolkien’s slender fairy tale about the smallest of creatures, in an awkward spot.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is a better movie than last year’s forebearer. It wastes less time on exposition (there is not a single dwarf musical number!), and I found myself only scratching my head about the point of the first 30 minutes, as opposed to the full hour of spinning wheels that made up a third of An Unexpected Journey. However, it too suffers from the great heft placed upon its slight source material’s Baggins-sized shoulders; in short, this still ain’t Lord of the Rings.
Running at a brisk 275-300 pages (depending on the printing), Tolkien’s original novel is an amusing daydream of children’s literature perfectly captured by a mind not yet troubled about the comings-and-goings of Mordor. Back when the darkness there did in fact sleep, it is not a tale that lends itself to roughly nine hours of movie, but when the “appendixes” from Lord of the Rings and other blockbuster-necessitated subplots are added, this trilogy balloons to the size of Tolkien’s adult-aimed three-volume masterpiece, leaving us with countless, countless scenes of orc decapitation and wizard hang-wringing over the thought of necromancers, dark magic, white orcs, red eyes and other bits of fan service.
Which is not to say that adding original material to this tale is a bad idea. Much like Lord of the Rings, Tolkien’s source material is a bit of a spear-fest with barely a feminine presence in sight. However, Jackson and co-screenwriting wife Fran Walsh invent the new character Tauriel, played pleasantly by Evangeline Lilly. While essentially a retread of Liv Tyler’s portrayal of Arwen in Fellowship of the Ring(before she was conscripted to the confines of helplessness in later, more Tolkien-esque installments), she is likewise valiant, brave and refreshingly not a dwarf. Indeed, her banter with the “tallest” dwarf of the heroic company, Kili (Aidan Turner), offers a bit of star-crossed and intentionally bemused “romance,” as well as character development for at least one dwarf in the story. Similarly, the shoehorned return of Legolas (Orlando Bloom) allows the two elves to participate in the much expanded barrel escape sequence from the book, now with orcs. It is actually lively and light-hearted enough to both capture the fun of the literary Hobbitwhile offering some of the spectacle present in the original movie trilogy.
However, other additions fare less well. Lake-town, the sleepy canal city at the bottom of the Misty Mountain, surely acted as the epicenter of the book’s climax, but the men and women who lived there were painted with a brush a shade broader than an Olephant. Nonetheless, in this adaptation, viewers get to know every political allegiance and historical footnote about the culture when Bard the Bowman (Luke Evans) becomes an ideological dissident, and the dwarves the political tools of a corrupt oligarchy. It also becomes increasingly apparent that after five-plus hours with this group…dwarves are not very lovable. They are greedy, selfish little buggers who’s quest, when really “opened up” on film, is little more than a business venture to get rich, the 99 percent be damned. Thorin and the group knowingly push the populace of Lake-town, exemplified by Bard’s angelic family, in danger, just as Thorin rather contemptuously pressures Bilbo in the path of Smaug twice during the film’s third act. And they’re our heroes?
And yes, Smaug truly is massive in both scope and CGI-spectacle. As realized by the magic of Weta and Benedict Cumberbatch’s purring voice, he is a wonder to behold. And behold, and behold some more, because like the rest of the special effects sequences in the film, this 30-minute climax of dragon-on-dwarf action is too long by half. Extrapolating this is the repeated intercutting between Smaug’s wrath, Gandalf’s side quest, and orcs (always orcs!) attacking Lake-town. The result is a fireball of a scene that still somehow moves like a sliding glacier, causing even the staggering visual grandeur of Smaug to eventually lose his luster, just like the gold strewn mountain that’s clouded under 3D glasses. By the end of the picture, I found my mind on more pressing matters such as, “Why does a dragon need so much gold, anyways? Is fuel for his dragonfire expensive?” I suppose, much like the rest of the movie, we are merely meant to accept this reptilian Gert Fröbe as he is.
But even after an eternity of dragons and orcs, the movie doesn’t really end. While Fellowship of the Ring offered the decisive death of Boromir and Frodo making his choice about disbanding the titular brotherhood, and The Two Towers opted to finish the glorious Battle of Helm’s Deep before taking the plunge into the War for Middle-earth, Jackson’s newest cliffhanger isn’t an ending; it’s a screeching halt in mid-story. With all those endings in Return of the King, surely he could have thrown a denouement The Desolation of Smaug'sway?
In 1998 and 1999, Jackson, Walsh, and Philippa Boyens made a series of painful, but savvy choices when adapting Tolkien’s three-headed hydra into a trilogy of films; this included the exorcising of beloved characters like Tom Bombadil and adored sequences like the Scouring of the Shire. For a decade purists have bemoaned these changes. I honestly wonder if the Peter Jackson of 2013 would make the same calculations as the Jackson of 2003, because this feels like the type of adaptation the most ardent diehards wanted: Three hours for every 75 pages. Despite this trilogy’s gargantuan budget, the result is not a series of movies for the mainstream. It is a meeting space in movie houses across the globe for pure-hearted Tolkien enthusiasts. Yet, as someone who read Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit because I was so engrossed by Fellowship of the Ring in 2001, I question whether this eagerly delivered gospel shall ever win over any new converts.
Den of Geek Rating: 2.5 out of 5 Stars
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