The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Review

Welcome improvements and sophomore stumbles
Full review by Isaac Handelman

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug suffers from most of the issues you’d expect out of the middle chapter in a trilogy; namely, it’s got no real beginning, and no real end. The film starts and ends, well, in the middle. And if you don’t go into The Desolation of Smaug fully accepting this fact, odds are you will come away from the proceedings wholly unsatisfied. In fact, it’s difficult to come out of The Desolation of Smaug feeling totally satisfied no matter what your mindset what going in. That’s the point.

We’re smack dab in the middle portion, along for the ride in a nearly-three-hour interim. Thankfully, this near-three-hours interim also happens to be solidly entertaining. The Desolation of Smaug doesn’t have the excitement of the beginning to a new trilogy going for it as An Unexpected Journey did, nor does it have the virtue of being the epic grand finale, as There And Back Again will next December. This Hobbit carries arguably the greatest weight of the trilogy on its shoulders, and it handles the task fairly well.

Martin Freeman does well with what he's given.

Hopefully, we’ve all come to accept at this point that Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy is not the masterpiece saga that The Lord of the Rings was; it’s a fun, if bloated, return to Middle-earth, just for the sake of appeasing hungry fans (and surely delighting the higher-ups over at Warner Bros.). The Desolation of Smaug picks up roughly after the events of An Unexpected Journey, with Bilbo, Gandalf, Thorin and company continuing their journey to the Lonely Mountain in hopes of reclaiming the Dwarves’ home from greedy dragon Smaug.

But, oddly enough, The Desolation of Smaug seems to forget some of the progress made by its predecessor. Not narrative progress, mind you, but progress on the grounds of Bilbo’s relationship with the dwarves. At the end of An Unexpected Journey (spoilers ahead for those who haven’t seen the first chapter), Bilbo wards off Azog the Defiler and saves Thorin Oakenshield's life, gaining the acceptance of Thorin as a brother, and the admiration of the entire Dwarven company. But in The Desolation of Smaug, Bilbo has not a single meaningful interaction with Thorin -- in fact, he has precious few interactions with any other onscreen characters, save for Smaug himself (more on that later).

In fact, for most of the film’s runtime, Bilbo isn’t even the focus of the narrative. Large portions of Desolation focus on Gandalf’s investigation of the dark forces being ralied by the mysterious Necromancer, the Wood Elves of Mirkwood (highlighted by the return of Orlando Bloom’s fan-favorite archer, Legolas, who plays well into the film’s narrative), and other side-stories. This lessened focus on the titular hobbit is undoubtedly a side-effect of the elongation of a three-hundred page book into three towering three-hour films. Unfortunately, the lack of focus makes it hard to make a true connection with Bilbo. Martin Freeman is an inherently likable actor, and he does a great job with what he’s given; unfortunately, what he’s given is oftentimes little more than comic relief. He does his part to assist the dwarves on a couple of occasions, and has a couple of interesting scenes involving the funny little ring he happened upon in An Unexpected Journey that don’t really go anywhere (yet), but overall, Bilbo ends up feeling like baggage until the film’s climax.

Azog doesn't get as much screen time this time around, which is OK, because he was never very interesting.

Fortunately, the hobbit is baggage to some great material. One of the main criticisms levelled at An Unexpected Journey was its excess of walking, which The Desolation of Smaug more than corrects. A couple of Desolation’s action scenes are truly fantastic, with the highlight being a river chase involving the presence of elves, orcs, dwarves, and, most importantly, barrells. The company’s trek through Mirkwood is suitably disorienting and deadly, though perhaps not as suffocating as some will hope for. The beautiful New Zealand backdrops surrounding all the chaos are again marvelously enchanting to simply gaze at, thanks largely to director Peter Jackson being in the masterclass of visual filmmakers. Some of the sets on display are equally stunning, with the standout being the grimy, impoverish settlement of Laketown, which feels startlingly real.

Putting aside all accusations of padding thrown at Peter Jackson in regards to stretching The Hobbit into three films, he has done a remarkable job of it thus far. The larger scope of LOTR again feels moderately awkard within the restraints of the meant-to-be-smaller scale of The Hobbit’s conflict, but the extra narrative threads added in by Jackson and co. are worked organically into the narrative, and end up not feeling too out of place. It’s difficult to say just how effective these extraneous elements will ultimately be in the larger scope of the Hobbit trilogy’s playing into the events of LOTR until next year’s entry; suffice to say, though, that things are building up quite nicely, and seem to be leading up to a spectacular clash in the finale film.

Rejoice! Legolas has returned, and he's cooler than ever.

All of these filler elements and the true-to-original elements lead up to an ultimate confrontation between Bilbo and Smaug, which is handled phenomenally well. Smaug himself is quite possibly the greatest dragon yet seen in the history of cinema. He’s not an enormously unconventional fire-breather, but he is rendered with such enormity, creativity and realism that he becomes a sight to behold. Furthermore, Smaug is rightfully depicted as being highly intelligent, viciously self-absorbed, and possessing god-like might.

Benedict Cumberbatch is pitch perfect for Smaug’s voice. His elongated exchange (and eventual clash) with Bilbo is probably the high-point of The Desolation of Smaug, and both actors absolutely deliver, showcasing a remarkable back-and-forth chemistry made all the more amusing by the knowledge that these two play side-by-side together as Holmes and Watson in BBC’s Sherlock. My only qualm with Smaug’s portrayal is that it becomes somewhat unbelievable that an entire dwarven army was unable to hold him off, as this handful of dwarves (and one hobbit) manage to put up quite the fight against him, which slightly hampers his perceived level of power.

The Desolation of Smaug directly addresses many of the complaints fans had about An Unexpected Journey, while falling victim to other annoyances that come as result of being the middle chapter in a trilogy. It’s not necessarily a better film than its predecessor, but it’s surely a more consistently exciting one, utilizing beautiful cinematography and creative action to build to a stellar climax. Above all else, the film is sure to whet fans’ appetites for next year’s finale.

We’re there! Now we just need to get back again.