There’s real gold in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

I really hated The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I’ve never read the book, so it didn’t bother me that it wasn’t the book, or was a mish-mash of the book and appendices and other non-Hobbit material. No, I just hated it because it was long and boring and just meandered to nowhere with battle after battle that did nothing but show off the special effects crew’s CGI wizardry, and gave audiences little in the way of story or characters. I also really hated the 48 frames-per-second (HFR) projection which made the whole thing look like a really bad video production. Which also made me nauseous.

So it was with much trepidation that I went into the second film in the trilogy, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Thankfully, we were not subjected to the HFR 3D version, but we did get to see it in 3D. Now the movie at least looks like it belongs with the original Lord of the Rings trilogy, so points were earned right at the start. And the movie grabbed me right from the beginning with a prologue set prior to the events seen in the first film, with Gandalf (Ian McKellan) meeting Thorin (Richard Armitage) and setting him about his journey to reclaim his land and his kingdom from the dragon Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch).

The story then picks up where we left off in the last one with Thorin, his dwarf companions and the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) making their way to the Lonely Mountain. They must cross the dark, dangerous forest Mirkwood – without the aid of Gandalf, who is called off on another mission – while evading the dangerous, giant spiders that reside there, deal with their imprisonment by the elves (led by Legolas, who isn’t in the book, and Tauriel, who is simply made up for the movie), and pass through Lake-town before getting to the mountain. Meanwhile, Gandalf is off trying to deal with the Necromancer, who was barely seen in the first film, so we still don’t know what part he plays in this story.

And then there is Smaug. He doesn’t make his appearance until about midway through the movie, but the wait is worth it. Smaug is a fierce creature with a silky smooth voice who will do anything it takes to protect his treasure. He’s like Gollum and the ring, times a thousand, although he’s anything but deranged. The cat and mouse game between Smaug and Bilbo is written and staged terrifically, and the CGI effects are some of the most realistic seen yet on screen (you can actually see the skin on Smaug’s wings stretch as he climbs a wall). But with Smaug’s awakening and seeming failure to keep his treasure safe, the denizens of Lake-town are put in jeopardy … and we’re given a helluva cliffhanger.

Everything I hated about An Unexpected Journey has been corrected in The Desolation of Smaug. While the first movie focused more on Bilbo, this one is all about Thorin and his quest to return home. Richard Armitage gives a terrific performance buried under a ton of hair and special effects to become the dwarf king, making you root for him to get into the mountain and reclaim his throne. But we also see a dark side to him at one point, making Bilbo wonder if the things Smaug told him about his place with the dwarfs was true.

Armitage is almost upstaged by Ken Stott as the elderly dwarf Balin. Balin’s obviously been around awhile and he has the most wisdom of them all, and also the most compassion … and he knows exactly how to sweet talk his way into securing passage on a boat to Lake-town. Stott’s performance was just really authentic, filled with a range of emotions and, even in dire situations, never loses that twinkle in his eye.

Director Peter Jackson keeps the pace moving much more briskly than the first movie, juggling multiple storylines and keeping the big action scenes to a minimum (and it’s no surprise that the film looks and sounds amazing, even with the overly bombastic score). But, being the second chapter of a trilogy, some may find the film a bit unsatisfying as it presents more questions than answers and leaves us hanging with no resolution to Thorin’s quest. Why did Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) instruct Gandalf to seek out the Necromancer (also Cumberbatch)? What part do Bard (Luke Evans) and the Master of Lake-town (Stephen Fry) play in the story? What is it that the elf king Thranduil (Lee Pace) really wants from Smaug’s treasure trove of gold and jewels? Will dwarf Kili (Aidan Turner) survive and have a romance with elf Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly)? There really is a lot going on in this movie, and even at two hours, forty-five minutes, it still feels like half the running time of the first movie. It never gets boring, that’s for sure.

Of course, the purists are still not going to be happy that the movies are not the book, but anyone who really disliked the first movie should at least find more to like in this one. I had much trepidation going in, but even as the last scene cut to black with Bilbo saying, “What have we done?”, I was more than ready to see more right then and there. But we have one more year and one more film to go before Jackson wraps up his second Tolkien trilogy, and based on what he’s brought to The Desolation of Smaug, I’m now more than anxious to go There and Back Again.