The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
I was rather happier with the first Hobbit movie than everyone else, to say the least. I've read all the Lord of the Rings books and I'd generally been pretty unhappy with the films Peter Jackson made. It's not so much that I thought they were awful, but I was generally pretty disappointed. I could not begin to understand the recognition given to the movie of "Return of the King" when the movie I saw in the cinema was essentially one great big long battle scene finishing with 15 consecutive endings. Admittedly I preferred the extended editions, but not enough to wax lyrical about the movie series.
Immediately I preferred "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" because I felt it did a much better job at capturing the mood of the book. I was also surprised to find myself extremely pleased with the decision to extent the Hobbit to multiple films. For the first time, The Hobbit movies are introducing me to the various elements from the appendices that even many Tolkien fans could never be bothered to read. Finally these movies reveal what has been happening in the background and what information Bilbo Baggins was always missing. The Arkenstone, introduced to us in the first movie, is actually found in the original "The Hobbit" except neither Bilbo nor the reader ever fully understand its significance. Finally the mystery has been solved.
Naturally, as with any adaptation, some liberties have been taken with the original material, but perhaps the most interesting changes here involve the character of Bard. In the original novel Bard had one task to complete in the story. While the importance of that task is made pretty clear in the novel, not much time is spent on it and the character of Bard was never really developed very far. In the movie Bard is a fully-fledged character with a wider importance for the central narrative of the story. This allows us to understand his character properly without it feeling tacked on. (And we also get a rather neat little character played by Stephen Fry in relation to this section of the film.)
Another element here is that we are given more clues as to the malign nature of Bilbo's ring. I had found myself deeply confused when I first heard the beginning of Lord of the Rings. The idea that Bilbo's magical ring was actually evil always struck me out of left field. It's like being told that Link's Master Sword from Legend of Zelda was evil. What was previously just a helpful item is now revealed to be something disturbing. And in the first Lord of the Rings movie it quickly became so clear how evil the ring was that it became confusing how Bilbo could ever have missed it. Well here we see more explicit clues as to the true nature of the ring along with clear signs of how Bilbo might fail to acknowledge those clues.
Another element here is the introduction of not simply a new female elvish character but also a cross-species love triangle. It kind of works, but not quite (in my opinion). But overall, the elves expertly taking down Orcs was entertaining enough that I could forgive a lot. Where I found myself less able to just go along with things however, was in the final scenes.
You can tell from the title of the movie that towards the end of the movie we are going to see the dragon Smaug. I didn't realise til afterwards, but the dragon is voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch. He does a fantastic job in the role. However, to make for a longer and more entertaining climax, there is a lot of running around in the final scenes and it is here where I feel that the filmmakers make a terrible mistake. All through the final act I find myself constantly asking myself "why doesn't the dragon just breathe fire on everyone?" It seems like the dragon has endless opportunity to annihilate all his enemies. Yet he keeps missing those opportunities, over and over again. Now admittedly I have no problem with the use of slapstick in these movies. I think that element is really playing to Peter Jackson's strengths and I think it works much better with the tone of the Hobbit than it did when Legolas the elf slid down an elephant's trunk in "Return of the King".
Overall "Desolation of Smaug" was a lot of fun. But it didn't pull me along in quite the same way as the first movie did. I think part of the problem here is that this is the middle child of the trilogy. It has to act as a bridge between the opening movie where anything is possible and the third and final movie where everything is to be wrapped up. It is, admittedly, a hell of a lot of fun. However, I found it difficult to be fully pulled in this time. Still a lot more fun than the Lord of the Rings movies mind you...
B+