Oh dear!

Rating: 2/10 (2 January 2014)

Oh dear.
My initial concerns about casting and the unreasonable padding of a fantastic short novel that I voiced in my review for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey still stand. The Hobbit trilogy is already far too long, far too protracted and all about the money. But whereas part one of the unnecessary trilogy was a visual feast that I mostly enjoyed, part two, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, is a few bright scenes away from dull thud.
You don't need a synopsis so we'll skip that part and simply say that Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) and the clutch of dwarfs venture forth through forests and mountains to the lair of the dragon, Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch). There is gold, there are elves, there are ugly creatures that will maim and kill aplenty, there are a couple of wizards (one of which still doesn't belong in this tale), there is often more CGI on screen than reality and there's even a certain gold ring slotted into this arduous one hundred and sixty one (!) minutes.
Let's deal with the front and back ends of The Desolation of Smaug. I knew we were in trouble when the first face we saw was Peter Jackson chomping animatedly on a carrot. Again! As for the end, when the screen cut to black, there was a spontaneous, audible groan from the audience as we realized that, yet again, we had been cheated out of any kind of conclusion. Forget a cliffhanger, what Jackson left us with was the video equivalent of half a sentence. *** MINOR PLOT SPOILER ALERT *** Ignore the title; the 'desolation' it implies has either happened eons ago or will happen in the third installment. When Smaug is on screen it's more a case of The Slight Disturbance of the Piles of Gold of Smaug.
And then there's the dialogue, which includes such greasy smudges as:
"Why don't you search me? I could be hiding something in my trousers."
"Or nothing!"
Yet again characters fill the screen that don't belong: Radaghast (Sylvester McCoy), Legolas (Orlando Bloom) With a book so filled with characters, why on Middle Earth does Jackson insist on mixing up timelines and throwing in trespassers? Is he afraid there isn't a market for his films unless he sexes them up with popular characters?
As my companion once again, Bag, complained, Jackson no longer makes films; he makes platform games with each scene taking us up to another level. Oh, to return to the Jackson of Heavenly Creatures and The Frighteners. In a fit of worry, I slipped my Lord of the Rings extended editions into the DVD player to see if I had lost my love of Middle Earth. I haven't. Those films still rock as five-star triumphs, even with the artistic licence taken to fit them into the running time.
There was an awful lot of fidgeting in the seats beneath and around us that just didn't occur in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and I know at least two members of the audience were fighting very hard to stay awake in the final third. And that just shouldn't be the case.
It's far from being awful; the performances are largely as expected and there are moments of action and adventure to warm the heart and take one back to Tolkien's triumph. For the most part it looks absolutely beautiful. The sets, both physical and digital, are spectacular and the scenery is as breathtaking as ever. But, overlooking the copious CGI, Peter Jackson didn't make New Zealand.
We departed the Directors' Lounge with shoulders slumped, dragging feet, heavy hearts and a new title: The Hobbit: The Disappointment of Bag.
If you're looking for a Freeman/Cumberbatch double act that works, step away from the cinema queue, turn around and visit the BBC for series three (and one and two!) of Sherlock; evidence that you don't need bucket loads of cash to make great entertainment and it really is possible to fit an enthralling story into 90 minutes.
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