Restraint? Who Needs That?

Rating: 7/10 (6 January 2014)

First of all, The Desolation of Smaug is far more watchable than An Unexpected Journey. Why? Because there is enough content (plot developments, action) to actually fill up the lengthy running time. And that is no surprise, as this installment represents the most substantive part of the source material.
As many others have mentioned, this is still best accurately described as "a film inspired by the Hobbit" than a straight adaption of the book itself. And there are still some issues that I have with it. But at least I did not feel like I had wasted my money in going to see this one.
The Good - The cast is almost uniformly wonderful, both old and new. Martin Freeman is perfect as Bilbo, although unfortunately he gets a bit lost in the myriad of other story lines here. Of the newcomers, Evangeline Lilly (Tauriel) and Luke Wilson (Bard) stand out to me. And Mikael Persbrandt does an excellent job with his very brief screen time as Beorn (his scene easily being one of my favorite parts of this film). The outdoor cinematography is lovely, as we've come to expect. And of course Smaug himself is, if you'll pardon my choice of words, freaking fantastic, both in appearance and voice. That is key, because this story is really all about the dragon. Or at least it should be.
The Not So Good - The action sequences are exercises in numbing excess. Physically unrealistic, overly long, and looking like video games due to unnecessary overuse of CGI. A bit of restraint could have made these scenes much more genuinely dramatic and realistic. The orcs, wargs and so forth are mostly CGI themselves, which just makes them look fake. There are some changes to the story that could have been done without. And I have never watched any films with more heavy-handed musical scoring than these first two Hobbit films. Occasionally, there is a moment of silence, and it is profoundly affecting because it helps build genuine suspense. They really should lay off on the grand/epic orchestral cues. Often, they come across feeling much more forced than natural.
There are a couple of other things that I would mention, one good and one bad. To get the bad out of the way first, the character of Azog the Defiler adds very little if any value to these films and his quest to kill Thorin just takes away from the more important other story lines going on at the same time. Add to that the fact that he is an obviously CGI creation...I would edit Azog out of this film in a heartbeat.
The other good thing is Evangeline Lilly's character, Tauriel. As much as I bemoan most of the changes to and additions to what is actually in the book, I love this new character. She's beautiful, brave, energetic, genuinely engaging and provides a nice counterpoint to all of the boys. Even though she is an elf, she brings a great deal of humanity to this film, as someone far more relatable than many of the other characters. Do some aspects of Tauriel strain the canon-credibility of this film? Maybe, but even as a bit of a Tolkien purist myself, I don't care. I love her.
Overall, this film is decent. It has lots of action, a fairly brisk pace, some humor and even romance, and a spectacular realization of the most essential single thing about this story, Smaug. This is essentially supposed to be a story about a bunch of dwarfs trying to take back a mountain from a dragon. The films have added a bunch of other plot lines, which do distract a bit, but in the case of this film in particular, it all works out fairly well. I do not think that it will stand up to repeated viewings in the same way as the best films do, but it's a great ride in the theater. (Maybe a bit frightening for younger children, at some parts.)