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Review: The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug

Saturday 14 December 2013

 First things first: there are no songs, no washing up scenes and no fucking eagles in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, which immediately makes it a better film than its predecessor. The eyeball-molesting increased frame rate of An Unexpected Journey has also been, if not dropped, then less loudly trumpeted for this film, which is another blessed relief. You'd almost be fooled into thinking that Peter Jackson has been listening to his critics, were it not for the fact that Desolation is still an obscenely long, slightly dull, inferior version of a Lord Of The Rings film.

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The Desolation Of Smaug (Jesus, that title) kicks off with a prologue which takes place twelve months before the events of An Unexpected Journey, and it's not a very interesting one. It shows us Gandalf's first encounter with grumpy, homeless dwarf king Thorin in some wretched hive of scum and villainy, and reveals that somebody's put a price on Thorin's head so large that every bounty hunter in Middle-earth will be looking for him. He's lucky Greedo Gandalf found him first. The point seems to be to add a frisson of danger to Thorin's character; to make him a bit less of a party pooper and a little more Aragorny, but it doesn't really work. The prologue feels tacked on, and the situation is barely mentioned again.


 
That scene is symptomatic of much of the film's storytelling issues: although Jackson and his co-writers have mastered the flow of their tale more successfully than in its episodic prequel, there are still half a dozen scenes which serve little to no purpose other than to extend an already protracted story. Some of them - like the meeting with Beorn, the skin-changer - are destined to pay off in the next (and hopefully, although you never know, final) film, but in this episode all they do is further delay proceedings. Jackson's grand, nine-hour vision of The Hobbit may well be the benefactor, but each film has to work as a contained piece too, and in this, Desolation fails.

It also does itself no favours by repeating iconic elements of the Rings trilogy, only less successfully: when Bilbo and co are attacked by the spiders of Mirkwood, it's impossible not to be reminded of Return Of The King's Shelob. But where that scene was tense and eerie, this one is tonally all over the place - the spiders look terrifying, but comically mutter to each other like a bunch of your most awful work colleagues doing Gollum impressions. Likewise, new token female character Tauriel is a kick-ass, but less complex, version of Arwen, inserted apparently to prove Legolas isn't gay and to help explain why Aidan Turner's "traditionally" handsome dwarf Kili is the only one of his company not to look like a large, hairy wart.

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Where Desolation starts to earn back its reputation is in two of the film's countless set pieces. The barrel escape from the dungeons of the Silvan Elves is tremendous; a triumph of choreography, wit and Spielbergian invention, providing endless crowd-pleasing ways for Legolas to skewer orcs and giving ginger dwarf Bombur the most joyous, thrilling moments of the trilogy so far. The second success is with its titular antagonist, Smaug The Magnificent. And he is. Magnificent I mean. Another incredible WETA creation, Smaug - voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch as if from inside the caverns of Hades itself - is ridiculously enjoyable, and Peter Jackson does an exceptional job of keeping the interaction between a gigantic dragon and a tiny Hobbit plausible. It lacks the subtlety of An Unexpected Journey's Riddles In The Dark scene but it's staggeringly-realised enough to keep you entertained for most of the final act, before you realise it's about three days long.


There's also the not-insignificant matter that Jackson's Middle-earth is as spectacularly rendered as ever. It's still a treat for the eyes (except in the dullness of a 3D screening) and ears, with impressively detailed production design - Lake-town, an even lower-rent Waterworld, is a fun mess of shacks and canals - and another barnstorming score from Howard Shore. There's just the distinct feeling that somewhere, somehow, the magic has gone; where the wait for Return Of The King seemed like some kind of punishment, it's hard to summon up the enthusiasm to want to go There And Back Again.

'The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug' That difficult second film

Friday 13 December 2013

It’s a generally accepted rule that stories require a beginning, a middle and an end (even if Jean-Luc Godard felt that they didn’t necessarily have to be in that order). But do those rules apply if you’re stretching a single story over three epic films?
 
The Two Towers (the middle child of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy) avoided that second-film pitfall: it kept the overarching journey chugging forward, but had its own self-contained story with a worthy climax. The biggest flaw in The Desolation Of Smaug, one that sees it fall short of its epic forebears, is that it feels very much like a middle.

 While it’s packed with incident, TDOS lacks its own satisfying narrative arc. Picking up immediately where An Unexpected Journey left off, we join Bilbo (Martin Freeman) as he continues his quest with the company of Dwarves to help them reclaim their homeland, Erebor, which is currently being inhabited by fearsome dragon Smaug, who’s using their Scrooge McDuck-esque treasure piles as a nap room.
 
 This entry’s inherent middle-ness is most harshly felt in the lack of character development. The Dwarves fall victim to their numerousness again, with the majority of the 13 falling by the wayside, and even Bilbo and Thorin lack arcs.

 Freeman does at least deliver the goods in some challenging early scenes that see Bilbo in thrall to the lure of the all-important One Ring, with a standout moment plumbing depths of moral murkiness rarely addressed in family entertainment.
 
 If the tension and sense of epic questing is never as acute as it was in TLOTR, there is at least plenty to enjoy. Held up against the series’ high standards, it’s not without issues, but it remains a cut above standard blockbuster fare.

