The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug Review
One year has passed since the first chapter of the Hobbit trilogy, An Unexpected Journey, was released in theatres. It was a strange film that disappointed many people for an excessive childish tread and too many jokes. Admittedly, the production was difficult from the beginning because Guillermo Del Toro (director of Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy: the Golden Army) was to be involved as director, but ultimately the Mexican director withdrew from the project, although he remains credited as writer. This created a strange mix, because the direction of Peter Jackson isn’t always consistent with the visual of Del Toro.
I should add that the critical issue with The Hobbit adaptation is that the original novel from Tolkien was even shorter of The Two Towers (the shorter tome of the Lord of the Rings saga), is it still possible to draw a trilogy? No. In fact many things were added with a strange nonsense at the base (how can Radagast the Brown add something to the plot?), and generally the ending clearly shows that the story should have been divided in two parts, not three.
But life goes on, and Bilbo’s journey does too. The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug just debuted in theatres; let me enlighten you about it.
After a fast prologue in the village of Brea (opened by a Peter Jackson’s cameo, the same that he made in The Fellowship of the Ring) we can follow the adventures of the Hobbit and his company of dwarves into a dark forest, and we can see them fight against orcs, giant spiders and elves… Although, of course, the most epic fight is the final one with the dragon Smaug, as suggested by the title.
In reviewing this movie, I feel it’s best to split it in two parts. The first one gets to the point of the escape from the Elves’ prisons, and in my opinion it’s quite embarrassing. All the things that didn’t work in the first movie here are conglomerated and accentuated. Even the special effects and the computer graphics seems worse than the previous trilogy here, which certainly sounds strange ten years later. So, if during the vision of the first part some of you desired to just exit the theatre, don’t worry, it’s normal. Only the darker parts seem to work better.
The second part, though, seems to belong to another movie. The jokes are lost, the humor isn’t particularly silly and the pretense of epic seems entirely justified. When the company finally arrives to the village of Esgaroth the plot gets more serious, the visual representation becomes less fairytale-like and a much darker tone seems to sail onto everything. Then you get to see Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, who already partnered with Martin Freeman in the British series Sherlock), and that’s where the film shows its potential. The special effects are impressive at last and the story finally becomes majestic as Jackson wanted it to be from the beginning, coming in with a lot of adrenaline and thrill of the chase that makes us remember exactly why Jackson had been able to amaze the world ten years ago.
Not to say that special effects and monsters are enough to make a movie worthy to be seen, but if these elements are well placed and manipulated in a manner appropriate to the narrative, then things change.
The Hobbit – The Desolation of Smaug is a strange movie, just like the predecessor; fairly stupid in the first part, and really well realized in the second one. At the end of the picture you will be full of adrenaline and perhaps a bit disappointed about the abrupt ending, but from a critic standpoint it’s impossible to forget the shortcomings of the early scenes in the movie.
