Pass the Popcorn review

Rating: 8/10 (13 December 2013)

It is no secret that the first Hobbit movie – An Unexpected Journey – was somewhat of a let down. The fact that it makes no sense to create a trilogy from a 300 pages book has often been reasonably ridiculed/criticized, and because of this unorthodox (money grabbing) approach to the source material, An Unexpected Journey suffered from serious pacing problems. And when it didn't suffer from pacing problems, it suffered from poorly executed action scenes which looked like something that came straight out of a video game (the sequences in Goblin Town) and from unrelatable and undeveloped characters. After this disappointment, it was hard to tell what to expect from the second installment in the trilogy – The Desolation of Smaug. After watching The Desolation of Smaug, I can safely say that is, if nothing else, better than it predecessor.
The Desolation of Smaug continues where An Unexpected Journey ended. Our party, consisting of thirteen dwarfs + Bilbo (Martin Freeman) & Gandalf (Ian McKellen), are hiding from the orcs and their leader Azog (Manu Bennett). Fortunately, they find a shelter inside a house of a strange being called Beorn (Mikael Persbrandt), who is a skin-changer (shape-shifter), and they spend the night there before leaving for the strange mystical forest of Mirkwood, which is nearby. In front of the entrance to the forest, Gandalf leaves the party since he has to tend to more serious business. Without him, the dwarfs + Bilbo enter Mirkwood where more adventures await.
Without any exaggerating, I think The Desolation of Smaug is the most beautiful movie in the whole Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit franchise to date. The scenery and the cinematography are breathtakingly astonishing. It's worth to see this movie on the big screen for the imagery alone. Everything is beautiful: from the mountains of Erebor to the haunting city of Lake-town. The Desolation of Smaug is a magnificent example of amazing eye candy. Moreover, the characters in the movie are handled better than in An Unexpected Journey. We see how Thorin's (Richard Armitage) dedication to his goal is slowly taking the best of him, and even the other dwarfs have more screen time and lines of dialogue (mainly Fili, played by Aidan Turner). Of course, I have to mention the dragon Smaug, who is definitely the movie's best aspect. It was worth to sit through almost two whole movies to see that dragon. Benedict Cumberbatch (who also voiced The Necromancer character) did an awesome job at voicing and supplying the motion-capture for the dragon. In addition to all this things, I thoroughly enjoyed the sequences in the 'trippy' forest of Mirkwood, up until the elves arrived.
Speaking of elves, they are what nearly ruined the movie for me. Prior to the release of this movie, everyone was wondering how will they deal with the character of Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), a character who was completely made up for the sake of this movie. From my perspective, her character was dealt with rather poorly. She serves no actual purpose, other than being a generic romantic interest, and her whole relationship with Kili was rather cheesy – especially the dialogues. Unfortunately, the problems with elves don't stop here – most action scenes including elves look ridiculously goofy and campy. Furthermore, the character of king Thranduil (Lee Pace), Legolas's father, is as charismatic as a bowl of soup. Apart from the elves, the only major problem I had with the movie is its length and pacing. The Desolation of Smaug handles its pacing much better than An Unexpected Journey did, but I can't shake the feeling the movie would have been even better if it were 20 minutes shorter. However, if you can overlook the flaws I mentioned here, you'll probably enjoy The Desolation of Smaug more than almost every other blockbuster movie released this year.
Rating: 8/10 Read more reviews at http://passpopcorn.com/