Entertaining, but stretching choices not always convincing

Rating: 7/10 (15 December 2013)

I'm writing this as a Tolkien reader who was, on the whole, very happy with Jackson's adaptation of "The Lord of the Rings". LotR is a voluminous and complex work that calls for an epic adaptation of considerable length - which Jackson delivered. It wouldn't be a good idea trying to compress the plot of LotR into a single movie of two or three hours, and so the "trilogy" approach worked fine. Now, "The Hobbit" is a different case. A much shorter, simpler book, lighter in tone and meant for children - though some would say that it's still a rather dark example of a children's book, containing elements of tragedy. Jackson is making this book into a film trilogy of approximately the same length as "Lord of the Rings" - of course this isn't possible without stretching the story considerably and adding new material not found in the book. In the first part of Jacksons' "The Hobbit", I found this stretching approach not bothering. The slow pace at which the story unfolded allowed for fine renditions of famous and beloved scenes such as the arrival of the Dwarfs at the home of poor, bewildered Bilbo, or his encounter with Gollum. I'm also fine with the expansion of the role of Radagast (who is merely mentioned in passing in the book) which makes sense to me.
But now, in the second part, I think the stretching partly goes too far, and it's not always stretched where most fitting. For example, I would have liked to see the company wander longer in Mirkwood before the troubles with the spiders start. Tolkien lets them travel in the forest for many days, probably weeks - their provisions running low, they get hungry and quite desperate. There's also a scene not in the movie which would have fitted well, Bombur falling into an enchanted stream and afterwards having to be carried for a while in constant slumber... In the movie, Mirkwood is over too quickly. It's as if they go into the forest, are lost for a short time, but quickly get ambushed by the spiders and then captured by the elves. The oppressiveness and gloom of Mirkwood isn't really developed. Which is a shame, as there's so much time... On the other hand, the movie is spending quite some time on a completely new character, a female wood elf called Tauriel, which, given the almost entire lack of female characters in Tolkien's book, is understandable, but still doesn't blend very well with the story. Also, the attempt of creating a stronger connection to "The Lord of the Rings" by showing the identity and growing strength of the "Necromancer" in Dol Guldur in a rather blunt way is understandable, but in my opinion it could have been done a bit more restrainedly. - However, this is an entertaining movie, and the actors are splendid. Martin Freeman's Bilbo is much more interesting and complex than Elijah Wood's Frodo was, Ian McKellen still a superb Gandalf, Richard Armitage's Thorin is charismatic, and all the other dwarfs are well chosen. Smaug is, I daresay, perfect. Although, speaking of Smaug - this movie ends very abruptly with Smaug flying towards Laketown. Whilst the first part ends naturally in a moment of respite, this one feels more like cut off in the middle than a cliffhanger. I think here the decision of making three instead of two parts is showing after all.