The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Sheila O’Malley started her review out by saying, “Tolkien's parenthetical "when achieved" is the kicker of that statement, the acknowledgement of how difficult and rare successful fantasy really is.” You know it when you see it. She apparently did not find that quality in the first Hobbit movie of Peter Jackson’s colossal trilogy based on Tolkien’s short book, but it is there in spades in part two, “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” released in 2013. This center chapter is about a half-hour longer, and the final third splits the story into three parts, which hurts the narrative force that had been building, but that’s fine: the dragon Smaug, voiced with such a delightful sneering evil by Benedict Cumberbatch, the real work has been done. The thematic elements are in place, the emotional tensions are really high, and the action unravels in a flourish like the fire coming out of the dragon’s mouth, overtaking everything in its way.

Except for a flashback which shows Gandalf and the exiled dwarf king Thorin Oakenshield, played by Richard Armitage, coming together in what O’Malley described, “a dark and beer-soaked pub straight out of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales",” this one picks up where the last one left off, with Bilbo and the fellowship of loud dwarves deep into their journey to reclaim the Lonely Mountain and the dwarves’ lost kingdom.

Bilbo, along unwillingly from his comfortable hole-in-the-ground in the Shire in the first film, is now prepared to accept his fate, and shows imagination and pull in one traumatic situation after another. He’s also got the “One Ring” he found in the goblin cave – the one that makes him invisible, the one that no one else knows about, not yet. It will become quite useful. Gandalf tries to keep the team together, but goes off on his own solo spell-break mission (which Tolkien’s book hints is undertaken by Gandalf to force Bilbo to gain the trust of the dwarves on his own).

Along the way, the protagonists find shelter in the home of a shape-shifting Giant-slash-Bear, and are attacked by a herd of Orcs. O’Malley goes on to say, “To save time, they cut through the Mirkwood Forest and run into a terrifying herd of gigantic attacking spiders, in a scene doomed to give me nightmares for months. (I have barely recovered from reading that scene in the book when I was 10 years old.)” Saved and then captures by the isolationist-minded elves (Robin Kerr, Simon London and Lee Pace), the dwarves and Bilbo find a way to escape in a bunch of barrels down a river, being attacked from the army of orcs and elves alike.

Some old friends show up: the awesome Legolas and Galadriel. There’s a new elf in this one, Tauriel, played by Evangeline Lilly, who becomes one of the dwarves love interest. O’Malley mentions, “The romantic triangle she sparks has nothing to do with anything, but it is still nice to see Tauriel act as a deus ex machina on a couple of occasions.” Stephen Fry has a great cameo as the Master of Lake-Town, a wicked and gout-ridden person ruling it over his fearful citizens from on high. O’Malley is right when she says, “it's a Dickensian piece of scene-chewing.”

Jackson and his crew have a lot of fun creating these three-dimensional worlds, overwhelming us with different moods, energies, and personalities. Some of the images are jaw-dropping: the Long Lake enfolded in mist with mysterious structures coming out of it. The misty dark wood covered with shadowy creatures waiting. The elegant upright palace of the elves, comforting and yet firm, too, suggesting the elves’ unwillingness to get involved in the larger dark enemies taking over the outside world. The final fight with the dragon, when it arrives, is worth the wait (although it would have been better if the wait hadn’t been as long as it was). The dragon’s palace is beautifully imagined, a surging and ever-changing landscape of coins and gold. There are lots of great moments: an enormous tapestry falling from the wall in a flowing wave, huge collapsing columns, and small walkways over the deep hole and the dwarves’ visible fear at their ancestors’ originality and power. Throughout, you get the feeling that you really are in a lost and beautiful world.

For all its capacity, there’s also a kind of ordinary hilarity in Tolkien’s book – as O’Malley puts it, “a "Tut tut, isn't everything just a bit much?" energy, stereotypically British, which has sometimes been lost in the other films, overwhelmed as they are by portent and meaning.” It’s not lost this time. For instance, the barrel sequence goes on for what seems like forever, and every second is acceptable. It has its own energy, hectic and ecstatic, reaching an almost screwball climax, as events project out of control and nobody is sure what end is up, least of all the dwarves. Smaug is a scary dragon, but you still laugh at the detail of Bilbo cringing at the breath coming out from the dragon’s mouth. (O’Malley says, “Now that's the Bilbo I recognize from the book.)

There’s a moment before the spider attack that perfectly lines us up with the overall target of Tolkien’s fiction. Bilbo is told to climb one of the trees to look out of the top of the forest and see how much further they have to go. When he pushes his head through the top, all he can see is a valley of autumn leaves widening almost as far as the eye can see, with blue butterflies flying about along the leaf-tips. The sun shines brightly, and for a moment Bilbo is mesmerized. We know that what happens next is going to be horrific and terrible. However, beauty is there to be appreciated, and the hobbits, with their love of home-like nature, pretty colors, and comfort, know this just like we do. It was the love of home that kept people going in the dark years where Tolkien wrote these books, when the shadow of war was erupting in Europe. The sunlight-covered green fields of the Shire are long gone by the point when Bilbo’s story begins, a distant memory, but the memory gives Bilbo his strength. It is worth fighting for.

Now if you liked the first movie, then this movie is for you. You will absolutely love it, despite the fact that it may run too long and the dragon part you feel should have started the third movie or at least had finished it off right before leaving us on a cliffhanger. Still, it’s a nice movie, and you will enjoy it. I know I did when I saw it in theaters, but I was feeling tired at the Smaug part because I had a final that I took that morning. However, like I said before, this is still a movie worth watching.

Alright everyone tomorrow is the finale to my third annual “Halloween Month.” I will wrap it all up with the final film in “The Hobbit Trilogy.” Also, since I saw “Suffragette” today, I will try to post my review of the movie later tonight, but if I don’t, I will do that tomorrow as well. Stay tuned.