In the second part of THE HOBBIT film trilogy (continuing from Part 1: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY), the company of 13 dwarves, Bilbo Baggins (the Hobbit), and wizard Gandalf journey into the Elvish forest known as Mirkwood and reach Erebor to have Bilbo steal the Arkenstone.  In THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG, they may face more challenges as they encounter elves who want nothing to do with the outside world as the forces of Sauron grow and Gandalf may have to take a journey to Dol Goldour to find out about the mysterious Necromancer.   Meanwhile, Legolas (along with Elvish warrior woman crush Tauriel) becomes involved in the fights against the Orcs who are hunting the dwarves.   Also Smaug makes himself known as the universe of THE HOBBIT continues to develop in the second film which is an improvement over the first one.

 

THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG is the middle segment of THE HOBBIT trilogy directed by Peter Jackson which adds a few things to the story not in the novel like Legolas and Tauriel (a character created for the movie) as they work to connect these films to THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy.   The New Zealand countryside continues to be awe inspiring and the production design is top notch from the Elvish kingdom of Mirkwood to Laketown to the vaults of Erebor.   The only downsides with THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG are the cliffhangers which the film ends on (and waiting for another year to resolve everything) and the battles on the river with CGI Orcs and Elves (which are painfully obvious when they switch between real to CGI during that sequence).   Smaug is an impressive digital creation with a deep menacing voice performance form Benedict Cumberbatch.  

 

The second installment isn’t as padded as AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY and it really flows as it introduces more characters and moves the story along.  I expected the second part to end somewhere later and not with the mother of cliffhangers.  Before this movie, Peter Jackson usually didn’t leave THE LORD OF THE RINGS films and AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY on big cliffhangers.   He usually left it at a place where the current threads are wrapped up (like the Fellowship breaking up at the first LOTR, the siege of HELMS DEEP ending in THE TOWERS, and the company of dwarves seeing Erebor in the far distance at the end of AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY).   It looks like I have to go reread THE HOBBIT in the meantime while I wait until next December for the conclusion to Peter Jackson’s trilogy of THE HOBBIT.

 

This movie review is (c)12-16-2013 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

 

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