Fire and Bombast, Cartoonery and Schmaltz

Rating: 4/10 (12 January 2014)

The first face one sees in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is neither Bilbo's nor Thorin's nor Gandalf's, but director Peter Jackson's, munching a carrot and peeking from the dark streets of Bree directly into the camera. The sight of him jolted me right out of Middle Earth. It was as if the film had started with Jackson cavorting centre screen in jester's guise, bellowing, "Gotcha, sucker!".
And the more I think about this film, the more I feel I've been had. Jackson's Middle Earth cycle has plummeted from the epic high fantasy of The Two Towers to, in Desolation, cartoonery and schmaltz. The action scenes are neither spectacular nor exciting; most are simply silly, flouting the laws of physics and full of the tedious gyrations of Jackson's Indestructible Ninja Elves. (How many consecutive kill shots can you count?) The few attempts at interpersonal communication attempted by the screenplay are drowned by the soundtrack; the musical themes that were apt in Fellowship now seem so overwrought and familiar that they have become parodies of themselves.
Not that the screenplay needed much help to, well, suck. I do not care whether Jackson alters or pads Tolkein's source material. But I do care (at least £25 worth, which is what I paid to see this movie in Odeon's over-hyped "iSense" high-frame rate 3D), that Jackson's liberties are so frequently implausible. I just do not buy, for example, that the wary elves of Mirkwood allowed platoons of orcs (judging by the number of them dispatched by the aforementioned Ninja Elves during the fatuous barrel-riding sequence) to pass within spitting distance of their front door, then cross the forest undetected to launch a surprise attack on the elves' river gate.
And a "morgul shaft"? Really, Peter? Used by an orc? It's bad enough that you're repeating yourself with the whole back-lit she-elf morgul-healer thing. But at least come up with a reason for it that makes sense, instead of simply parroting Tolkeinisms from Fellowship that, apparently, you never really understood. Orcs are the donkey's asses of the evil army. I presume you know this, Peter, as the orcs in Desolation (with, perhaps, two exceptions) exist only to commit gleeful and pointless suicide upon the weapon of any available adversary. Orcs do not casually spray about any sort of rare and powerful magic arrow, let alone anything "morgul". The Witch King, so degraded, must be mad as hell.
There are some good things. The moment when Smaug's hoard slides away from beneath Bilbo's feet to reveal the dragon's eye is the best in the movie, and Smaug is easily the best movie dragon to date. But flaws infect even these good things. Smaug's hoard is suspiciously homogeneous, as if it were not accumulated but instead manifested whole from piles of digitally cloned gold coins. (Ahem.) And Smaug proves to be totally combat ineffective: The dragon goes nuclear on Thorin and company, yet fails to so much as singe a single dwarven beard.
Perhaps Smaug's martial impotence reflects the film as a whole. For all its frenzy, bombast and fire, one can only roll one's eyes, and hope they do better next time.