 And frankly, there’s little excuse needed for the chance to return to Peter Jackson’s still magically realised Middle-earth, the unrivalled environments – from cobweb- draped woods to the sprawling palatial branches of the Elves kingdom – retaining the power to elicit gasps.
 
 While there’s a shortage of forward propulsion, Jackson does add to the breadth of the world, not least with the proper reintroduction of the Elves.

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 Orlando Bloom returns as fan-favourite Legolas. a young prince whose youthful impetuousness will be smoothed out before TLOTR, and Evangeline Lilly is a wonderful addition as lower-ranking Elf Tauriel, who catches Legolas’ eye (much to the chagrin of his imperious father, Lee Pace’s Thranduil).

 She nails the graceful poise and totally convinces as an Orc-slaying ass-kicker. Her romance subplot doesn’t hit the mark as squarely as her arrows, but it’s a smart judgement call for Jackson to once again redress the strong female character quotient lacking in Tolkien’s text.
 
 Fans of the book will be awaiting several key episodes that serve as highlights: a brief stop-off for breakfast with skin-changing bear-man Beorn, a run-in with the spiders of Mirkwood, the rollercoaster barrel escape (which was originally intended to close the first act). Jackson’s eye for inventive action is undiminished, and when he gets a set-piece in full flow, there are few who can match him for breathless originality.
 
 And while spiders, bear-men and Elves are all well and good, the key reason to shell out for a ticket has always been Smaug, and after a film and a half of build-up, he’s certainly worth the wait.

 A gloriously vast creation, with red-tinged scales, bat-like wings and an elongated jaw set in a permanently sly grin, he’s easily the year’s most magnificent beast. He has a way with a fearsome one-liner too, and Benedict Cumberbatch hisses out his words with cold-blooded vitriol.
 
 Whether or not you’re familiar with the book, the cliffhanger nature of the ending is likely to vex, and those who complained about a slender tome being spread across three lengthy films are going to glean plenty of fresh ammo from this installment.

 Gandalf’s investigative subplot introduces us to the shadowy presence and disembodied voice of the Necromancer (more impressively ominous voicework from Cumberbatch) and continues bridging The Hobbit/TLOTR gap, but offers no answers or substantial dramatic meat.
 
 But committed fans know what they’re letting themselves in for, and much of the joy of a Middle-earth movie comes from surrendering yourself to three Christmases worth of storytelling. Viewed as part of a bigger whole, there’s a lot to admire in TDOS. Though There And Back Again is now going to have to provide a super-sized pay-off…

Review: THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG, A Hell Of A Ride

When last year's The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey hit, I addressed the central question being asked by most fans of the Lord of the Rings films: "How could something so relatively slight, an explicitly childish work that's little more than a richly populated retelling of the Beowulf myth, live up to the scope of the LOTR trilogy?"

I argued that the first Hobbit film did exactly what it needed to do, resetting the stage for another set of films, similar works with obvious echoes but very much their own pieces of the puzzle. This is a mighty journey, so there's bound to be a considerable amount of baggage. For many, the first Hobbit film felt superfluous, and talk of the expansion of the slight novel was dismissed as mere folly or a cash grab on the part of Jackson and company.
For those disposed to this negative sentiment, the fifth film in this series will do little to disabuse you of those notions. For The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is, on first blush, more of the same. We've got more traipsing dwarves, more action sequences, more somber intoning by wizards, and many, many more shots of the seemingly extraterrestrial vistas of New Zealand.

Yet I say this explicitly, not as a fanboy or someone blind to the Jacksonian quirks that some find tedious: if you don't like The Desolation of Smaug, if you're honest you probably didn't like the Lord of the Rings films very much, either. For even more so than the previous outing, this chapter feels very much like a (welcome) expansion on the world that the original trilogy helped create. The Tolkienian landscape is a rich one with many places to explore, and I for one refuse to begrudge these extraordinary filmmakers taking more of my time to delve into the nooks and crannies of this rich narrative.

While the last film opened with a prologue similar to The Fellowship of the Ring, this one opens with a flashback almost similar to the one used in The Return of the King, with a setting that equally reminds very much of Aragorn's introduction to the saga. This brief prologue, along with other elements later in the film, provide direct cues to the greater whole. For some, this may feel derivative, but as anyone who has ever delved into Tolkien's world, these ripples-through-time practically define his master work. It's exactly these connections, through rich genealogies and throwaway lines of inter-connectivity, that hint at the vast constellation of characters and histories that Tolkien reveled in.

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This is not to say the film requires one to have read the source material, for this film diverges more sharply from the source material than any of the others in the saga. The most (needlessly) controversial is the fabrication of a character, Tauriel, a representative of the Sylvain elves and one who plays a critical role throughout the film. Capably played by Evangeline Lilly, she represents but one aspect of the way that Jackson and his writers have wrestled the sparse narrative of The Hobbit into something approaching the complexity provided by Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings books.

These changes illustrate definitively what sets an exceptional adaptation apart from a mediocre one: a careful balance between the manifest devotion to the source material and the creative freedom to make these very much their own works in a different medium. These films are great not just because of Tolkien's stories, in some fashion they're great despite elements of Tolkien's prose that if simply transcribed into script form would have made the screen versions both pedantic and convoluted.

