Review: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Short version: aaaaaaaahhhhh, omg, this was sooooo much fun. I really enjoyed the first one, but this was was even better, and that’s rare for a sequel. Non-stop action, great character moments, and fabulous acting by both Martin and Benedict. Go, go, go!
And now the super-spoilery rambling version:
“I don’t remember that from the book, but it was a nice touch.” <--This line pretty much sums up my reaction during lots of the sequences. Peter Jackson is a master of subtle world-building, using Tolkien’s original novel as a base and then expanding it to forge connections that enrich the whole experience of both the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings books and movies. And all of the extras come from a studied place of love: Jackson, Philippa Boyens, and Fran Walsh so clearly love this universe, and that really shines through.
For example, we get to know Laketown and its inhabitants, Bard’s family, the political situation, the history with an old tapestry, and the connection to Bard’s ancestor injuring Smaug, very little of which I remember from the book but all of which makes perfect sense and enriches the universe.
Same goes with Mirkwood. We get some fascinating character development of Legolas’ dad, Thranduil (those tantalizing facial scars that he deliberately covers up, omg-so much implied world-building right there), and an amusing Legolas/Gimli joke, and the character of Tauriel, who isn’t in the book at all but seems to fit nicely (even if her character arc and movie!Arwen’s were a little too similar for my taste).
While the Lord of the Rings trilogy is more about the worlds of elves and men, the expanded Smaug scene here (where Thorin and co. actually enter the mountain and fight Smaug a little) allows us to see the dwarves in their element as well. A handful of dwarves show up in their homeland and figure out how to work the forge extremely quickly in order to save their lives from a dragon. That’s pretty impressive and gives a glimpse of what Erebor may have been like, the homeland they’re trying to regain, what a good team they are.
That’s one of my absolute favorite touches, how we get a reprise of the dwarves effortlessly working as a synchronized team (during the barrel scene and the scene in Erebor, recalling how they cleaned the dishes in Bag End). I think that teamwork is what helps transform the barrel-riding scene, which initially seems so improbable as to be ridiculous, into one of the best action set pieces possibly ever. The part where they cut the tree trunk in stages, omg. Inspired.
Fans are also given some Legolas hurt/comfort, Kili hurt/comfort, and Fili being all protective of his brother, none of which will I ever complain about. Yum!
And then of course there’s the dragon, played by Mr. Benedict Cumberbatch himself. Third billing, man! Right after Martin and Richard Armitage! Wow. His Smaug (which, Benedict will remind you, he did both the voice and the motion capture for) is sinuous and, yeah, even a little sexy in his confidence: a cat toying with his prey in Bilbo. Very reptilian, even moreso than I had expected, especially about the face, mouth, and neck. Everything about him is sharp and cunning; he doesn’t miss much. I loved the visual fire-breathing mechanism of having his chest light up before he breathes fire. Smaug’s moment of being mystified and transfixed by the shiny golden statue of the dwarf was also fantastic.
And while he is genuinely scary, there were moments in which I felt for him. Sure, he is a “raging psychopath,” in Benedict’s words, who destroyed an entire city and made another’s citizens homeless all in order to hoard gold, but he is also a dragon. That’s kind of what they do. I think the first movie made a point about that: if you choose to amass wealth to such obsessive excess, as Thorin’s grandfather did, you’re going to attract monsters. The scene where Smaug was coated in gold and said that it hurt him, the scene where he recounts the black arrows that were fired at him-I think Benedict’s voice cracks on that “black arrows” part, so it sounds like he’s recalling his pain. Oh, it’s so strange to empathize with a dragon, but I totally did. Bard and Hogwarts had it right: draco dormiens nunquam titillandus.
Then there’s also the larger meaning of Laketown being a timely analogy for the suffering of the poor, the corruption of government, and Smaug being a symbol of capitalism and greed gone horribly awry: always relevant, but particularly now during the global financial meltdown and governments spying on their citizens.
Any problems the movie has were pretty inevitable considering the creators and source material. If you’re a big Lord of the Rings movie fan, you may get the sense that you’ve seen some of this before, and better (spiders, elves vs. orcs, Gandalf in the dark, Gandalf imprisoned, Gandalf fighting a huge and horrifying evil on a bridge, Laketown having many similarities to Rohan/Théoden/Wormtongue). And I didn’t like Stephen Fry’s portrayal of the Master of Laketown much, or Beorn, or the Dol Guldur scenes with Gandalf-those things felt more like filler, even though Beorn is actually in the books. I would have been happy if they cut those parts and had more Tauriel. Or more Bilbo!
Can we get a movie of Martin Freeman just walking around looking hesitant? Because I would watch the hell out of that. Or slowly becoming a badass as he gains confidence and a darker side of his character due to the ring? That moment when he stabbed the spider and snarled, “Mine!” was fantastic.
Regardless of any little issues I had, there were parts of this movie at which I laughed out loud in genuine delight and joy. God, that hasn’t happened in a while! Wonderful.
Can’t wait for the third movie!
