The dwarves, along with Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf the Grey, continue their quest to reclaim Erebor, their homeland, from Smaug. Bilbo Baggins is in possession of a mysterious and magical ring.
If you came out of "An Unexpected Journey" disappointed because it wasn't as good as you expected, go to the theater right now.
The second part of the Hobbit trilogy does everything that worked on the Lord of The Rings movies very constantly.
Right off the bat you have a fun action packed adventure movie which drops the childish tone of the first film and focuses on more mature and more engaging themes. Nobody likes spending 40 minutes in Bag-End watching Bilbo make up his mind about going on a quest in which we know he'll go to anyway. That's stalling time.
The Desolation of Smaug fills its time completely. There were a couple of elements which felt shoe horned such as Legolas (which is the movie for way too long).
If you've read the Hobbit book, you'll know there isn't enough to make a whole trilogy on it. But The Desolation of Smaug is essentially the best part of The Hobbit book. You have the forest, you have the meeting with Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) and you have a completely new element which the book doesn't really touch on, but works very well here.
Peter Jackson kept his directing style from the first film although this one has a lot more tension (whilst "An Unexpected Journey" lacked tension in some action sequences). The action sequences in this movie are original and creative enough to make them memorable.
Everyone's performance was just as good as ever. Benedict Cumberbatch who only the voice of the dragon Smaug must praised because his character is the most memorable character o this trilogy (yes, including Gollum). The dragon scene was tense, twist filled and awesome plus the CGI looked great (which is surprising).
The character of Bilbo felt a bit overshadowed in this film (as Frodo was overshadowed in "The Two Towers") and that did bother me. I want to see more of him in the next film. His relationship with the other dwarves really built up and that was fun to see.
As in the first film there was a reasonable amount of noticeable CGI. Apart from Smaug the CGI was very noticeable and that, for me, was very distracting. The orcs did look better though, which pleased me.
The movie slows down at one point which takes you a lot but it soon grabs you in it again. THe pacing was faster which is good.
The music isn't as memorable as in the first film but it is still great. Howard Shore is a great composer and the music really worked with the film but it didn't stick to me as much. The score is definitely more original than the first film but my favorite bits are when he re-uses his scores from The Lord of The Rings.
I loved this movie and the cliff hanger ending left me absolutely excited for the next chapter!
"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is a massive improvement over the first film reaching the standards of The Lord of The Rings Trilogy it tries to resemble. Great performance, a faster pace and memorable action sequences will fill the near three hour run time. The Empire Strikes Back of Hobbit movies!"
No comments:
Post a Comment