The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug review

Director: Peter Jackson

Starring: Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Aidan Turner, Evangeline Lilly, Ian McKellen, Ken Stott Benedict Cumberbatch, Luke Evans, Orlando Bloom, Lee Pace, Graham McTavish, Stephen Fry, Manu Bennett, Lawrence Makoare, Ryan Gage, John Bell, James Nesbitt, Dean O’Gorman, Stephen Hunter, Sylvester McCoy, Mikael Persbrandt

Love or or hate it, An Unexpected Journey was not to the standard of The Lord of the Rings, the trilogy that The Hobbit was a prequel to. Now, The Desolation of Smaug has arrived and it’s not faultless but I’d happily class this as a return to Rings’ form for Peter Jackson.

The worst is not behind the company as former fish Hobbit-out-of-water Shire Bilbo Baggins (Freeman) once thought. The wizard Gandalf (McKellen) convinces himself to investigate the medlings of the dark Necromancer (Cumberbatch) in Dol Goldur and so leaves the group to face giant spiders and much worse, ie the merciless elf king Thranduil (Pace) and his son Legolas (Bloom), in the forests of Mirkwood. Meanwhile, new Orc on the block Bolg (Makoare) is on the track of the dwarves and Thorin’s (Armitage) desperation leads to a risky deal with a crooked mayor (Fry) and sending Bilbo into an uncertain meeting with the “dormant” dragon Smaug (Cumberbatch…again).

The Desolation of Smaug contains some of the grimmest moments that there’s been in Lord of the Rings/Hobbit franchise. Jackson really is honouring his horror roots with the terrifying spider sequence (it isn’t ripping off the one in Return of the King so don’t worry) but perhaps one to many decapitations. Some oppose it but the lighter moments, however ridiculous, are necessary to balance the terror for what’s essentially a kids movie.

The key advantage of Desolation is the fact that it can just get going into the action after a shady and brief entrance unlike the sluggish opening of An Unexpected Journey. We can get invested into the action almost immediately. The barrel chase is certainly the best set piece of the year but this time around the characters seem to be in no short supply of charm. This second instalment has built a palette of lovable characters; I can easily see Bard (Evans) and Kili (Aidan Turner) quickly becoming fan favourites!

There are quite a few setbacks. Both Lee Pace and Orlando Bloom failed to be engaging in any way, I think all of their lines are in the trailers. Despite still being billed as the lead star, Ian McKellen’s Gandalf has barely any screen time in this film and so his apparent chemistry with Freeman’s Bilbo is therefore non existent. Both Bard and Thorin are owed more lines and there’s a couple of scenes with fairly taccy CG.

All can be forgiven with the sheer terror of Smaug however. Cumberbatch voice work here surpasses his own “John Harrison” to become the villain of the year and possibly the highest quality CG there’s been in an on screen monster. In a way, his immense scale multiplies Bilbo’s courage as Martin Freeman once again delivers a spot on, and fresh, ordinary-guy-turned-hero character performance we’ve seen done wrong too many times.

The Desolation of Smaug has some of the most exciting action there’s been in a fantasy film for a few years. Generally, the performances of those who actually get decently sized roles are brilliant and it’s got some of the great oddball comedy moments of this year. There’s about ten minutes of footage I’d rather see in the extended editions but, as soon as you can except some of the ridiculous elements, you can enjoy the best adventure film there’s been in a while. This trilogy was never going to be quite as good as The Lord of the Rings but, as long as There and Back Again gets back into the action instantly, it will still be a huge fantasy spectacle.

9/10

“Truly the songs and tales fall utterly short of your enormity, oh Smaug the stupendous!”

The Hobbit’s new Smaug banners and Inbetweeners 2 starts shooting

You could say that Channel 4 comedy show The Inbetweeners was short lived as it was only on for three seasons from 2008 to 2010. In case you’re are unfamiliar with it, the show depicts the vulgar misadventures of four teen students, played by Simon Bird, Blake Harrison, Joe Thomas and James Buckley. The show then led to what was supposedly their final adventure on holiday to Malia in 2011’s English hit comedy feature film The Inbetweeners Movie. It took £57 million worldwide. It’s not a blockbuster in any means but for a indie comedy with a £3.5 million budget it’s quite extraordinary.

We reported the early signs of a sequel back in August. Since then, the follow up has slowly but surely developed and we now know that it’ll start shooting this week in Australia. “We can’t say too much as we don’t want to spoil the jokes for you”, the screenwriters Iain Morris and Damon Beasley said in a statement, “but what we can exclusively reveal is there will be kangaroos. And Australians. And possibly koalas. Oh and obviously Jay, Will, Neil and Simon, providing they’re let into the country. Thanks so much for all your support, we’re hoping to deliver a film that you’ll enjoy even more than the last one.”

The only other major piece of news to report is the unveiling of Air New Zealand and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug posters featuring the latter’s namesake dragon. So just in case flying wasn’t scary enough for you, you can scream and point and the scaled and winged Benedict Cumberbatch sharing the air with you. Martin Freeman, Orlando Bloom, Ian McKellen, Evangeline Lilly, Richard Armitage, Cate Blanchett, Luke Evans, Lee Pace, Hugo Weaving, Sylvester McCoy, Billy Connolly and many others also make up the cast

The Inbetweeners 2 – August 2014

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – December 13th

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey extended scenes

A big part of The Lord of The Rings trilogy was the cutting room drama. Although the cinematic cut of each films is about two and a half hours, the extended DVD editions had about 90 minutes unseen footage each. A similar feature lies with the DVD release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. In an interview with Empire, the film’s director Peter Jackson explained what else we might see in this new, fully revised journey from Bag End to the dark outskirts of Mirkwood!

Jackson teases some more foolishness at the house of the elves.

“You’re going to get some serious Dwarvish disrespect of the elves at Rivendell”

Also we’ll see “Girion, who is defending the city of Dale using black arrows against Smaug, The black arrows play a part in the ongoing story…”. You may not want to know all the information about The Desolation of Smaug and There and Back Again just yet so I’ll skip some of Jackson’s more spoilery comments.

Also, producer Phillipa Boyens said “You are going to get more of Hobbiton. We always wanted to wind our way through Hobbiton, but in the end Bilbo has to run out the door!” Screenwriter Fran Walsh added that we’ll “see more of Gobilntown and the Goblin King singing his song” which Jackson is sure will be “a number one hit from The Goblin King”

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smuag is out 13th December

The Hobbit: There and Back Again is out 19th December 2014