Now, that's more like it.

Rating: 8/10 (21 December 2013)

The desolation of Smaug was really great. I don't usually start my reviews like this but this movie was breathtaking. Without prolonging, let me begin to dissect the movie piece by piece.
1) The acting and characters. Unlike the first movie this one really got the characters going. Each and every one of them had their moment on the screen and all of them were presented in a manner that pictured their character's personality perfectly. The dwarfs were brilliantly played and were as entertaining as they were presented. Ken Stott as Balin had a little less screen time that in the first movie, but that opened room for the others to shine. Here one actually had a feeling that all of the dwarfs were present at all time. Armitage was as good as in the first movie and he really presented Thorin as a leader. One you could follow without question and/or doubt. His charisma was flawless. Freeman's transformation from that scared-of-everything in the first movie to this real live epic hero is beyond me. How he did that was a question only he can answer, and I believe that this is his life role. His final statement before the end credits was so powerful and so lifelike one forgets he is acting. The only real problem was McKellen. He was literally shoved out of the move. His storyline was extremely short and his character was not able to impose himself on the screen. Of course, if no elements of Silmarillion were implemented, there would be no McKellen, so all is forgotten because even if he had a small amount of screen time he was, as usual, great. Legolas and Tauriel. Now that was a nice surprise. Evangeline Lilly's out of this world beauty and elegant acting made her a believable elf giving the movie a nice touch of new. Bloom's character was darker, more violent. The LOTR Legolas was nothing like this. A much more interesting character than one can expect knowing him from the LOTR movies. Luke Evans was a nice surprise. His character was nicely played. The duality of his persona was done nicely, but could have been done a bit better. He, I thought, was a bit lost in his character, not knowing what to play at certain points, but even with that remark he was amusing and intriguing. And last but not least - Smaug! I have seen horror movies scare people less that this calamity that we saw on the screen. What a character! His voice, his size and evil were magical! It spilled from the screen into each and every one of the people in the audience. Fear and terror was what we felt when he appeared, and I must say, I have never been so afraid of a character like that in my movie watching life. Benedict gave him a soul and I do not believe a meaner character could have been presented to us. Brilliant. Now, as you can tell, this movie is less focused on the environment and more focused on the characters. I have not evaluated all of them because that would take a lot of space and time, so just watch the movie and decide for yourself.
2) The music. A bit of a disappointment. Only a couple of new tones - e.g. Laketown. Heard over and over again, nothing interesting.
3) Dynamics. The movie is fast. Almost so fast that I was amazed how much time passed since the movie began to the end credits. The spider battle and elven captivity were presented in a couple of short sequences (at least it felt like that). Everything felt like Jackson was rushing us toward the end of the movie. And then, after the magnificent sequence of the barrel ridding fight with an orc pack (one of the two best sequences of the movie), everything slows down. The movie splits into four story lines and terrible editing begins. Jackson tried to create an effect of simultaneousness. All of the story lines violently crashed into each other, they were harshly ended and some of them were way longer than necessary (e.g. Killy and Tauriel's extremely unnecessary "love" tail). Now, if we just examine the Smaug fight (the second of two best parts of the movie) it is SPECTACULAR with one minor problem - it's too damn long. And this is where we come to the worst problem - the crossing over of story lines gave an effect of unnecessary time overdue to a storyline that deserved way less time, and because of that a storyline that deserved to be the climax was cut into many smaller segments not giving the chance to climax in total.
4) The ending. Looking back after a good night sleep, it ended great. With two magnificent phrases and an angry feeling of - WE WANT MORE!!! It is clear that Jackson wanted exactly that kind of emotion.
One thing is clear. An unexpected journey was boring and too long, The desolation of Smaug is fast paced, filled with great story lines and characters but with bad editing. I cannot escape the feeling that everything is somehow just a preparation for the third movie. If so, I believe that the third installment of the Hobbit trilogy will blow our minds. Still, a bitter taste remains. As an amateur critic, a movie fan, a Tolkien fan, a Jackson fan I will state that The Hobbit would have been a way better project if split only into two movies. This way, the third installment better be a masterpiece.