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The Hobbit:
Desolation of Smaug hit theaters last, and if you didn’t run out for a midnight
showing, you’re missing out. It’s wildly entertaining, and visually
spectacular. Though hardcore Tolkien aficionados may be upset with the changes
and additions, the rest of us mere mortals are in for quite a ride.
The movie starts
before the quest, with a meeting between Gandalf and Thorin. Thorin is a hunted
man with a price on his head, but the grey wizard is prepared to help him
reclaim his home. From there we jump right back to where we left off in the
first one, with one wizard, a hobbit and thirteen dwarfs on a quest to reclaim
a kingdom from a dragon.
This latest
addition finds a more focused plot point, straying very little, with excellently
paced action sequences that aren’t too fast to see. The high point of the
Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was the battle in the Goblin city, but the action
was so fast and crazy, with much of the rest of the movie slow moving, that all
the awesomeness couldn’t be taken in fast enough. That isn’t the case here. 
The movie is
much more balanced, giving our heroes a slew of foes to battle throughout, and
there’s also a familiar face. The additions of Tauriel and Legolas to the story
add an element of familiarity, and that strong female element. Tauriel is
fierce, and not one to be reckoned with, but she’s also sentimental and caring.
She’s fantastic stray from the source material, but so is Legolas. I’m all for
seeing Orlando Bloom don his bow and wig, but the seamless integration of the
beloved Lord of the Rings character into the story took me by surprise. I shouldn’t have been, Peter Jackson is a
genius, but the scenes with Legolas are really spectacular.
The special effects guys really should get
kudos for this entire movie, but more so for Smaug. All future movies featuring
a dragon should look for no better role model than Smaug. The dragon really put
things over the top. His sequences really put things over the top, which was in
no small part from the efforts of Martin Freeman (Bilbo), and his voicer Benedict
Cumberbatch. I’m not sure why Cumberbatch’s performances still surprise me, but
they do, and so did Freeman’s.
This second installment to
The Hobbit is certainly no The Lord of the Rings, but whereas the last of that
trilogy is my least favorite, the last Hobbit is set up to be the best, as it
should be. It’s fun, and exciting, but not overly dark or gory. Kids and adults
alike will enjoy it. It’s 2 hours and 41 mins, but they really do fly by, and
it opens for a wide release today.
