1# Movie Review - The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug

Courtesy of http://www.comingsoon.net

I got to go and see The Hobbit on Saturday and to tell you the truth I was quite impressed. The first film fell flat for and while their were assorted musings throughout, but the overall adventure felt a bit forced. **Spoiler alert** The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug started off in the little town outside of the Shire called Bree with a short cameo of Peter Jackson in his second walk on role since the first Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson was attempting to recapture the glory of the previous Lord of the Rings films by revisiting the place where the adventure started, the Prancing Pony. This time there were no Ringwraiths in search of an all powerful ring. However there were two assassins in search of a lone dwarf king named Thorin Oakenshield. As Thorin sat alone at his table ready to act before the assassins did Gandalf arrives. Gandalf urges Thorin to reclaim his homeland and be king under the mountain . Months later Thorin, Gandalf, Baggins, and dwarf company are sharing in an adventure. They've just climbed down a giant peak, which the eagles left them on at the end of the last film. Those eagles aren't very helpful. Why couldn't they just drop them off at the foot of the Lonely Mountain? Here's why and while this is not a very good excuse in the book the reason is that the eagles worry men will fire at them because I guess they men fear giant flying creatures ever since Smaug. Anyways back to the adventure the gang is outrunning Azog the Defiler, the one with the egg beater for a prosthetic and his gang of orcs atop fiendish wolf-hyena crossbred Wargs. They seek refuge in the home of the bear man Boren. Boren admits to them that, "I hate dwarves, but I hate orcs more." With a strange snaggle-tooth smile he let's them take some horses to the edge of the dark forest of Mirkwood. Gandalf tells them to follow the straight and narrow path and Bilbo asks why they can't go around. Gandalf argues that if they go around it will take them 200 miles out of their way. Gandalf leaves them to pursue a side quest. The dwarves go into Mirkwood, lose their mind, and start running in circles. While they are at each other's throats Bilbo is keen to strum a spiderweb, which send shock waves through the entire forest alerting these huge elephant sized spiders. After a near death experience with spiders, they are confronted by the Mirkwood elves, Legolas, a female version of Legolas known as Tauriel, more orcs, and then a dragon named Smaug, who got up on the wrong side of the treasure trove.

I never thought that you could take a simple 300 page novel and make into three movies each averaging about three hours. I guess what Peter Jackson attempted to do was put 100 pages into each film, glean from the appendices and the Smiliron, and then add extra characters to fill in the gaps. The thing that Director Peter Jackson does best is giving us a sense of awe and wonder as he stands by his 48 fps. The second entry into the Hobbit films is a stunning visual and digital masterpiece. This is special effects at its best.

By far the greatest sequence of the film was the barrel ride. This barrel ride is ten times better and scarier than the River Run Rapids at Disneyland. The barrel ride is the quintessential action sequence for 2013. There has never been an action sequence like this before on screen, each moment is filled with nonstop action, an ever building tension with the constant threat of death. The scenes moves quick as the surging white water rapids and the horde of orcs pursuing the dwarves.  

The other great scene in this movie would have to be Smaug. When we get our first glimpse at the massive treasure horde under the mountain it is absolutely breath taking, in fact it has been said they used up all the gold paint in Hollywood just make it look realistic. When we first see the treasure there is no sign of the dragon and Bilbo believes the dragon Smaug is no more until a pile of coins moves revealing Smaug's closed eye. More coins move and we are given an idea to the enormity of Smaug.

The next scene that follows is motion capture at its best and while the hobbit had the all too scary moment of Gollum and Baggins playing riddles, this scene had another element entirely. The first time Smaug spoke one of his best lines was, "You brought something with you, something gold, something that is precious to you." Smaug's deep smoldering voice can only describe as epic and how all dragons should sound. Bilbo and Smaug have a "heated" confrontation, which leads to the ultimate chase through the mines.

The other thing was Gandalf's side quest and while this does little to move the actual Hobbit story along, it tries its best to weave the Hobbit movies with the Lord of the Rings. Gandalf ultimately meets up with the necromancer a dark entity of lord Sauron himself imbued in the flames of the flaming red eye from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I felt this scene was an unnecessary scene, throughout the movie we are aware of Sauron's ever growing presences and we don't need to be reminded that he is the one looking for his all powerful ring.

Overall the best part about the movie has to be the fast paced barrel ride and the grand appearance of the Smaug, king under the mountain. It is a move defiantly worth seeing, much better than the slow paced first Hobbit film, but the two prequels live in the shadow of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and while it may never live up to the sheer grandeur of the original films it gives us insight into how the ring came to the shire and how the whole war started in the first place.