By ALEX PECHA
Staff Writer
Unless you’ve been living under a rock all of your life, you’ve probably heard of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the three movies that not only translated Tolkien’s timeless epic novels to the screen, but also managed to get nerd culture some credit in the mainstream.
The movies enjoyed extreme success and praise, and soon after The Return of the King, the last movie in the trilogy, was released, people started asking when we would get a movie version of The Hobbit, the book that came before The Lord of the Rings. Well, for a few years we didn’t get an answer, as Jackson worked on other movies like The Lovely Bones and The Adventures of Tintin. Finally, however, we got our promise of a Hobbit movie. But that one Hobbit movie soon turned into two. Then three.
This decision confused many fans, especially considering Jackson managed to fit The Lord of the Rings into three movies, one movie per book. But The Hobbit, which is shorter than any one of the Lord of the Rings books, is for some reason getting three movies. Well, we soon got our answer in the form of the first movie in the trilogy, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which showed the great tactic of padding the movie with stuff that wasn’t even in the books, and by great I mean “nice to have, but utterly unnecessary.”
That said, the first movie was a fun fantasy romp that tended to stretch on at times, but was very enjoyable. Did the second movie do better or worse than the first movie, and how much did Jackson have to pad this one? Well, let’s take a look.
The Desolation of Smaug starts off where the last movie ended, with the company of dwarves on the run from a pack of orcs led by Azog the Defiler, the big bad from the first movie. It then goes through a 3 hour trip through forests, fields, a lake and finally the lonely mountain itself. Along the way, the dwarves, plus one hobbit and one wizard, fight orcs, spiders, elves and one very annoyed dragon.
It’s hard to talk about the story without spoiling the movie. However, for the most part it keeps itself going at a better pace than the first Hobbit movie. Not only is the dwarf/Bilbo story followed, but Gandalf’s investigation into the mysterious Necromancer, whose identity should be painfully obvious already, is shown. Also given screen time is a minor side plot with the movie exclusive characters Legolas and Tauriel, and a plotline involving the politics of the human settlement of Laketown, centering on the smuggler Bard.
For the most part, these plotlines are given an appropriate amount of screen time and depth. However, they don’t really get any form of true payoff since there’s still one more movie to go, resulting in every plotline ending on an annoying cliffhanger. On top of this, the last 30 or so minutes of the dwarf plotline will emit groans from anyone familiar with the source material, since you’ll know it’s pointless and utterly baffling.
The acting is solid, however. Martin Freeman continues to nail the “out of his element” Bilbo role and Ian McKellen is still perfect as the old, but capable Gandalf. Meanwhile, Evangeline Lilly as the movie-only Tauriel shines through as a very capable elven warrior, as well as adding some much needed diversity to Tolkien’s admittedly male-flooded Middle Earth. Orlando Bloom also shows up to recap his role as fan-favorite Legolas, though due him aging since the original trilogy, he is heavily computer enhanced, making him look rather wooden in his acting.
This is a problem the newer movie seems to have as a whole. Computer graphics are used far more than they were in The Lord of the Rings and the movie loses some of its spirit because of it. On top of this, the CGI is laughable in some areas, including one digital horse that is so badly done that it looks like it’s made of plastic.
Though after Smaug the dragon is revealed in full, it’s easy to see where the entirety of the CGI budget went, as Smaug manages to look both menacing and grand at the same time. But still, it’s hard not to miss the makeup and visual tricks that the original trilogy used, but it still hasn’t reached Star Wars levels of CGI overuse…yet.
All said, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is another fun romp into Middle Earth filled with dwarves, elves, Gandalf, and a very big mountain. The acting is solid and the adventure fun, though the story suffers from basically being one big cliffhanger to the final movie. In the theater I saw the movie in, there was a single man who encapsulated the feeling in the room when the credits rolled with a graceful “dammit”. But if you can’t wait to get your Middle Earth fix, make sure you don’t miss this entry into the franchise.
