The middle chapter of the (possibly) much anticipated Hobbit trilogy hit screens here in Oz back on Boxing Day and, rather impressively given my inability to get to the cinema much last year, I have managed to see it (in a cinema no less!) within a week or so of it’s release. Unfortunately though, while the first film, An Unexpected Journey, managed to far exceed admittedly low expectations, The Desolation of Smaug not only regressed to the mean so to speak, it flipped the whole bell curve on its head.

When it was first announced that the not particularly substantial (we’re talking around 300 or so pages) The Hobbit was to be adapted into 3 films I along with quite a few others was reasonably sceptical. I didn’t see that first film at the cinema – the first JRR Tolkien adaptation I hadn’t seen immediately upon release – and when I did finally get around to watching it I was on a plane staring at a tiny screen on the back of another passengers seat, not exactly how I imagine Peter Jackson had envisioned people consuming the film. To my surprise however, Hobbit part 1 was a largely enjoyable experience; it was comforting to be back in the world of Middle Earth, the CGI had improved noticeably since the early naughties and the departures from the original text were all in keeping with tone and spirit of that text. An Unexpected Journey was one of my pleasant surprises of the 2012/13 holiday releases and, feint praise as it may be, increased my positive anticipation levels for part 2.

To be fair, many of the failings of The Desolation of Smaug were present in the book version of the story and there wasn’t really a lot that could be done to correct them. The Hobbit was written as a children’s book (my copy has pictures!), a charming adventure story for young boys but one that works just as well boy older boys (as well as girls of all ages for that matter). As such, the readership isn’t expected to dwell on the departures of logic too much so long as the adventure keeps on rolling. As a film this is more of a problem because the audience has a visual representation of what the author was merely describing. Its one thing to describe an elf battling hundreds of orcs or a group of dwarves evading a ginormous dragon for 30 odd minutes, its another thing to see it happen on screen at cringe at the repeated coincidences, strokes of luck and downright stupidity of the antagonistic characters.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of films have this issue, too many if we’re being honest, and I get that it’s a fine line between making the hero appear courageous and resourceful and making the villain(s) seem ridiculously incompetent. I just think that The Desolation of Smaug moves way too far to the wrong side of that line.  My biggest problem with the film though, aside from Smaug considerately avoiding damaging the kingdom under mountain on his original visit and subsequent 500+ year residence, is the crowbarring in of links to Lord of the Rings trilogy, as if the audience wasn’t already aware of the fact that this is essentially a direct prequel. I could see what they were going for in introducing Sauron (the Necromancer) and bringing back Legolas for a much too extended cameo, there was just far too much of it; it felt as if I was repeatedly being hit over the head with a sledgehammer named foreshadowing. Ditto for the long takes of Bilbo fondling the ring. The explanation of why Sauron appears as a giant flaming eye in LotR is understandable but almost hilariously unnecessary here. 

I could go on with the criticisms for a while longer but my accusations  regarding the film’s lack of brevity would become rather hypocritical. Still there are a few more to get off my chest (1) there were far too many beats taken straight from the LotR playbook: the Arkenstone as macguffin is presented as nothing more than the one ring light, the building to an epic final battle, the beautiful she-elf having romantic feelings for a member of another race and (spoiler alert) Gandalf gets captured by the enemy again amongst others; (2) a lot of the dialogue — neither Tolkien’s or Jackson’s strong suit in my opinion — is a little bit grating and quite frequently delivered agonisingly slowly and in as grave a tone of voice as possible as an attempt to further force home the gravity of the situation; and (3) splitting the narrative into 3 threads is, again, too much of a stretch and one really affects the pacing in the final act.

On the positive side of things, Martin Freeman as Bilbo is again very solid and offers much more than the 2 facial expressions Elijah Wood relied upon as Frodo in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the fight sequences I will begrudgingly admit do have an appealing ‘cool’ factor, the dragon itself is mighty impressive visually and vocally (kudos Benedict Cumberbatch) and there is a pleasing absence of songs and or/verses. The dwarves, save 3 or 4 of them, were mostly forgettable although introducing some moral ambiguity to their leader Thorin Oakenshield was a refreshing wrinkle in an otherwise by-the-book saga of good versus evil.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is not a terrible movie but it is a terribly frustrating movie. Well done to the filmmakers for managing to cram a 90 minute film into 161 minutes of screen time but I’m afraid the padding used, I’m assuming, to round out the story could have been better utilised under my arse. As a spectacle alone it does what it sets out to do and the CGI and action sequences are very good however there is simply too much excess here and I couldn’t help wondering if it would ever come to a conclusion – a common  My expectations for the concluding chapter in this cash cow trilogy have been once again been lowered but that it probably a good thing. If you have a spare 3 hours and aren’t totally abhorrent of fantasy films I’d say go and see it for yourself although I must include a disclaimer stating the aforementioned 3 hours will more likely feel like 4 or 5.