The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (review)

  

Well. After a year of squealing, watching production videos, watching trailers, and working myself into a lather of fangirling, I finally saw The Desolation of Smaug. Because I'm a nit-picker, this review will mostly be concerned with details and rabbit trails of ranting.

And let me tell you, the ranting will be something to behold. But on with the review!

As I prefaced my review of the first Hobbit film, it's no secret that I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan. When I heard that the Hobbit was going to be made into movies (after a couple of false starts in 2008 and 2010), I instantly re-read my copy, boned up on the Quest of Erebor (Gandalf's side of The Hobbit), scanned through the Appendices…you get the idea. I even read half of the Silmarillion this year (had to quit because of going to Colorado).

After seeing the first installment, I had resigned myself to seeing an adaptation rather than a play-by-play accurate retelling of the book. But since I wasn't upset by the first film I still had hope that the second one would be good.

We arrived a few minutes late, but just in time to see Gandalf and Thorin chatting it up in the Prancing Pony via flashback. This is in line with the Quest of Erebor, where Gandalf explains that he met Thorin at the Prancing Pony, gave him the map and key, and gets the ball rolling for the quest to start. Then the story jumps forward to where the first movie left off: Bilbo and Gandalf and the dwarves are still running from the orcs. Gandalf tells how they can get to Beorn's house, and they make a run for it.

One of my favorite parts of the book—where Gandalf gets them into Beorn's house one at a time and tricks Beorn into letting them stay because he (Gandalf) is telling a good story of their adventure—is completely bypassed in favor of a chase scene where Beorn, in bear form, chases the Company into his house and they have to bar him out. I don't know about you…but if a giant bear wanted to get into his own house, no amount of barring the doors would keep him out. But I digress.

Beorn's house is skipped past quickly. I really liked this version of Beorn, though, and he hints to some backstory that sounded like it would have been an interesting diversion. But nope, orcs are on the hunt, it's on to Mirkwood! 

I did like parts of the foray into Mirkwood, especially when it explains why Gandalf leaves the Company. In the book, Gandalf up and leaves for (apparently) no good reason, but which is explained in Quest of Erebor. Here, a combination of both is used where Gandalf finds a red eye painted on a statue at the beginning of Mirkwood, and he decides to leave them on their quest to go to Dol Guldor. This seems to be shaping up rather nicely, so no complaints here.

The spider attack was AWESOME. I especially like how Bilbo puts the Ring on to disappear, and the heightened senses that accompany the ring-wearing state translate what the spiders are saying about the dwarves. The entire scene made my skin crawl and pull my feet up into my chair, so I consider it well-shot. The dwarves get captured by Legolas and—whoa, wait, my 'non-canon-character' senses are going off!—Tauriel. 

The latter is a red-headed female elf with archery skills and an action chick vibe (i.e., just about every other action chick in a movie for the past 3 years. I have nothing against strong female characters, but is being a badass fighter the only way to show strength? Good grief.) The dwarves get taken to the Mirkwood palace, etc etc. And this is where it starts to go downhill.

See, aside from being an archery chick, Tauriel is part of a love triangle between her, Legolas, and—wait for it—Kili. Yes, one of the dwarves. I may or may not have spent most of the scenes embellishing upon that plot thread with my head in my hands going 'whyyyyyy'. (I'm not a good person to see movies with other people.)

I was very much looking forward to seeing more Thranduil, but somewhat disappointed by the lack thereof. I was hoping that Thranduil's role as an elven king would be expounded upon just a little bit; unfortunately, exposition was not the point of this film. Meh. The only impression I got was that he's very proud (which is in keeping with the books), and the bits where he's questioning Thorin and has to bend down to look him in the eye cracked me up.

(Imagine the same expressions, but from a 3-foot height difference)

Riding the barrels out of Mirkwood was entertaining and exhausting and belief-suspending all at the same time. I suppose the elements of having a chase scene between the dwarves and the elves (Legolas and Tauriel, of course) and the orcs is supposed to be terribly exciting, but forgive me if I quibble on the details.

• First, the tops of the barrels are open. I repeat, the TOPS of the BARRELS are OPEN. And yet they manage to stay upright for the entire ride down the river. It felt and looked like an amusement park ride.·        

Case in point.

•  Second, the only elves involved in the chase are Legolas and Tauriel. Wouldn't you think that if your palace was being attacked and prisoners were escaping that oh, I don't know, your defenses would be a little more well-endowed? But maybe that's just me.

After much special-effect chasing, the dwarves get away. Tauriel decides to go after them since Kili is injured with a poisoned arrow and Leggy follows her, so the love triangle continues. Excuse me while I facepalm.

Then the dwarves go to Laketown by way of Bard the….Bargeman? Whatever. There's lots of chase scenes, Steven Fry as the Master of Laketown, the dwarves explain their quest to the mountain, etc. Oh yes, and Bard is apparently a rabble-rouser and instead of being an archer who has the ability to take down the dragon, the 'black arrow' in the book is upgraded to a giant crossbow bolt with which his ancestor almost killed Smaug during the attack on Erebor and Dale. Big surprise, the crossbow still exists and is just waiting for the opportunity to rain death upon the dragon.