Thus, we have Legolas running around a world that purists may point out preceded his very creation at the hand of Tolkien, we've got Radagast and Azog, and other elements that were merely hinted at or described in further detail in the Appendices. Once again, it's to the credit of all that none of this feels superfluous or tacked on, but instead does what any prequel should do - provide a buildup for what's to come, while very much existing on its own terms and telling its own story.

Only the most cynical or contrarian of viewers would see that The Desolation of Smaug does anything less.

It helps that this chapter of the story is able to delve right into the narrative - with the first film taking care of all the obligatory introductions, we're free (some would say finally) to march along with our characters as they make their fateful journey. This is the film where some of the more iconic elements of the source book are presented on screen - the barrel ride, the visit to Lake-town, the encounters with Beorn, and the battle of wits with a giant dragon.

All of these elements are ripe for cinematic exploration, and Jackson doesn't disappoint. From the flume-ride soggy fun of the barrel chase to the mine-shaft mayhem in the former kingdom of Erebor, much of the movie plays as a theme-park ride, as action packed as any Indiana Jones film. This makes this in many ways a more fun film, one with some absolutely terrific visual moments the equal of any action-adventure.

There are also some delicious moments of darkness - one of those "extra" scenes is one of the film's finest, and the visually stunning way that Jackson captures this nightmarish encounter between one of our lead characters and a powerful enemy is a thing to behold.

There have been dozens of dragons onscreen, but the long-awaited arrival of Smaug - performed in a particularly effective, sneering basso profondo voce by Benedict Cumberbatch - lives up to even heightened expectations. The animation is extraordinary, and while it won't quite get the plaudits that the (revolutionary) Gollum/Sméagol work did, it's still mindboggling for me to think how in my lifetime I've seen the evolution from ILM's superb go-motion work on Dragonslayer to this latest incarnation of this onscreen beastie.

The cast continues to please - Martin Freeman in particular is given more to work with as his character becomes more complicated. There will be plenty more for the likes of Richard Armitage to do in the next installment, but he still provides Thorin with appropriate levels of kingly gravitas. Yet it's Ken Stott's pitch-perfect Balin that again impresses, his contribution easy to overlook, yet perhaps the closest to rivaling the ever astonishing Ian McKellen in terms of exhibiting both grace and intensity when required.

If I'm obliged to pick nits, there are a couple of moments where the film's running time is made a bit more manifest. The sequence with the spiders, while dispatched relatively quickly, still feels a bit too much like other scenes we've seen several times before. Yet other supposedly superfluous elements, such as the further development of the Necromancer character, provides the kind of richness that marks this film as superior to its predecessor. There's a gloom in this chapter, not unlike the dread that befalls Mirkwood, and this makes the tale seem a little bit more ... adult, I guess, at least more consequential.

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This is a film that's a better balance between setting a tone and delivering exposition, one where characters are allowed to develop while ginormous action sequences unfold.

Quite simply, The Desolation of Smaug has elements the equal to any part of the previous iterations. In time, the division between the Hobbit films and the LOTR trilogy will be seen as a mere inconvenience of chronology, as the separation is actually far less than even in the original books. These works remain the pinnacle of this type of cinematic epic fantasies, and it is this blend of both comfortable familiarity and outright wonder at the spectacle that makes this film work as well as it does.

For now, however, we have the pleasure of seeing a film of this scope and level of execution show up on our screens in consecutive Decembers. In a sea of comic book adaptations and other extravaganzas that built upon the work that Jackson and others helped contribute, it still remains a particularly satisfying thing to go back to this narrative, with these rich and wonderful characters as they again travel through the paths of Middle Earth. As an audience, we are literally traveling there and back again, and with The Desolation of Smaug, I'd suggest you're in for a hell of a ride.

After a bumpy beginning with 'An Unexpected Journey,' Peter Jackson's 'Hobbit' trilogy finds its footing in this much more exciting and purposeful second chapter.

If “An Unexpected Journey” felt like nearly three hours’ worth of throat clearing and beard stroking, the saga gets fully under way at last in “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” the similarly massive but far more purposeful second chapter in Peter Jackson’s latest Tolkien enterprise. Actually shorter than the first film by nine minutes, this robust, action-packed adventure benefits from a headier sense of forward momentum and a steady stream of 3D-enhanced thrills — culminating in a lengthy confrontation with a fire-breathing, scenery-chewing dragon — even as our heroes’ quest splits into three strands that are left dangling in classic middle-film fashion. Jackson’s gargantuan undertaking can still feel like completist overkill at times, but that won’t keep the Middle-earth enthusiasts who pushed the first “Hobbit” film past the $1 billion mark worldwide from doing the same with this Dec. 13 release, which should see Warners’ and MGM’s coffers overflow like Erebor’s.

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Although Jackson’s “Hobbit” pics have maintained an impressive visual continuity with his incomparable “Lord of the Rings” trilogy (technological upgrades like 3D, Imax and high frame rates notwithstanding), the fundamental difference between these two series may be as simple, yet instructive, as the contrasting stories they tell. Whereas the “Rings” movies felt as pure, vital and heroic as the Fellowship’s mission itself, this three-part prequel can’t help but seem like a more mercenary endeavor as it drags out Tolkien’s slender tale of a band of dwarfs seeking to reclaim a lost fortune. Good and evil are still very much at stake, sometimes grippingly so, but even the staunchest Tolkien loyalists may feel they’re on an overly protracted journey to an inevitably less exciting destination.

