The first “Hobbit” film was needlessly long, padded with backstory, cameos and Easter eggs into a cartoony, rehashed bore. Peter Jackson’s devotion to his source material just seemed like indulgence the first time around. With “The Desolation of Smaug” however, Jackson has turned that obsession into a Wikipedia entry.
This second “Hobbit” film is so devoid of actual ideas or substance that it is not merely a meandering middle film without a proper beginning or ending, but it stands to be about nothing at all. It is so obsessed with its own plot details that “The Desolation of Smaug” becomes a litany of portentous prophecies, stern warnings and untrusting conversations between various species and creeds.
The film doesn’t so much pick up where the last one left off but drops us in a new CGI playground. First they outrun the orcs still chasing them, then they escape the spiders in a mystical forest, then they escape the elves holding them captive, and finally they evade the humans somehow bent on arresting them. Eventually they will reach the dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) that was merely hyped in the first film, only setting up what is now prepared to be a three hour long battle sequence in “The Hobbit: There and Back Again.”
Missing from all of this is a sense of purpose and a set of values. Gone are the words of wisdom from Gandalf (Ian McKellen), who sidelines himself for much of the movie, or even the cheeky riddles and split personalities from everyone’s favorite Gollum, here replaced by Smaug to only recite more threats about how the dwarves will never reclaim their home.
What he has added (because even Jackson is not averse to fan fiction) is mightily slim. Legolas (Orlando Bloom) returns mostly for stylish, Elvish beheadings of orcs, but he’s also caught in a love triangle between the new elf maiden Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) and the dwarf Kili (Aiden Turner). This drama is as manufactured and stiff as the elves. It introduces a woman and an extra archer into the mayhem and little else. Continue reading “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”