At this point the dwarves split up because Kili is starting to succumb to the poisoned arrow wound. Well…I guess that's following the storyline to its logical conclusion, but by now I was sitting in a state of shock as the plot of the story continued to devolve into a stinking pile of inaccuracy. I haven't even touched on the fact that they're STILL being chased by orcs, who are being chased by elves, and that whole subplot is really, REALLY starting to get on my nerves.

The dwarves are sent off amidst much cheering and carrying-on (except for Bofur, Fili, Kili, and Oin), they go to the mountain, etc, etc. Thus we came to the moment we had all been waiting for: the revealing of Smaug the Mighty, Smaug the Terrible. At first I was excited, but also a bit nervous because of the terrible inaccuracies I had seen thus far. But a slender thread of hope still shone, so I held onto it.

Smaug is revealed little by little—he starts out buried in treasure, then his eye is revealed, and his tail, and bits and pieces at a time we get to see him. It's like the slow unveiling of a master project (which in a way it was, I guess). And he is HUGE. I mean absolutely ENORMOUS. The details were fantastic, and since he was voiced/motion captured by the always amazing Benedict Cumberbatch the final effect was anything but disappointing…except in one tiny detail.

In the illustrations for The Hobbit drawn by Tolkien himself, Smaug is a 4-legged dragon with two wings on his back. I will admit that this conception of such a beast is probably my favorite because it implies a grace and sinister dignity that a bat-winged creature seems to lack. 

This, vs that:

 

 (Credit for the above goes to khyterra on Deviantart)

Knowing my own personal bias, it should come as no surprise that when their idea of Smaug is as a bat-winged dragon, I was a little disappointed. I understand that they may have run into physical issues with animating a 4-legged dragon, especially since nothing like that exists in our world…but ARGH. YOU GUYS HAD ONE JOB. (actually a LOT of jobs, but we won't go there) And instead of a jewel-crusted belly, Smaug has an armored underbelly with one tiny open spot. *eye twitches*

Anyway. Benedict was absolutely smashing as Smaug, bat-wings aside, and I really enjoyed watching the interaction between him and Bilbo. The scene with Smaug is another one of my favorites, so I suppose it shouldn't have come as a surprise when Bilbo spends the majority of it with the ring OFF.

I repeat, the RING is OFF. Remember, in the books they knew that if Smaug caught sight of them they were dead dwarves and hobbit, so stealth was the key to the whole venture. But hey, the specific details of the film have already been butchered anyway, so who cares about a couple more hacks here and there?

Okay. Fine. I could try to make it to the end of the film at least. Bilbo keeps trying to get the Arkenstone, and there's a chase scene where he finally puts the ring on and runs around trying not to get smashed by Smaug. The dwarves come down the back-door tunnel because of the thundering and noise, probably expecting to see a crispy burglar, but instead they find an angry dragon and a frantic Bilbo.

Then—and I kid you not, folks, this is how it goes down—there's a chase scene between Smaug and the dwarves and Bilbo. WHAT THE FREAKIN' CRAP. If Smaug would stop monologuing and just get on with a well-placed spout of fire, they would have been toast. THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF THE STEALTH OF A BURGLAR. They KNEW they couldn't take on the dragon alone or head-on—they saw how well that worked for their brethren years before! They KNEW that Smaug was way more cunning and powerful and evil than they could have hoped to overcome with armies, much less with 14!

This is regardless of the fact that after Bilbo's meeting Smaug (in the book), he flees and Smaug smashes up their camp before flying down to terrorize Laketown. None of the dwarves got to see Smaug in all his terrifying glory anyway, much less try to fight him!

*deep breath*

And to make matters even worse, how do they drive Smaug away? BY MELTING TONS OF GOLD—I couldn't make this up if I tried—POURING IT INTO A GIANT STATUE MOLD, AND LETTING IT EXPLODE ALL OVER THE DRAGON. I repeat, A GOLD-COVERED SMAUG.

Of course that doesn't kill him, and the sight of a furious golden dragon is pretty spectacular, BUT STILL. What did they expect that to do, aside from make him angry and send molten metal spraying everywhere? And Smaug apparently values monologuing over protecting his treasure, because after spewing threats and gold he takes off for Laketown.

Oh yes, and I forgot: Bard is in jail, Kili is being healed by Tauriel (who is now apparently an elf doctor as well as an archer—convenient, no?), Gandalf is imprisoned in Dol Guldor after trying to take on Sauron himself (????), and the orcs are marching to the Lonely Mountain. The latter makes more sense because they need to be there for the Battle of the Five Armies in the next part. But everything else is wrong.

My overall review, then, can be summed up in the following: this was not The Hobbit that we know and love. This was a rambling foray into the darkest depths of fanfiction and filled with action-flick elements that were designed to dazzle and attract the lowest common denominator of movie-goers, not appeal to fans of the original book. There was very little of the appeal of the first film, which played more like a leisurely homage.

That's my problem: instead of a homage to an already-existing story, they butchered it into what they thought would be more interesting to watch and made it into a special-effects-laden fanfic. To that I say: what is the point? The only result is furious existing fans, and droves of non-fans who say 'meh, it was alright, I'd probably watch it again'.

Is that the goal? Trading the existing 'great' for 'all right'? I don't know about you, but that seems like a crummy trade-off to me.