 

Still, “The Desolation of Smaug” reps a major improvement on its predecessor simply by virtue of picking up at a more eventful place in the narrative, and as scripted by the returning team of Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Guillermo del Toro (who was slated to direct at one point during “The Hobbit’s” troubled production history), the film immediately evinces a livelier pace and a heightened sense of urgency. The writers’ key structural innovation here is to incorporate material from “The Quest of Erebor,” one of Tolkien’s supplemental “Unfinished Tales,” starting with a prologue that flashes back to a secret early meeting between the noble dwarf Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) and the gray wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen). Together these unlikely allies lay out a plan to recover the powerful Arkenstone and reclaim the dwarfs’ underground kingdom from the clutches of the foul dragon Smaug.

Crucial to their success will be the participation of Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), the mild-mannered but resourceful Hobbit chosen to accompany Gandalf, Thorin and 12 other dwarfs to the Lonely Mountain, as recounted in “An Unexpected Journey.” The story proper resumes with the travelers receiving shelter and supplies from gruff skin-changer Beorn (Mikael Persbrandt) in preparation for their trek through the black forest of Mirkwood. It’s here that Jackson pulls out the first of many stops: When Gandalf departs on a private errand, Bilbo and friends are left to do battle with an army of hideous giant spiders, in a scene so creepily visceral (especially in 3D) that it makes Frodo’s tussle with Shelob in “The Return of the King” look like a romp in the Shire.

The sense of danger rarely flags as the company is rescued and imprisoned by the forces of Thranduil (Lee Pace), haughty king of the Wood-elves and father of a familiar face, the dashing warrior Legolas (Orlando Bloom, reprising his old role with a more impetuous air but the same deadly aim). Middle-earth purists will find plenty of cause for griping here, not merely because Legolas never appeared in the original novel, but because the screenwriters have taken the further liberty of devising an entirely new character, the elf warrior Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly, almost a dead ringer here for Liv Tyler’s Arwen), as a tentative love interest for Kili (Aidan Turner), probably the tallest and most handsome dwarf in Thorin’s party. The problem isn’t that Jackson has dared to tamper with Tolkien’s sacred text, but rather that he has done so to relatively minor effect; although these character additions are meant to up the dramatic stakes and foster a sense of continuity with the “Rings” movies, the emotional gains are minimal.

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In pure action terms, the picture’s indisputable high point arrives when Bilbo leads the dwarfs on a daring escape from Mirkwood, floating downriver in barrels while fending off some particularly vicious orcs; it may be a Roaring Rapids-style theme-park ride in the making, but the sequence is thrillingly sustained, orchestrated with a giddy B-movie exuberance that feels like vintage Jackson. From there, things settle down somewhat as the travelers, aided by a wily bargeman (Luke Evans), smuggle themselves into Laketown, a strikingly designed waterfront village that suggests an old English variation on Venice. Overseen by a drunken, venal master (an unkempt Stephen Fry), this once-thriving center of commerce has fallen on hard times since Smaug took over the nearby Lonely Mountain, although the depressed villagers retain their hope in an old prophecy foretelling the dragon’s demise.

 

At a certain point, “The Desolation of Smaug” becomes a veritable treatise on the different geopolitical factions of Middle-earth: the elves with their hostile, isolationist stance; the humans of Laketown with their desire for prosperity, democracy and ethical governance; and the dwarfs with their yearning for a once-glorious ancestral homeland. It’s weighty, not especially stirring stuff, but necessary insofar as it foreshadows the showdown to come in next year’s “The Hobbit: There and Back Again”; in similar fashion, Gandalf’s secret mission, adapted here from “The Quest for Erebor,” plays a crucial role in anticipating the events of “The Lord of the Rings.”

But the strongest point of connection between this adventure and those yet to come is the Hobbit himself, specifically his growing fascination with the mysterious artifact he acquired in “An Unexpected Journey.” Even at this early stage, the ring’s insidious pull is unmistakable, and Freeman allows a few dark shadings to creep into his otherwise charming embodiment of Bilbo Baggins, whose gradual transformation from reluctant tag-along into stealthy and reliable asset helps sustain viewer engagement through the picture’s occasional laborious stretches. The journey builds to a suspenseful peak as Bilbo finds himself eye-to-eye with the imposing Smaug himself (voiced in seething, unctuous tones by Benedict Cumberbatch), even if their drawn-out confrontation and the dragon’s endless monologues dissipate the tension somewhat en route to the cliffhanger ending.

As ever, in terms of logistical mastery and marshaling of resources in service of a grandly involving bigscreen entertainment, one couldn’t ask for a better ringmaster (so to speak) than Jackson. There’s an unmistakable pleasure in being transported back to his Middle-earth, in being cushioned by the lush strains of Howard Shore’s score and dazzled by the elaborately detailed sets created by production designer Dan Hennah and his team, seamlessly integrating Weta’s topnotch visual effects. Although Andy Serkis’ inimitable computer-aided performance as Gollum goes missing this time around, the actor once again serves as second unit director, as he does on the other two “Hobbit” films as well.

