THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG

SYOPSIS –The quest to the Misty Mountain continues as a looming danger begins to make its presence felt. Don’t you just hate it when someone pontificates needlessly and makes every spurious fallacious and redundant attempt to avoid arriving at a clear concise undiluted noncomplex simplistic conclusion? Or rather don’t you hate it when someone won’t just get to the point; this was the crux of my problem with the first instalment of this trilogy (out before this blog started). Did even the most diehard Tolkien fan think we needed the song about putting Bilbo’s dishes away? In this second instalment things move much more quickly so that the long run time does not feel quite so drawn out. It helps that we get thrown right into the action after only a brief flashback (that actually serves a purpose). Because the pace feels much faster it’s easier to put up with exposition heavy scenes where we have to hear about what someone’s ancestor did that will somehow tie in later. This is good because though there is plenty of action there is also plenty of exposition and moody brooding to get through. Another reason I feel Desolation works better than an Unexpected Journey is the dwarves’ journey and the wider looming threat tie into each other better, you can see how one affects the other and, as a result, the film feels more fluid and complete. Director Peter Jackson also seems less afraid of straying from the source text when it is more pragmatic to do so for the sake of the film. Although this might provoke an outcry from the fan base it is, on the whole,better for the story. Martin Freeman continues to give a strong performance as Bilbo capturing the strength and vulnerability of the character. Richard Armitage as Thorin also stands out as a darker side begins to come to the front of his character. Though not appearing until near the film’s climax Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) does not disappoint or detract from the hype he has received, the special effects working well with Cumberbatch’s vocal performance. The dwarves feel more like a group of individuals than simply a group of faceless non-entities. Not all of the new features are for the best; we get a generic love story that sticks out from the story by its crowbarred insertion. The ending of the film feels a bit slapdash – as if Jackson suddenly realised he needed to the characters from C to E and had to skip D. On the whole though this is a solid enjoyable film and sets up the final film in the trilogy FINAL VERDICT 8/10 Good special effects and strong writing combine to make the adventure come to life.