Review of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) by David M — 07 Jun 2015

Every problem I had with The Unexpected Journey seemed to hold true for The Desolation of Smaug. The tone was inconsistent, it was ridiculously overloaded with useless scenes of bloat, and they got bogged down in prequel stuff instead of telling the story at hand. On a completely separate note, in this film I couldn't help wondering why it is that the dwarves seem to range from guys who look like a troll all the way to guys who look like shorter versions of Aragorn? But that's just one of those ridiculously stupid choices I assume Peter Jackson made and nobody questioned him on. In some ways I hated this film even more than the first chapter. While The Unexpected Journey added all kinds of nonsense to pad the runtime it still remained somewhat faithful to the book when it was referencing it directly. The Desolation of Smaug basically takes a big steaming dump on the source material and says "we can do this better!" So instead of Bilbo simply riding downstream on a set of closed barrels we get a 30-minute-long fight sequence all down the river with dwarves jumping in and out of open barrels and a couple elves helping them too (even though they're running away from those elves.) It's utter nonsense and this isn't the only scene that plays fast and loose with the book in order to make spectacle. The entire final climax of the film is completely invented out of thin air.

So I did my best to reflect on this Hobbit film as if it didn't have the name of a book I love attached to it. If I disregard the source, does this work as a film? I have to say, it definitely does not! There isn't a cohesive story, because they keep throwing in so many little pointless subplots which don't gel into a whole. Gandalf's entire journey is irrelevant to the main plot, it's just there as setup for a trilogy of films that already exists and is infinitely better than this one. Not one thing that happens in Laketown adds to the movie, it's just filler so they can bilk the audience for more cash with a third movie. Also, I could forgive the creation of a completely new character like Tauriel, but not when she has no purpose in the film. It is clear that some moron in the screenwriters' room thought, "This story sucks because there's no love story, let's invent some star-crossed lovers" so guess what we have to look forward to in movie #3. Even the moment I was most looking forward to, Bilbo and Smaug talking, was ruined because apparently Peter Jackson thinks one moment of stillness is boring. So Bilbo is bumbling around like one of the Three Stooges, and constantly takes off the ring for no logical reason. The ring is one more thing ruined by the fact that this trilogy came out after the Lord of the Rings. They felt obligated to put such great weight into the ring that they can't let Bilbo just wear it all the time like he did in the book. Not to mention all the time he has to spend just gazing at it. I could keep going, I mean the CGI looked straight out of a video game or cartoon, but I'll simply stop because you get the point. This movie is terrible and I'm so glad I never have to sit through it again.