The New Zealand landscapes look as majestic as ever in Andrew Lesnie’s richly textured lensing, which retains all its dreamlike luster in the standard 24-frames-per-second version screened for review. It’s hard to imagine the 48fps version, which drained so much of the magic from “An Unexpected Journey,” doing much to enhance the experience here, especially given the marvelous tactility of the imagery, from the layers of gossamer webs in the spider-attack sequence to the mountains of gold shifting beneath Bilbo’s feet in the Erebor sequence. In these scenes, the immersive, eye-tickling quality of the 3D is especially apparent, though there are also a few in-your-face sight gags — an arrow flying through the screen, a bumblebee hovering close enough to swat away — that exemplify this particular trilogy’s rough-and-tumble spirit.

The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug Review

Viewed as the extended second act of the larger three-act epic that will be The Hobbit trilogy, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is terrific, a dazzling, endlessly inventive adventure serial that is filled to burst with cinematic treats both large and small. Never anything less than intensely entertaining, and absent nearly every pacing issue that left its predecessor, An Unexpected Journey, a solid but uneven disappointment, Smaug is a treat, and will be a welcome breath of fresh air for fans of Peter Jackson’s cinematic Middle Earth.

Taken as a film, however – as the standalone, 161-minute entity that audiences will be watching this weekend – I find The Desolation of Smaug highly problematic, if not downright infuriating. With a cliffhanger ending that cuts things off mid-climax, the film is incomplete, a series of extremely tantalizing set-ups that has only the slightest of internal pay-offs, if even that. No matter how spectacular the material it presents may be, Smaug is all rising action in search of a meaningful culmination, and by withholding that pay-off from viewers and leaving all our investment unfulfilled, Jackson has severely lessened the potential impact of this individual chapter.


The crazy thing is that this is a problem I have only because of the standard Jackson himself set for how to do multi-part film epics. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a major cinematic masterpiece for many reasons, but one of the things that has always impressed me most about the films are that, for all the cumulative impact they create, each chapter works wonderfully as a standalone entity. The Fellowship of the Ring, while planting the seeds for the entire trilogy, plays host to a contained and emotionally impactful arc. You don’t need to wait for films two or three to start seeing the character relationships and narrative hooks pay off – by the time Gandalf is facing down the Balrog, or Aragorn is choosing to let Frodo go in favor of saving Merry and Pippin, or Sam is risking his life to accompany Frodo on the rest of the journey, the audience’s investment is being rewarded, and it is being rewarded in such a way that when the credits roll, the viewer feels extremely satisfied.



The same thing goes for The Two Towers, which not only has a different visual and tonal flavor than its predecessor, further distinguishing itself as a workable standalone entry, but which tells a great beginning-middle-end story about an imperilled nation (Rohan) finding strength and redemption (and if the arc of the Frodo and Sam narrative isn’t quite as clear, it still has a climax and resolution that leaves the viewer feeling something big has been accomplished, and that these characters have been developed a great deal). Even last year’s An Unexpected Journey, for all its problems, builds to a moment of sincere and effective resolution that pays off on certain internal character and thematic strands.

But The Desolation of Smaug does not and cannot effectively operate as its own, fully satisfying experience. I love that the film is in near-constant motion, continuously deepening, developing, and enriching the characters, story, and mythology, but just as Jackson is about to tighten the strings, just as all of the disparate plot and character threads are about to cumulate, the film ends, not with a sensation of invigoration or satisfaction, but of violent, uncomfortable whiplash. It would be like if The Two Towers ended with the first arrow being loosed at Helm’s Deep – everything that came before that point would still be terrific, but without the immediate internal context of resolution and pay-off that the battle itself provides, that material would fail to resonate as much as it should, and the experience on the whole would be frustrating and unfulfilling.

That is The Desolation of Smaug in a nutshell – I love everything we have been given, and yet my love is severely tempered by the film’s failure to pay-off on my emotional investment. That pay-off shall, of course, come, but it’s going to arrive separated from the immediate, fresh context of this foundational material (and I cannot imagine the aborted climax of this film serving well as the opening scene of the next one – that just seems incredibly strange). Especially considering that much of the film’s last hour is devoted to positioning certain characters for actions that seem meant to take place in their very next scene, and not in a completely separate film, the abrupt end is maddeningly jarring, and limits my affection for The Desolation of Smaug as its own film.


But again, that I had become so utterly invested as to be disappointed speaks extremely well to everything Jackson and company had accomplished up to that point. After a really wonderful prologue scene, one that I shall not spoil here other than to say it is a warm and fantastic re-introduction into this story, the film picks up where An Unexpected Journey left off, with the company of Thorin Oakenshield well on their way to the Lonely Mountain to reclaim the lost dwarf kingdom of Erebor. The film then proceeds through what is probably my favorite stretch of material in J.R.R. Tolkein’s original novel: The meeting with Beorn, the adventures in Mirkwood, the arrival at Laketown, and, of course, the encounter with Smaug. The film’s pace isn’t quite relentless – nor should it be, as this succession of events could easily be dramatized so as to make it exhausting, rather than invigorating – but never once does it lag, and more importantly, every piece of the film moves with purpose. Even if that purpose is not fully realized by film’s end, there is true weight and significance to everything that happens in Smaug, with Jackson and company constantly relishing the opportunity to deepen these characters and enrich the fabric of their world – the overt prequel material with the Necromancer and Middle Earth’s ‘rising evil’ has become much more intriguing than I had previously believed possible, for instance – even as they effectively up the adventure ante at each and every turn.



