Review of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) by Wade H — 21 Dec 2014

The second film in this "The Hobbit" trilogy is certainly better than the first, in my opinion, but it still has some issues. First off, let me say that I did enjoy this one and felt that its story flowed better than the first film, which was clunky.

My biggest issue probably comes in the form of the Hobbit of the title taking a backseat for too many stretches of the film. Freeman is a great actor and is perfect in the role of Bilbo and he actually outshines the rest of the cast in all of his more meaty scenes.

Unfortunately these scenes get lost in the shuffle of subplots and characters. Thorin Oakenshield feels more like the lead in this installment. The love triangle subplot between a dwarf and two elves was completely unnecessary and felt like nothing other than filler to stretch this second film closer to three hours.

Since none of these characters are important to the "quest to fight a dragon and reclaim our kingdom plot" or the Gandolf subplot involving the lead to Sauron (which isn't needed really but is at least interesting), I would've cut it out.

The Smaug stuff was the best stuff in the whole movie, again due to Freeman and a well CG'd dragon voucd by Benedict Cumberbatch. Overall, enjoyable entry that improved on the first (probably as this is the part of the book where the meat of the story lies) but still feels as if there was some fat to cut.