Review of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) by Uvazquez — 13 Dec 2013

Bifur was right, it was the chiefest and greatest calamity of our age. Nope, not talking about the dragon. I mean the movie.

Book differences aside (I didn't go to the theater with expectations of watching a remake of the book's second third chapters), the plot was terrible. And I mean, TERRIBLE with a capital T and the rest of the word capitalized as well.

For starters, there was a time gap between where we left in the first movie and where the second started. Sure, I'm used to it and it can be good for the movie. But it doesn't explain how the orcs have caught up with them. Secondly, there was almost no Beorn. He doesn't even have many lines. What's the point of adding him into the movie if he's not gonna do anything? Thirdly, adding Legolas would have made sense just to connect with The Lord of the Rings, like Jackson wants, but adding another elf, Tauriel, and making them be the entire piece of action in the film was really lousy. There was almost no plot because of the large bits of action from Legolas and Tauriel. If I wanted to watch an action movie I would have bought tickets for another movie.

Also, the movie relies heavily in 3D. It's like Jackson forgot about the plot, just to make it coincide with awesome 3D effects (which I can't watch because I'm from the unlucky group of people who can't watch 3D movies because of sight conditions). 3D should be just an additive to the movie, not the whole point of it.

Adding Dol Guldur and the return of Sauron was a nice touch though, and the Bard the Bowman portrayal was awesome. That adds a few points to the score. However, Evangeline Lilly can't act, which substracts points. And making the action parts so long I almost fell asleep. They should be brief and scattered across the film. Not concentrated during an hour and a half and then abandoned and changed for pure dialogue.

All in all, this makes this movie the worst Jackson Middle Earth movie yet, and it was the one I had most hopes about. I liked the first one more than this and it's really slow.

I was about to give this a 5, like acceptable, but then I got to the cliffhanger. Really, Jackson? Why didn't you give closure to the arc? You have a war brewing, you don't need to keep Smaug alive. Let Bard gun him down already and get this over with. You could have ended the movie with the party at Esgaroth, and then changing to a scene showing the army marching. You have A LOT of stuff to put in the next film without leaving Smaug's closure to be exploited.

All in all, this was the worst of the three. I really do believe the worst is behind us. Come on, Jackson. Give it a worthy ending.