And what adventures these are! Faced in this stretch of story with some of the most memorable and iconic moments from Tolkien’s entire body of work, Jackson creatively expands upon the core of Tolkien’s writing to build multiple set pieces that are nearly unparalleled in their creativity and execution. I imagine the “Barrels out of Bond” sequence – which transforms Bilbo’s clever smuggling of the dwarves from Thranduil’s castle into an ingeniously multifaceted, gleefully orchestrated action symphony – is going to be celebrated and discussed ad naseum after the film’s release, but for my money, I was even more blown away by the strategic grandeur of the company’s climactic battle with Smaug, and most deeply shaken by the episode with the giant spiders in Mirkwood. I find the spiders material effectively unsettling even to this day in Tolkien’s book, and Jackson emulates that feeling nicely, putting his cinematic horror skills to great use throughout the encounter. Even more impressive, though, is the way he weaves character development in among the action during this sequence. It is something both of the film’s other major set pieces manage as well, but in the way Jackson shoots and edits Bilbo’s fight with the spiders – and especially in the way he visually illustrates what it is like for Bilbo to hunt his enemies while wearing the ring – an enormous amount is conveyed about Bilbo’s growing heroism, as well as his nascent dark side. There is something deeply, irrevocably disturbing about Bilbo’s actions here, something thoughtful and provocative that is conveyed in harmony with the choreography of the action.

While I wish I could say the spiders episode is also indicative of how well the film does by Bilbo throughout, The Desolation of Smaug unfortunately minimizes the character just as much as the previous film, if not more so. In my review of An Unexpected Journey, I expressed the feeling that the film had expanded Tolkien’s narrative to such an extreme degree that Bilbo was lost in the shuffle, only a supporting character in his own movie, and that the film lacked a concrete, focused center as a result. The Desolation of Smaug is undoubtedly more centered – as mentioned before, it constantly moves with purpose, and the plot, character, and thematic threads all seem much more united this time around – but it still keeps Bilbo on the sidelines more than I would like. After the early goings on in Mirkwood, Bilbo is a very minor character in this film – even his meeting with Smaug, while beautifully realized, fails to fully re-orient him to the center of the action – which, as in the last film, is a shame precisely because of how terrific Martin Freeman is in the part, and how perfect the movie seems to be when he is front and center. I think I just have to accept that Jackson and company have chosen to interpret The Hobbit as an ensemble piece, rather than one where Bilbo is the center – if he can’t feel like the main character in this stretch of the story, where he and his arc are arguably most vivid and prominent in the book, then he probably never will – and while that’s not an interpretation I agree with or necessarily like, it is one I can live with, especially when the material around Bilbo is as excellent as it is here.



Case in point: Tauriel, a new Elvish character created for the film, who has absolutely nothing to do with Bilbo and is nevertheless one of the most compelling elements of the picture. Thanks to sharp writing and a stupendous, charismatic performance from Evangeline Lilly – who emerges from the film as perhaps its most obvious future movie star – Tauriel and her material is simply dynamite, a worthwhile expansion of Tolkien’s book that not only breaths new life into the story, but increases my investment in the characters she interacts with. Orlando Bloom does great work in his return as Legolas with or without Tauriel, but both he and the character are at their best opposite Lilly, while an unexpected romance between Tauriel and the dwarf Kili – something I would never have believed could work – is surprisingly effective, and does some crucial work in fleshing out Kili as a three-dimensional character (important, given what role book fans will know he plays in the story’s conclusion).

But if Tauriel is the best example of Jackson effectively extending the Hobbit story beyond Bilbo Baggins, she is far from the only one. Further exploration of Thranduil and the world of the wood elves? Great stuff. Gandalf’s solo mission to explore the depths of Dol Guldur? Fantastic. Lake Town politics? Not entirely successful, but interesting nevertheless, and important because it is building to something that will come back to effect Bilbo and the dwarves heavily. The film cuts away to the Orcs and their machinations far too often for my liking – I would rather see none of them whatsoever outside of encounters with the protagonists, and not just because Azog continues to be an awful and poorly realized character design – but overall, this is an extremely rich film, one where nearly every plot and character strand is enjoyable, intriguing, and imaginative. It is absolutely invigorating when Jackson starts pulling all these different threads together in the last forty-five minutes, turning the introduction of Smaug into the centerpiece for everything to coalesce around, and while this only increases my frustration with the ending – we cut to black right as everything is about to click into place – the effect is still somewhat awe-inspiring.



Smaug himself, it must be said, is one of the film’s foremost achievements, a transcendent combination of vocal performance, character design, motion capture, and special effects that is every bit on par with Andy Serkis’ Gollum. Benedict Cumberbatch’s vocal performance is a terrifying wonder to behold, grand and booming in tenor but nuanced and intimidating in detail, and I love how much both he and the screenplay emphasize the character’s formidable intelligence. Bilbo has been pretty well established as one of the cleverer figures in the cinematic Middle Earth canon by the time he comes face to face with Smaug in this film, but the Hobbit is perilously out of his depth once Smaug awakens from his slumber, and it is Smaug’s wit, more than his brawn, that puts Bilbo on the disadvantage.