Related reviews: (The Hobbit part 1 and part 3), ( Martin Freeman’s filmography), ( Benedict Cumberbatch’s filmography)
And now the super-spoilery rambling version:
“I don’t remember that from the book, but it was a nice touch.” <--This line pretty much sums up my reaction during lots of the sequences. Peter Jackson is a master of subtle world-building, using Tolkien’s original novel as a base and then expanding it to forge connections that enrich the whole experience of both the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings books and movies. And all of the extras come from a studied place of love: Jackson, Philippa Boyens, and Fran Walsh so clearly love this universe, and that really shines through.
For example, we get to know Laketown and its inhabitants, Bard’s family, the political situation, the history with an old tapestry, and the connection to Bard’s ancestor injuring Smaug, very little of which I remember from the book but all of which makes perfect sense and enriches the universe.
Same goes with Mirkwood. We get some fascinating character development of Legolas’ dad, Thranduil (those tantalizing facial scars that he deliberately covers up, omg-so much implied world-building right there), and an amusing Legolas/Gimli joke, and the character of Tauriel, who isn’t in the book at all but seems to fit nicely (even if her character arc and movie!Arwen’s were a little too similar for my taste).
While the Lord of the Rings trilogy is more about the worlds of elves and men, the expanded Smaug scene here (where Thorin and co. actually enter the mountain and fight Smaug a little) allows us to see the dwarves in their element as well. A handful of dwarves show up in their homeland and figure out how to work the forge extremely quickly in order to save their lives from a dragon. That’s pretty impressive and gives a glimpse of what Erebor may have been like, the homeland they’re trying to regain, what a good team they are.
That’s one of my absolute favorite touches, how we get a reprise of the dwarves effortlessly working as a synchronized team (during the barrel scene and the scene in Erebor, recalling how they cleaned the dishes in Bag End). I think that teamwork is what helps transform the barrel-riding scene, which initially seems so improbable as to be ridiculous, into one of the best action set pieces possibly ever. The part where they cut the tree trunk in stages, omg. Inspired.
Fans are also given some Legolas hurt/comfort, Kili hurt/comfort, and Fili being all protective of his brother, none of which will I ever complain about. Yum!
And then of course there’s the dragon, played by Mr. Benedict Cumberbatch himself. Third billing, man! Right after Martin and Richard Armitage! Wow. His Smaug (which, Benedict will remind you, he did both the voice and the motion capture for) is sinuous and, yeah, even a little sexy in his confidence: a cat toying with his prey in Bilbo. Very reptilian, even moreso than I had expected, especially about the face, mouth, and neck. Everything about him is sharp and cunning; he doesn’t miss much. I loved the visual fire-breathing mechanism of having his chest light up before he breathes fire. Smaug’s moment of being mystified and transfixed by the shiny golden statue of the dwarf was also fantastic.
And while he is genuinely scary, there were moments in which I felt for him. Sure, he is a “raging psychopath,” in Benedict’s words, who destroyed an entire city and made another’s citizens homeless all in order to hoard gold, but he is also a dragon. That’s kind of what they do. I think the first movie made a point about that: if you choose to amass wealth to such obsessive excess, as Thorin’s grandfather did, you’re going to attract monsters. The scene where Smaug was coated in gold and said that it hurt him, the scene where he recounts the black arrows that were fired at him-I think Benedict’s voice cracks on that “black arrows” part, so it sounds like he’s recalling his pain. Oh, it’s so strange to empathize with a dragon, but I totally did. Bard and Hogwarts had it right: draco dormiens nunquam titillandus.
Then there’s also the larger meaning of Laketown being a timely analogy for the suffering of the poor, the corruption of government, and Smaug being a symbol of capitalism and greed gone horribly awry: always relevant, but particularly now during the global financial meltdown and governments spying on their citizens.
Any problems the movie has were pretty inevitable considering the creators and source material. If you’re a big Lord of the Rings movie fan, you may get the sense that you’ve seen some of this before, and better (spiders, elves vs. orcs, Gandalf in the dark, Gandalf imprisoned, Gandalf fighting a huge and horrifying evil on a bridge, Laketown having many similarities to Rohan/Théoden/Wormtongue). And I didn’t like Stephen Fry’s portrayal of the Master of Laketown much, or Beorn, or the Dol Guldur scenes with Gandalf-those things felt more like filler, even though Beorn is actually in the books. I would have been happy if they cut those parts and had more Tauriel. Or more Bilbo!
Can we get a movie of Martin Freeman just walking around looking hesitant? Because I would watch the hell out of that. Or slowly becoming a badass as he gains confidence and a darker side of his character due to the ring? That moment when he stabbed the spider and snarled, “Mine!” was fantastic.
Regardless of any little issues I had, there were parts of this movie at which I laughed out loud in genuine delight and joy. God, that hasn’t happened in a while! Wonderful.
Can’t wait for the third movie!
Related reviews: (The Hobbit part 1 and part 3), ( Martin Freeman’s filmography), ( Benedict Cumberbatch’s filmography)