Back to Middle-Earth! The Hobbit 2 - Noodles Review

Rating: 9/10 (19 December 2013)

While it's still not the perfection I hoped for, it's still a treat. The second installation in The Hobbit trilogy (serving as a prequel to The Lord of the Rings trilogy) brings us back to Middle Earth with style and houses a grand feeling of adventure which is the main element I wanted out of this series. The Lord of the Rings is collectively my personal favorite movie of all time. I can say that it's pleasant to have read the book yet not completely know how all the events in the film will unfold. Though some die-hard fans will say that it's too starkly different from the book, I say that's what we should come to accept now. The outside story arcs that aren't in the book (such as Gandalf's personal quest to see if darkness has returned), all make sense and, for the most part, don't feel out-of-place at all. Desolation of Smaug has the right tone throughout the movie; the tone I was looking for in the first movie. In the first one, it held more of a familial tone, and while this film is still a fun-for-family movie, I feel like it grew up and became more like a Lord of the Rings movie (and that's exactly what we want!).
The casting is so well done that the actors/actresses fit their roles so well. They look like essentially exactly what I would imagine them to look like while reading the books or thinking about the characters. Just as well, the acting is pretty much stellar. Martin Freeman proved to me in An Unexpected Journey that he is the definitive Bilbo. He kills it in this role and he nails every expression, mannerism, hobbit-ism, and line in the exactly the way that he should. Also, you can see that his character has grown. I like to see character growth, especially when it's not overtly- clichéd. We saw in the first movie that he was still a homesick peaceful guy, even on the adventure. But he grew since then, and we can see here that he's grown quite courageous, as well as cunning. He even is responsible a lot of the time for getting the gang out of trouble in a bunch of situations. The company of dwarfs is still well acted done and the leader, Thorin Oakenshield, feels even more heroic and leader-like in this film. As well as Gandalf, but we all already know that he's an inherent bad-ass. And then we have the elves. Legolas, who was my favorite character in The Lord of the Rings trilogy for most of my life, is still awesome in this movie. His actions scenes make this movie so much cooler and appealing. However, it's noticeable that he's like a different character in this movie. He's arrogant and comes off as a jerk. I realized that this comes to play in his overall character arc over the span of the entire series, and imagine he'll grow into a more humble warrior in the next movie. The other elf is Tauriel. However she's not in any of the books whatsoever; she was completely made up for this movie. However, she definitely feels like she belongs there and she's acted well. The one thing is just that there's a bit of a small romance and it feels a little bit forced and childish, so I don't think that really fit. A lot of things in this movie, you can tell were shoehorned in by Peter Jackson, especially the involvement of Legolas and Tauriel, but it's executed in such a way that it feels like it belongs there. But the character who really belongs here is Smaug. Smaug is the dragon who lives in the Lonely Mountain, which is where the Company of Dwarfs is journeying to in order to reclaim it as their kingdom. Smaug, is voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch; and they could not have picked anyone better. He lends just the right tone of voice and speaks so articulately; it's amazing. Smaug gives off the perfect vibe of arrogance; you can tell he condescends upon everyone. He was a memorable character and he was so menacing that I don't think I'll ever forget him as a movie antagonist.
The special effects are also breathtaking. The dragon is designed so flawlessly. The CGI in other scenes was mostly on point; however it did slack a little bit at some moments, so there's a minor gripe there. The goblins are done better in this movie though. One of my major gripes with the first movie is that firstly, the baddies were done with CGI, and secondly, I could easily tell they were. Thankfully in this movie, a lot of them are done with makeup and prosthetics so there's a more realistic and gritty feel to them. The feel of the entire movie is much more exciting. One of my main problems with first movie was that it had pacing issues and lot of it felt slow or uninteresting. But Desolation is turned on for pretty much all of it 161-minute runtime; it's exciting and something's happening, almost all the time. It slows down a bit, but that could just be in relativity because the rest of the movie there's so much stuff happening.
All in all, Desolation of Smaug is a greatly welcomed installment to the series, and it's a great improvement over the first movie. It's more-so like An Unexpected Journey was actually just building up to the events of this film. This movie capitalizes on a lot of what it's got; the characters and action are spectacular, while the overall scope and tone are going in the right direction. Hopefully, the final film in the trilogy will veer towards even greater excellency, as there is still room to improve. However, The Desolation of Smaug as a movie is the opposite of a desolation.