That’s not to say Smaug isn’t physically imposing, of course – in fact, to say so is an understatement. While I was both surprised and pleased to see how much Smaug’s face looks exactly as I’ve always imagined it – Jackson and his team have clearly based their design on Alan Lee’s illustrations, and maybe even the Rankin Bass TV movie – the sheer size and scale of his body is a major shock, and is played as one in his introduction. Smaug’s first scene – including his initial interactions with Bilbo – is undoubtedly one of the best sequences in any Middle Earth film, perfectly constructed to establish Smaug as a tremendous, multi-faceted terror.

The film does well by all its new characters, though, in keeping with what is perhaps this franchise’s greatest strength. Lee Evans’ Thranduil is a different kind of Elvish ruler than we have seen before, and while the character is still being sketched in, I am eager to see more. Luke Evans immediately makes an impression as Bard – Jackson is waiting to call him “the Bowmen,” as the character’s arc has been adjusted in interesting ways – and while his performance is one of the many highlights of this film, I can easily imagine him being a top-level standout in There and Back Again, where Bard’s role in the story gets even meatier and more complex. And while I’m still not sure how I feel about the film’s conception of Beorn, which is extremely different from how I have always interpreted the character, I like Mikael Persbrandt in the role, and am interested to see how (or if) they use him in the future.

The returning players are all uniformly strong, with top-notch work from Freeman, Ian McKellan, and especially Richard Armitage, whose Thorin only gets increasingly fascinating and compelling with each passing minute. The film explores him as both an inspiring, effective leader and a figure whose potential for recklessness and greed – something he tries, but continually fails, not to succumb to – is damning, and Armitage’s work is amazingly complex and nuanced. Thorin is, in truth, the protagonist here, and while I feel that’s a miscalibration of Tolkien’s story, it is hard to complain when the character is this captivating. As for Thorin’s kinsmen, I am still pretty blown away by the work Jackson and his performers have done turning the other twelve dwarfs, little more than a series of silly rhyming names in Tolkien’s book, into distinct and loveable characters.


The film’s technical merits are second-to-none, as expected, with terrific production design, excellent and evocative cinematography from Andrew Lesnie, and another instant-classic Howard Shore musical score, one that, like the film itself, is far richer and much more satisfying than its predecessor. I still find myself a bit disappointed by how little location shooting The Hobbit films employ – The Lord of the Rings felt so immediate and organic because New Zealand was their primary landscape, while The Hobbit movies are mostly created on soundstages – but this is still a tremendous exercise in world building nevertheless. I did not, for the record, have the chance to see the film in its native 48 frames-per-second – a shame, as multiple viewings of An Unexpected Journey had me really liking the new format – but it was screened in 3D, which is mostly shallow and useless. If you don’t plan on seeing the film in high-frame-rate projection, see it in 2D – on its own, the 3D is a wash.

Two films in, and the verdict is still out for me on Peter Jackson’s grand Hobbit experiment. If it weren’t for that needlessly abrupt ending – which I find doubly frustrating given that, in the book, the specific climax this film was building towards is mere seconds away from happening – I think I would be prepared to call The Desolation of Smaug a great or near-great film, which is exactly what I hoped I could say about An Unexpected Journey a year ago. I find myself again unable to dole out the praise I so desperately want to give, and that frustration is compounded by the fact that my intense love for the majority of the film directly fuels my anger over the unfulfilling ending. Jackson himself set the standard that, no matter how sprawling the narrative, individual parts of a trilogy still need to work on their own narrative and thematic merits. For all the ways The Desolation of Smaug is a massive leap forward from its predecessor, and a real, substantive standout of modern blockbuster filmmaking, it is ultimately a structural regression, feeling even less complete than other recent multi-part film installments like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (which at least had the decency to resolve its own climax before cutting off mid-story).

Will any of this matter once There and Back Again has arrived in theatres next December, and one can comfortably sit down to watch all three Hobbit films in a row? That I cannot say – though I think it still might, given my belief that certain pieces of pay-off belonged in the arc of this specific film – and it is always possible that whatever Jackson has planned for the third film is so brilliant and inspired that it somehow required this second film to end the way it does. I am willing to hold out hope, and no matter what, I think the pieces are undoubtedly in place for a terrific final chapter. But in this moment, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is very difficult to view or to take on its own terms. It is a hugely enjoyable two-and-a-half hours of cinema, an endlessly fun and creative bit of fantasy mythmaking, but it does not work as its own film, and as much as I love everything it has to offer, I very much wish the finished product felt like a more complete cinematic experience.
While the film's needlessly abrupt ending prevents it from working on its own terms, The Desolation of Smaug is quite nearly a great Hobbit film, filled with wondrous invention, genuine pathos, and many great performances.

The Journey Builds, But Is Not Resolved, In The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug

In the history of film and plays there have been few things more difficult to pull off successfully than a middle act. Middle acts within a work have the responsibility of moving the plot along and bringing characters to a situation that will require the final act to resolve. The benefit of the middle act is that it can usually move unencumbered by character establishment. As a result, middle acts can be great for character development, but on the plot front there is little in the way of resolution and some people dislike middle acts because – in order for the plot and character development to actually occur, the sense of conflict usually reaches its peak in the middle act. That usually makes middle acts darker and more moody than the initial and final acts.



In terms of trilogies, the middle film usually bears a responsibility that is tough for viewers to reconcile. Many times, they lack the initial spark of the first film in the series and the viewer does not get the elation of resolution that the final film brings. In my mind, the most successful middle act films have been limited to The Empire Strikes Back (reviewed here!) and The Dark Knight (reviewed here!). Unfortunately for fans of Peter Jackson’s interpretations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings (reviewed here!), The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug is not going to break that tradition.



