The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Yes it occurs to me that it may be a bit late reviewing this movie that's over a month old, but isn't it true that only after a month, we have all but forgotten that we had this movie viewing experience? What does it really say about the second installation of The Hobbit? This was the one big holiday movie that I saw, and I was expecting more from it after the somewhat mediocre showing that the first Hobbit had. Rearing up to write this, I was half nervous and half excited at the prospect of writing a controversial review on the movie (because I didn't think it was all that great), but I realized that stating that it wasn't stellar, and don't get me wrong I had fun watching it, but the sentiment of disappointment might not be so controversial after all. 

Was LOTR this forgettable?

What new story elements are there to explain about The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug? Erm…this is the continuing adventure of Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo Baggins, and the dwarves quest to reclaim the mountain kingdom of the dwarves from the gold loving dragon Smaug. In this installment, they figure out according to prophecy, that that they have only a limited amount of time to enter into the back door of the mountain before the backdoor disappears and their key is useless. So once again the chase sets the racing pace of the movie. There are new developments along the way about the real darkness that is looming in the background in the form of Sauron, and we are joined by some old friends from LOTR and some new friends that may not have been in the original source material. And we finally meet Mr. Smaug

All the elements separately are stellar. The acting is pretty spot on. Ian McKellen will forever be remembered as Gandalf. At this point he owns Gandalf. Martin Freeman once again plays the hobbit with no courage but 100 points of speechcraft, masterfully. Benedict Cumberbatch is the perfect voice for Smaug, and even the added characters Legolas and Tauriel played by Orlando Bloom and Evangeline Lilly are well played. One character that I feel like we should know more about but we continue to get slighted on is Thorin played by Richard Armitage. This may not be the fault of the actor, but I keep on wanting to rally behind the dwarf king's cause but because he doesn't stand out much from the other dwarves it's kinda hard to. The soundtrack is amazing. The action set pieces are well done as usual, my favorite being the three way fight between the orcs, elves, and dwarves in the barrels going down the river. The settings and locales once again beautifully magnificent, and the CG can't really be complained about for such a big budget movie (although the river of gold with Smaug wasn't too impressive, guess liquid gold isn't something CG studios have had to do much of yet), and the 3D was done tastefully. All combining for a very entertaining experience.

So if all the separate elements of the movie are good then the combination of the elements should make for a great movie right? Not necessarily. I think that the movie (trilogy) suffers the most from overextension. Because apparently all big movie franchises have to be a trilogy (for money's sake I'm sure) we have to suffer through a Matrix trilogy type cliffhanger (also a huge letdown) where the movie closes right at the climax. That's not the only problem that overextension causes. Once you have another 3 hours to work with and you realize, "ok we don't have 9 hours worth of source material," you have to start writing stuff in like Legolas and Tauriel. Don't get me wrong, like I said, I liked their characters and being able to see Legolas and who he was before LOTR is cool, but ultimately it's a cover up for a bigger problem. Finally the real victims in the movie are the characters that were originally in the source material (the Hobbit book) that we really wanted to know more about, but because they had to share screen time with the added characters you won't get to know them (I'm looking at you Thorin.). All that to say, couldn't The Hobbit have been a duo logy instead of a trilogy?

The movie was fun to watch. But I think the studio has taken movie viewers for a ride. They thought the formula of good casting, action, soundtrack, and visuals equals a great movie. And perhaps it can be classified as a good movie, but why is it struggling to stay in my mind unlike LOTR? As humans, we need a relational way to connect with the characters in a movie so we can rally behind their conflict and root them on to win and celebrate with them along their successes and cry with them during their failures. That means the characters have to be given a chance to develop on screen where we can see them and relate to them. Otherwise, no matter how fun the movie is while watching it, after the fact, it becomes…forgettable.

thoughts? suggestions? disagreements? comment below.

Thanks for reading and blessings~!