Another Awesome Addition To Jackson's Middle Earth!

Rating: 9/10 (3 January 2014)

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is a film directed by Peter Jackson, and stars Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Ian McKellen and Benedict Cumberbatch. The film picks up from where the previous installment, An Unexpected Journey, left off, with Bilbo, Gandalf and the dwarfs venturing to Erebor. Along the way, they meet elves, orcs and eventually, a great dragon, in one hell of an adventure!
I wasn't a big fan of An Unexpected Journey. It didn't, to me at least, feel like a Lord of the Rings film. It certainly wasn't bad; it just didn't compare to the trilogy that we saw beforehands. I gave it a 6.8. An admirable, but disappointing score for a film so hyped. Desolation of Smaug, on the other hand, feels like a proper Jackson Middle-Earth film. It's grand, emotional, epic and ultimately, a bliss to watch. We finally get into a rhythm which I enjoy, and this time, we don't have to sit through half an hour of Shire to get to the good stuff. We can dive in from the word go!
Performance wise, this film does really well. Martin Freeman is fantastic as Bilbo Baggins, although he doesn't get nearly as much time to himself on screen as he did in Unexpected Journey, to my disappointment. It's not too much of a problem, fortunately, because the rest of the cast performs pretty damn well! Ian McKellen as Gandalf never fails! He's amazing as an old, but certainly badass wizard, who actually gets to do some badass action scenes here, unlike Unexpected Journey! And Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield... He was formidable and awesome in the previous installment, but here, he really stands out as the leader. The rest of the dwarfs do well, as well as the rest of the ensemble. Performance wise, I think this is a really awesome film!
The score... Something I have mixed feelings about. As a solo listen, it's not fantastic. Not nearly as good as Unexpected Journey or any of the Lord of the Rings scores, although it does fairly well within the film. It conveys dread, which is a real theme within the film, so on that count, Howard Shore has excelled. The post credits song, I See Fire by Ed Sheeran is something I truly adore! I think Peter Jackson made the right call on getting Sheeran to give us a song which wrapped up the film in spectacular fashion!
I love where the story goes here. Desolation feels a little like Two Towers, for me. They just get straight into the thick of it from the beginning, run with it, and send you off on some really awesome notes, leaving you anticipating the next film. I loved seeing Bilbo become a popular figure in this group in which he originally was a complete outcast from. From saving the group in a fight, to figuring out a puzzle, to, you know, running into a mountain in which an incredibly dangerous, gigantic, powerful dragon lays, Bilbo helps the group out and gets his hands dirty, which was good to see. I certainly liked the pacing, as well. I feel like Jackson can make long, drawn out scenes work very well, and this film is a perfect display of that. From beginning to end, this film keeps you invested, interested, and ultimately, incredibly entertained!
I do have some specific positives and negatives that I feel I really do need to talk about. Smaug the dragon. Honestly... One of the coolest things in general, I've seen from a film in 2013. Benedict Cumberbatch as the dragon was a stroke of genius, and to be honest, it made the character so much more menacing than he should've been. When Smaug crawls out from under his pits of gold, it literally takes your breath away. Smaug is huge, terrifying and quite mesmerising. He easily sold the show for me. To add to this, I also found the action so much more better than the action in the previous installment. Whilst this film does defy logic and physics a few times, it does turn a little grittier than An Unexpected Journey, which refused to cut off a single head! How dare Jackson! Fortunately, we get some brutal, awesome action here, that remedies the lack of brutality An Unexpected Journey had. On the negative side, I do have a problem with the character of Tauriel. As we all know, Jackson added her in despite the fact that she wasn't included in the source material. Was that a good move? I don't think so, unfortunately. Yes, she was formidable and she was slightly interesting, but when she suddenly falls for a dwarf, I just couldn't take it seriously! It was a bad story telling decision, and one that really didn't need to happen! As well as my hate towards Tauriel, I do have a problem with a little of the CGI. WETA seem to have stuffed up various shots, and there were a few CGI characters which felt so disconnected to this world that Jackson had created. Fortunately, WETA did very well for the majority of the running time. It was just a few stuff ups here and there that bugged me a little.
In conclusion, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is a powerful, awesome addition to the Peter Jackson Middle Earth film collection. The film advances all the characters, includes some awesome action and gives us one of the best CGI monsters I've ever seen in Smaug. Jackson may have stuffed up at few points, and they aren't all forgettable; nonetheless, the positives far outweigh the negatives. Desolation of Smaug is a wonderful film, and one of the best films of 2013!
9.4/10