Film Review | The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Fast-paced action and spectacular visuals make up for a story stretched thin
The Hobbit is a (roughly) 200-page children’s book, very different in tone from the sweeping scale of The Lord of the Rings, and the decision to turn that into three long movies, each over 2 hours in length, would have been a disaster with almost anyone other than Peter Jackson in charge of things.
He has proved, again and again, that he can make fantasy storytelling accessible to non-genre audiences, without diluting the material and alienating fans. For The Hobbit movies, the sources go beyond the original book but include letters and J.R.R. Tolkien’s many appendices to fill in the gaps that were there in the book.
The Desolation of Smaug starts with a scene set one year before the present action, and shows how the company, which includes the Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins and the wizard Gandalf, along with Thorin Oakenshield and his company of dwarves, came together to burgle a gem called the Arkenstone from the hoard of a dragon named Smaug.
A cut to the present shows the company getting out of the orc caverns, and fleeing to the dubious shelter of a shape-shifter called Beorn, who can change between a huge man and a terrifying bear-like creature.
Beorn’s backstory is expanded here from the books, and it’s the first of many small changes which pepper the entire movie. The long journey the company must make through a dangerous forest called the Mirkwood is dealt with in just a few scenes, which works wonderfully.
Visually though, the movie shines. Jackson has had a lot of time to hone the visual language of these movies, and the way in which the world is presented is almost a character in and of itself. The shifts in tone are beautifully conveyed, and while the movie might feel long, no one could say that any scene lasts longer than it should.
The action scenes are particularly breathtaking. In a late sequence (showing us something that happened off-screen in the book), Gandalf is attacked by orcs, and the violence of the scene is disturbing without ever being gory. There is no excessive slow motion or a shaky camera to convince you that the world is real, or that the characters are in danger.
Despite that, the most powerful moments of the first two movies have been the ones which were closest to the book. In last year’s An Unexpected Journey, there’s a sequence near the end which marks a turning point in the tale of Bilbo Baggins, the Hobbit after whom the story is named. It draws very closely on the chapter “Riddles in the Dark", and it just involves Bilbo talking to Gollum, asking each other riddles. There’s an air of menace in the scene that all the scowling brutish orcs with hammers and swords cannot match.
In The Desolation of Smaug, the best moment is similarly authentic to The Hobbit. Bilbo has stolen into the dwarves’ hall, and found the Arkenstone, but as he reaches for it, he wakes up the dragon Smaug. The enormous dragon slowly rises, and Bilbo is trapped, so he desperately attempts to flatter the dragon and talk his way out of trouble.
Martin Freeman, who plays Bilbo, deserves a lot of credit for making the movies work—he’s able to convey a lot with the most limited twitches of his face, and inhabits the physicality of Hobbits in a way that Elijah Wood couldn’t quite manage when playing Bilbo’s nephew, Frodo.
Benedict Cumberbatch as the dragon Smaug is also brilliant—when he sneers that he is the only king under the mountain, you believe him. When he tells Bilbo that Thorin has abandoned him because of greed, it’s not just Bilbo that’s convinced.
The story of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is stretched too thin, but the bombast and spectacle, the fantastic acting, and the grandeur of vision all help make up for the shortcomings.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug released in theatres on Friday.
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