Not getting better unfortunately

Rating: 6/10 (5 January 2014)

"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" is the second of three films depicting Tolkien's "The Hobbit". It's directed like the Lord of the Rings films and the first hobbit movie by Peter Jackson again and also features many of the actors from the previous movies. I have to say I enjoyed the first Hobbit film quite a bit, so I was certainly eager to see this one. Unfortunately, it left me slightly disappointed. It's not much worse than the first and has certainly a handful interesting sequences, but as a whole somehow I wasn't really wowed. The usual criticism about these films is that the book is simply too small to justify three very long movies and while I have been so far of the opinion that it's actually possible to make three good films, this movie has gotten me closer to really understanding the previously mentioned criticism. Also I wouldn't have minded if Jackson had included simply additional characters or story lines to fill the time or just kept the films below the 100-minute-mark.
The first 100 minutes of "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" really really dragged a lot and none of the characters were interesting enough to keep me particularly interested. Had it gone on like that, my rating would have been considerably lower, but thankfully the film really gained steam the moment Smaug wasn't only talked about, but actually entered the picture from the very moment Bilbo stepped into the treasure chamber. This was also a Sherlock reunion for Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman and easily the highlight of the film. The visual effects were fantastic, the treasure chamber with all the gold and coins and jewels was the perfect setting for this very one-sided face-off and I enjoyed every minute of it. I just wish the other parts of the film could have been equally good. However, the love story, the sickness parts or even the motivational moments such as the dwarfs trying to get their home back didn't seem convincing to me at all, sometimes even cringeworthy sadly. Not even Gandalf could really win me over with his scenes although they were certainly among the better ones from the film just because the character is so memorable. The goblin creatures were scary, but I felt they could have been even more intimidating. One really big problem I had with this film was the change of Bilbo. While Freeman did a solid job in portraying him, I just couldn't believe the transformation he took so quickly, even if a lot of it came from the ring, how he rescues everybody from the elves thanks to his wit and speed or how he kills dozens of giant spiders. He felt almost like the James Bond of Middle-earth at some point, not a credible character development looking at how anxious he was just shortly before all his heroic deeds. The aforementioned spider scene is definitely nothing for people with arachnophobia or maybe especially for these if shock therapy may be the right thing. Even I was quite intimidated during that part and the part with the giant spider is also one from the Lord of the Rings films I remember the most.
Anyway, I think they could have easily cut 45 minutes from the second film of the Hobbit trilogy and it would not have hurt the overall picture at all, probably even helped it without some of the less interesting parts. The scenes with Smaug really saved the film from being a complete disaster. Besides that I also liked Stephen Fry in his small part, but I totally love the man and think he's a complete genius, so this may just be personal perception. Here and there, the movie had interesting references back (or forward, I shall say) to Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, but it's not enough to grant a really high rating. I truly hope, the final chapter around Christmas 2014 will be better again.