The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

123phim

I don't think I'm alone when I say The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was a letdown. With too many characters, pointless conversations, scenes of unnecessary exposition, and a gruesomely long runtime, An Unexpected Journey didn't exactly have many LOTR fans jumping for joy at the thought of a second entry. Rest assure, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is a huge improvement on the first installment of the Hobbit trilogy, with a clear layout of characters, more action, more excitement, and more reasons to recommend it.

Following a near deadly confrontation with Azog, an Orc who is trying to end the Dwarven line of Durin, the company of Dwarves, plus the hobbit Bilbo and the Wizard Gandalf, continue their quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain and kill the gargantuan dragon Smaug. In this middle part of the story, Bilbo and the dwarves are separated from Gandalf, and must face off against giant spiders, elves, orc armies, bitter townspeople of Laketown, and of course, Smaug.

Some of the new characters include the elf Tauriel (Kate Austen...I mean Evangeline Lilly) and Legolas (Orlando Bloom), who reprises his role from the original Lord of the Rings trilogy. Their story becomes intertwined with that of the dwarves, and the romance between Tauriel and Kili the dwarf was well thought out and even better executed on the big screen. Bard the Bowman, who helps smuggle the dwarves into Laketown, provided more conflict for the story and was brought to life respectably by Luke Evans. However, the new character that is impossible to not mention is Smaug. His menacing presence was everything I had hoped it would be. His design was ferocious, his mannerisms were diabolical, and his voice work by Benedict Cumberbatch was astounding. His role in the next installment promises to be even better, or so I would hope.

As I stated earlier, The Desolation of Smaug is a step-up from its predecessor in many ways. The cinematography was clearer and scenes were lit better. Characters were better established, comic relief was more effective, and the special effects here made the ones used in An Unexpected Journey look even worse than they already did. Though while it's still a better movie than its prequel, The Desolation of Smaug still had a few flaws of its own. For instance, the movie was still too long, especially since some scenes in the first hour or so weren't essential to the story. Having said that, this movie jumps into the good stuff a lot faster than in the first movie. Also, even though there was a better range of characters and stories, we still don't get to know all of the dwares as individuals and that's a huge hinderance when you're trying to root for them. Additionally, Azog didn't play as big a role in this movie, and that wouldn't be a problem if some of us hadn't forgotten why he was chasing after the dwarves in the first place. Finally, the ending was a bit too abrupt for my liking.

If you gave up hope on the remainder of this franchise after the first, fear not. Most of the adventure, fun, and action of Middle Earth is back with The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smuag. And no, it's not as good as the original trilogy, but it's a great movie, and a much better one than An Unexpected Journey.

Rating: 4/5