The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
If the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy is akin to the original “Star Wars” trilogy (and to many, myself include, it is), Peter Jackson’s “Hobbit” movies are akin to the prequels. That may sound harsh, but it’s an apt comparison, and not just because “The Hobbit” takes place before “Lord of the Rings” does. “An Unexpected Journey” polarized a lot of people last year, just as “The Phantom Menace” did in 1999, and Jackson had the original J.R.R. Tolkien text to work off of, so he wasn’t burdened to come up with the tale himself like George Lucas was. Maybe you can’t really return to such a rich, rewarding well after so many years. Maybe you shouldn’t. Or maybe, we as audiences need to accept that this is a different story, and of course, because of what came before, it’s not going to land with quite the fresh, immediate impact the first time Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth did with us. Besides, even though “Star Wars” purists won’t admit it, the prequels DID get better as they went along, and thanks to “The Clone Wars” TV series, have greater importance to telling that story than people give it credit for, tone deaf line readings and dialogue aside.
It’s taken about a month for me to finally get to seeing “The Desolation of Smaug,” and boy, was it worth it. “An Unexpected Journey” was unexpectedly beset by pacing issues, as it had dozens of main characters to introduce, some to reintroduce, and new adventures to set up (plus, you could tell a little timidity on Jackson’s part returning to the world of Middle Earth after so long). “The Desolation of Smaug” has none of that, and after a brief prologue showing a meeting between Gandalf the Grey (the great Sir Ian McKellen) and the would-be dwarf king, Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), in the town of Bree (where the hobbits met Aragorn in “Fellowship of the Ring”), we find ourselves on the move with Thorin, Gandalf, Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), and the company of dwarves as they continue their journey to the Lonely Mountain, where they will meet the dragon Smaug, and reclaim the lost dwarf city of Erebor. However, the road is treacherous, and they still have a pack of orcs on their trail ready to collect Thorin’s head, and the heads of anyone else who gets in their way.
Momentum seems to be the word that went through Jackson’s mind as he, co-screenwriters Fran Walsh, Phillippa Boyens, and Guillermo Del Toro (a ceremonial credit, to be sure, from when he was to be directing these movies), and editor Jabez Olssen went about the business of structuring the middle movie of this trilogy, because this doesn’t let up for a minute. Even the prologue between Gandalf and Thorin gives us a bigger picture of the stakes for Thorin in this quest, and how there is a price on his head, and smaller, character-driven moments like those between elves Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) in the Mirkwood Forest, or between the dwarf characters themselves when fate separates them for the final push to the Lonely Mountain, move briskly, and with the purpose of keeping the story going. After “Unexpected Journey” went by in fits and spurts, the pace of “Smaug” is a great return to the confidence and ambition of the “Rings” movies, and this 160 minute movie makes one wish for “There and Back Again,” the subtitle of the third film, to come out now so we can see how it all ends. (Part of that also comes from where it ends, which is a genuine cliffhanger unlike anything in the previous Middle Earth films, which all found a break in the story. Here, things are just starting to get interesting when the credits start to roll.)
It’s been at least a decade since I’ve read “The Hobbit,” but since Jackson and company are pulling material from the “Rings” Appendices and any other source it has legal access to (sorry folks, no Silmarillion for you), and have come up with their own (like the character of Tauriel) to augment the narrative, it’s probably for the best. Movies are always different from the books they are adapting, and this time, that is very much the case. If “Lord of the Rings” was about subtraction in the process of adapting the story, “The Hobbit” is all about additions, because let’s face it, any one who has ever read The Hobbit, and seen the size of the book compared to The Lord of the Rings, knows that stretching that story out through three films is going to require a LOT of padding. The most significant additions are the sequences in which Gandalf and Radagast The Brown (Sylvester McCoy) are uncovering the mystery behind a phantasmic entity known as the Necromancer. The storyline resulted in some truly haunting moments in “An Unexpected Journey,” and escalates into almost a “movie within a movie” horror show here, as Gandalf explores dark passages, and the abandoned outpost of Dol Guldur, for answers, and gets them in a series of sequences that are some of the scariest, from both a visual and thematic standpoint, since the Ringwraiths descended on the hobbits on Weathertop in “Fellowship of the Ring.” It’s easy to forget that Jackson, before he was a Oscar-annointed king of fantasy, was also a horror geek and genre junkie in the mode of “Evil Dead”-era Sam Raimi, and that history is drawn upon in these scenes (as well as the creepy-crawly scene in Mirkwood where the dwarves, and Bilbo, are captured by spiders) in spades, making me hope Jackson might return to the genre after his time in Middle Earth is finally behind him.
There’s so much to discuss about this movie, and being able to write about it in such a profusely positive manner, which was difficult for “An Unexpected Journey,” is part of why I could probably spend a few more paragraphs doing so. At the same time, though, it’s hard for any review, I think to really do anything but scratch the surface of this film. From a technical standpoint, all one needs to do is look at the names in the credits, from cinematographer Andrew Lesnie and costume designer Richard Taylor to production designer Dan Hennah and visual effects supervisor Joe Letteri (all “Rings” vets, all Oscar winners) and know you’re in good hands, that these people understand Jackson’s Middle Earth better than anyone else, and will use everything in their creative arsenal to take you there. Also returning is composer Howard Shore, a three-time Oscar winner for the “Rings” trilogy who has brought his A+ game to “The Hobbit” while relying on a minimal amount of returning to themes from the first trilogy to tell this different, distinctive story in a way that puts him on par with John Williams, and, in some ways, ahead of him in terms of musical storytelling. If you loved all of these people’s work before, they haven’t missed a beat in bringing to life places like Lake Town (a fishing community run by a corrupt leader played by the wonderful Stephen Fry); executing action sequences like the raucous and thrilling barrel escape from Mirkwood, with the company chased by both elves and orcs going down a river; or creating new, terrifying sights such as Beorn (Mikael Persbrandt), a shape-shifter who aids the group, or Smaug himself, who is finally seen up close during the final third of the film. As voiced, and sometimes performed (via mo-cap), by Benedict Cumberbatch (who also voices the Necromancer), Smaug is hardly the groundbreaking use of technology that Gollum was, but he’s a formidable villain (as smart as he is physically imposing), and definitely an indelible creation by Jackson and co. The scene between he, Bilbo, and then the dwarves, has to deliver, and it does so effortlessly, even if it seemed to go on a little long at times. Still, as the focal point of the trilogy thus far, it’s important to get us engaged in this battle of wits, and then fire, and Jackson accomplishes that brilliantly. And I can’t wait to see how things commence, and conclude, in “There in Back Again” come this December.
P.S. One last thing I’ll talk about is the way I watched the film. I never did get to a 48fps screening of “An Unexpected Journey” last year, but that was exactly how I saw “The Desolation of Smaug” for the first time. Some of the complaints I read last year about the process (such as everything feeling sped-up at the higher frame rate) were lost on me in watching “Smaug,” but I can definitely see how the clarity of the process might be jarring for some, especially if you aren’t a fan of 3D in general. I had no problem with it (probably because I tested a few minutes of the film when my theatre opened it in December, so I knew what to expect), and am interested in seeing how the technology moves forward, and if it catches on. Beyond Jackson and James Cameron (who is evidently filming his “Avatar” sequels that way), I don’t know about the latter, but I can almost see this being the norm for 3D presentation down the line.