The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug picks up where The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (reviewed here!) left off as the prequel story of Bilbo Baggins’s journey with the dwarves that made him an outsider among the Hobbits of the Shire. The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug is, foremost, not a tight film; the movie meanders with side stories that flesh out the various characters and the setting of Middle Earth. But, given how characters like Legolas pop up in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug without feeling absolutely essential to the main storyline and how Smaug would have been sufficiently villainous without the extensive backstory Peter Jackson includes in the film (courtesy of other volumes Tolkien wrote), the film feels more like an exploration of a fantastic setting rather than a tight character journey that is pushed by the strength of Bilbo Baggins, the menace of Smaug or the failings of Thorin Oakenshield (though all those are factors in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug).

Following the attack on the Dwarves and Bilbo, the assemblage regroups. With Gandalf heading out on his own, the Dwarves and Bilbo enter Mirkwood Forest. There, they encounter giant spiders and Bilbo is instrumental in saving the dwarves from their webs and bites. The elves of Mirkwood surround the Dwarves and capture them. Bilbo helps the Dwarves escape the elves and gets them closer to the Lonely Mountain, where Thorin intends to reclaim the Dwarven homeland. After the barrel ride downstream, the fellowship arrives at the human village of Lake-town. There, the humans are warm to the Dwarves as they have been menaced by Smaug.


Thorin calls upon Bilbo to make good on the contract he has with him and Bilbo is sent into the Lonely Mountain, despite the concern that the dragon Smaug has awoken. Bilbo enters Smaug’s lair and there he encounters the dragon, setting into motion the events that push Middle Earth toward a war.

The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug does a decent job of foreshadowing the fatal flaw of Thorin Oakenshield. While The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey painted Thorin as the obvious hero of the prequel Trilogy, The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug starts to insinuate that Thorin is not an honorable Dwarf and that his motives for getting into the Lonely Mountain and reclaiming the dwarven kingdom is not based on a noble intent.



The film also does a good job of making Bilbo Baggins seem more morally ambiguous than some of the other Middle Earth films – especially the prior film. Baggins was hired as a thief and while he does several heroic things in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, he illustrates an aptitude for escape and light-fingered thievery. In fact, in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug Bilbo Baggins’s actions actually bring surprising destruction at the breath of Smaug. If Thorin’s anger and greed are foreshadowed, it is Bilbo who goes a long way to instigate the incidents that bring those defects to the surface.

The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug is entertaining and it illustrates well the range of both Martin Freeman and Richard Armitage. While fans may geek out over the return to the franchise of Orlando Bloom whose career seems to have it its high with The Lord Of The Rings (reviewed here!) and the addition of Evangeline Lilly from Lost (reviewed here!), the real story for The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug comes from Freeman and Armitage. Richard Armitage does a good job of taking a pretty monolithic character of Thorin Oakenshield and adding layers to him. While many of those layers come from written lines, it is Armitage’s performance, his bearing that sells the underlying emotions of the character. Armitage emotes with a fire in his eyes that actually resonates and sells some of the lines that do not quite resonate.

Martin Freeman might well be one of the best comic actors of our time. In The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, he pushes the range of what he can do. He’s been sidekick in Sherlock and an able supporting comedic presence in films like this year’s The World’s End (reviewed here!). As Bilbo Baggins he manages to present a more serious character who is still fun to watch and engaging. In other words, despite moments of goofy body language, Freeman holds his own as a serious and viable character who is fearless in the face of the virtual dragon. Freeman plays Bilbo with a straight face and a sense of moral ambiguity that fits the character perfectly, all without hinting at being the same actor who played any of the other roles he has! Freeman is a perfect chameleon actor in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug and that sells the reality of the film wonderfully. One never feels like they are watching Martin Freeman; like Ian McKellen (who is all Gandalf all the time he is on screen), Freeman completely embodies his character in the real and virtual sets of Middle Earth.

But, ultimately, even at nearly three hours (one struggles to guess what Peter Jackson will put back into the film for the inevitable Extended Edition), The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug feels like it is just getting started when it reaches its climax. Like most middle act films, The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug leaves one wanting more and feeling like they are dependent upon the final act to make a true judgment on how much they enjoyed this film on its own.
 

The Hobbit The Desolation of Smaug Info


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Release Date: December 12, 2013 (3D/2D theaters and IMAX, p.m. screenings)

Studio: New Line Cinema (Warner Bros. Pictures)

Director: Peter Jackson

Screenwriter: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson

Starring: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Evangeline Lilly, John Bell, Jed Brophy, Adam Brown, John Callen, Benedict Cumberbatch, Luke Evans, Stephen Fry, Ryan Gage, Mark Hadlow, Peter Hambleton, Stephen Hunter, William Kircher, Sylvester McCoy, Graham McTavish, Michael Mizrahi, James Nesbitt, Dean O'Gorman, Lee Pace, Mikael Persbrandt, Ken Stott, Aidan Turner

Genre: Adventure, Fantasy

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

Official Website:TheHobbit.com | Facebook | Twitter | Google+

Review:8.5/10 rating

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