The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, Movie Review

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

I was so mad, So Mad, after watching the first Hobbit movie last year, entitled "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," that I fumed for awhile. Even then I still gave the movie 3.5 stars out of 5, regardless of my lukewarm, scathing review.  I must have been in the Christmas Spirit or something.  But as time went on I got more mad, more furious, and more disappointed.  I was tempted to go back to my original review and lower the rating, but my disheartened spirit led me to inactive listlessness . . . until today, after viewing the second Hobbit movie, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and decided the second is better then the first, but still not as great as the Lord of the Rings adaptations.

The Desolation of Smaug is still-too-long at 2 hr. 40 minutes.  And the smorgasbord of Lord of the Rings bridging, The Silmarillion, changed bits of The Hobbit, and Peter Jackson's imagination running amok remains, only this time it's more enjoyable.

Maybe the Tolkien purist in me is showing, but I still wish Peter Jackson did a faithful retailing of the book.  Those scenes I remembered from my childhood displayed in full glory on screen.  Like the barrel scene, when the dwarfs and Bilbo escape, is still vivid in my mind.  Even that was changed from the book to add excitement and nerve.

How can one simple book be turned into three movies?  By fill and fluff.  But unlike the first movie, I didn't mind the fill and fluff in this second installment as much.  Peter Jackson actually created a whole new character that never, ever existed in Tolkien's work.  The wood-elf Tauriel, play by Evangeline Lilly.  Is it sad to admit that my favorite character in the movie wasn't a Tolkien creation, but was a Peter Jackson addition?  I quickly grew to like her character, who appears alongside Legalos (a Rings trilogy only character, brought into The Hobbit by Jackson), portrayed again by Orlando Bloom.

Still, I don't think I'll be completely at ease until The Hobbit is finally finished, then all the fluff and fill will be easier to stomach.  I do like how this movie is setting up the Lord of the Rings, you see the connect better this time around, but this movie ends on a bit of a cliff hanger.  A jarring, In Your Face cliffhanger. I hate it.  It's unnecessary.

And the CGI/Composting is still super weak.  Annoyingly weak.

When all is said and done, I wish a collectors blu-ray would become available, a movie-cut consisting of scenes that Only existed in the books.  That would be nice.

Until then, we've still got a bit of story to look forward to next year, including the Battle of Five Armies.

Overall these three Hobbit movies are not a retailing of the book, but a prelude to The Lord of the Rings.

MPAA: PG-13 for extended sequences of intense fantasy action violence, and frightening images.