The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - 2nd Verse, just a tiny bit better than the 1st

Did you ever watch the documentaries featured on The Lord of the Rings extended editions? They might very well be the best supplemental materials I've ever seen. It's such a joy to watch director Peter Jackson and his co-writers Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens discuss how they approached the daunting task of adapting such massive novels. The Lord of the Rings books overflow with gorgeous imagery, stories and characters. Streamlining those books into three-hour films was clearly no easy task. In these documentaries, the filmmakers discuss the difficult choices made when adapting the material to film and the approach they took when deciding what things stayed in the film versions and what things had to be cut. Sure, Tom Bombadil was beloved by the books' fans, but his inclusion in the films would have slowed things down and his storyline didn't really move the plot forward in any way. And yes, even though the Scouring of the Shire is a pretty cool scene in the novel The Return of the King, it seems more like a fun side story than an actual part of the main quest. (So many people complain about the multiple endings of the film iteration of The Return of the King but imagine if the Scouring of the Shire had actually been included; there really would have been something to complain about.)

Those are just a couple examples of wise omissions that Jackson and co. made when adapting The Lord of the Rings. They understood that you couldn't carry everything over and decided to focus solely on what was absolutely integral to telling the story of Frodo and the Fellowship's quest to destroy the One Ring. It baffles me that the same filmmakers are adapting The Hobbit because it seems as if they're making the exact opposite decisions this time around. I sincerely miss the days when these filmmakers were wiser and made actual movies as opposed to cash machines.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was a dreadful bore. I couldn't bother hating it because I was so indifferent to its overblown, unfocused narrative and video game style settings and characters. The book itself is simple enough as it is, but stretching it out into an epic length and splitting it across three 3-hour long movies definitely took its toll on this first meandering entry. Throughout the course of the film, Bilbo Baggins and his Dwarven companions ran, hacked and slashed their way through various scenes and then ran, hacked and slashed some more with little to no driving story or character motivations. It was just one video game sequence after another, some taken from the book - most invented for the sake of padding out the running time. In adapting this beloved and unassuming adventure story, Jackson and his team have shown little to no reverence for Tolkien's text, opting instead to compete with their masterful Lord of the Rings films.

So now we come to The Hobbit Part 2 of 3: The Desolation of Smaug and the realization that we may never get a film adaptation that honors the text on which it is based hangs heavy over the proceedings. That being said, Part 2 is actually an improvement over Part 1 in that, at the very least, it is more entertaining and even contains sequences that thrill in ways that An Unexpected Journey didn't come remotely close to doing. Overall, though, it's still a middling entry and suffers from the filmmakers' misguided decision to stretch this simple tale far more than necessary, accentuating its flaws all the more.

Poor Bilbo Baggins, the character who's supposed to be the main protagonist of this story, is shoved to the sidelines and spends most of his time staring on as other characters take the spotlight. Martin Freeman is still as charming as ever and I couldn't help but wish that, as the title character of the movie, he would get to do a bit more. Maybe that's too much to ask, though. Instead of focusing on the Hobbit in a movie called The Hobbit, we get more nonsense about Thorin and the dwarves' quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain and all their silly gold. There's also an extended subplot in Laketown, a location that was featured in the book for a grand total of maybe 10-15 pages, and another plotline involving Gandalf's quest to discover more about the mysterious Necromancer. (A.K.A. Sauron, the big baddie from The Lord of the Rings) In the midst of all this chaos, there is a painfully unnecessary love triangle involving Legolas of the original trilogy, Tauriel, an invention of Jackson and his screenwriters, and Kili, the hunkiest dwarf of all. (Since when did the dwarves start looking like really hot bearded men instead of, you know, dwarves?) I was expecting to be more annoyed with Legolas' inclusion here, but was pleasantly surprised. Seeing him felt like seeing an old friend and served as another sad reminder that these new movies don't hold a candle to The Lord of the Rings. Evangeline Lily is actually a welcome inclusion as well. As Tauriel, she flips about, slaying orcs left and right and she manages to do all this while keeping her hair in place. This is no easy feat and I know from experience. What a babe

The Desolation of Smaug benefits from a number of superb action sequences, the best of which is a barrel escape sequence on a river which features the dwarves defending themselves while Orcs and Elves alike hop to and fro, shooting arrows, slashing about and being generally more acrobatic than the laws of physics could feasibly allow. It's just plain great moviemaking and it reminded me of how awesome Peter Jackson can be when he's firing on all cylinders. The extended sequence in Smaug's layer is also thrilling. Benedict Cumberbatch is an inspired choice for the dragon and the effects work that brings him to life is some of the best you'll see all year. (Though nothing quite matches the groundbreaking work done on Gollum) The scenes at Laketown offer a new shade to the Middle-Earth mythos without being entirely necessary and Bard (Luke Evans), a new addition to the already sprawling character roster, is a nice attempt at filling the Aragorn-sized void of this trilogy. (As if Thorin wasn't enough...) There are still far too many meandering side quests, but there's a sense of momentum to the story this time around which makes the slower scenes much more bearable. And then, right as the movie seems to be building to a thrilling climax, it abruptly ends. Actually, saying that it 'ends' is a bit misleading. It doesn't have an actual ending so much as it just stops and cuts to the credits. It's a big Middle-Earth sized middle finger reminding us we'll have to pay three separate times to see a story that could easily have been told within a single film's running time.

So, yes, The Desolation of Smaug is an improvement over An Unexpected Journey and it gives me some hope for the final chapter of this trilogy, but it isn't good enough to stop every single moment in these two films from dragging on and on. There has yet to be any justification for stretching such a simple book out into a nine-hour saga. The Hobbit has lost much of the charm and entertainment value of the original story simply because Peter Jackson feels this inexplicable need to compete with his Lord of the Rings trilogy. At the end of the day, The Hobbit should not be treated as a prequel to The Lord of the Rings; it should be treated as its own story and it's a damn shame that Jackson and co. didn't treat it with the same reverence that was on display in The Lord of the Rings. I can only hope that someday someone will come along and cut together all three of these massive Hobbit movies into a single film. I'm sure that effort would do Tolkien proud. Until then, this is what we're stuck with.

CONCLUSION: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is less painful to sit through than An Unexpected Journey, but it still suffers from the same issues: it's butter scraped over too much bread. It does, however, benefit from some rousing action sequences and improved pacing, but this is still not enough to justify bloating the original story.

FINAL RATING: 3/5