New Release Review: 'The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug'

                                               

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My goodness that was long. Really really long. Fortunately The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (or The Hobbit 2, as most everyone is going to call it) isn't as soporifically boring as its predecessor; not an accolade worth framing, but a fact I greatly appreciated it.

The story so far: Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and his dwarf companions, plus Gandalf (Ian McKellen), have made a reasonable start on their journey to the Lonely Mountain, where they're going to try to steal from a dragon. Other things happened in the first film, but 'happened' may be too strong a word: a lot of the happenings consisted of little more than eating, singing and a spot of walking. At the start of the second film our heroes are still working hard on the walking - and as they plod along, dark forces are rising. So far, so familiar. A trilogy of films in which there's lots of walking and some evil rising? I do believe this ground has been thoroughly covered elsewhere. To add to the feeling of déjà vu a lot of the dialogue sounds like its been lifted wholesale from the original trilogy: Gandalf speaks of an evil slowly manifesting (tick), tells a cobbled together fellowship that a path is probably safe, when it's no such thing (tick), and has to abandon the group to check out a gut feeling he has (tick). This gives the impression that Tolkien's Middle Earth can only support a very narrow form of storytelling. Which I doubt. The more likely reason for the déjà vu is that Peter Jackson can't let go of The Lord of the Rings. Time and again he tries to tie The Hobbit to the original trilogy in ways that it neither wants nor needs. The most notable example being the inclusion of Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and a love interest, Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly). Their storyline has been invented wholesale by Jackson, and the only reason it's remotely bearable is because Lilly has (by my count) at least three facial expressions more than Liv Tyler, who had an equivalent role in The Lord of the Rings.

Elsewhere things are more promising. Freeman is still great as Bilbo, the soaring vistas are as jaw dropping as they've ever been, and the action is more involving and less video game-y than in the first film. The choreography during these sequences is particularly inventive. Especially the brilliantly absurd barrel fight, during which one dwarf takes down several squads of orcs whilst tumbling down a mountain. It's a scene reminiscent of Jackson's early films, which were prone to demented flights of fancy. The down side to this moment is it crystallises one of the film's main problems: the orcs are the least lethal creature in all of Middle Earth. Their kill count is - and this is being very charitable - a little low. They're terrible at their job. I'd estimate that at least two hundred orcs die for every elf, hobbit, or dwarf they kill. Maybe three hundred. If the film weren't two hours and forty minutes long then this might be less apparent. But because it goes on (and on, and on) there's plenty of time to muse on its flaws and incongruities. Such as: who would work as a builder in Middle Earth? Aren't the chances of dying whilst carving a stone step into a miles high mountain pretty high? Whose paying to have the work done? Is it just more work done by the orcs? Are the orcs slaves? If they're not slaves then why would they sign up to the orc army? Where are all the female orcs? Are there little orclings being left fatherless by all the death and dismemberment left in the wake of Bilbo and the others? The random ruminations go on.

Long story short: The Hobbit should still be a single film. No it doesn't matter that Jackson is also adapting the appendices. If Tolkien thought the notes and histories he put into the appendices should be in the book itself, then he'd have put them in the book. Unfortunately we're not going to be getting one film, but maybe one day someone will put together the anti-Director's Cut, a single three-hour film. A simple tale of one hobbit's journey, unadorned by superfluous storylines and tedious discussions on what everyone's father, or father's father, did or did not do to get them into their present circumstance. Focus on Bilbo, and focus on the greed that drives the men, the orcs and the elves, and you have a story worth telling. I'd bet that could be done in a single 180-minute sitting, and it'd be a film worth seeing. I can't say that of what Jackson has produced so far.

Overall: 6/10
or
The Actual Story: 8/10
The Appendices: 6/10
The Newly Invented Twaddle: 4/10