The Desolation of Smaug, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace Insanity

(For more context, click here for my reaction to this movie’s trailer and thoughts on Part One)

Walking into The Hobbit: The Anticipation of Smaug, I was- well, dreading isn’t the proper word to use, but something like it. The first Hobbit movie had been one of the biggest letdowns of my expectations I’d ever encountered: A movie based on one of my favorite childhood books, starring actors from my favorite television show, and made by the same creative team as my favorite movie… that was absolutely terrible? I had been crushed. To say my expectations were low for the sequel isn’t right either. On many, deep levels, I still cared. All those things- that book, that show, those movies- I cared about them, and I cared about the tiny, lingering possibility of them all colliding and creating something beautiful.

As the movie started, I tried to be the cynic. I tried to roll my eyes at every moment that sweeping music played, and I tried to critique the absolutely atrocious editing. However, slowly, with me barely noticing it, a small part of me began to smile. A scene played that wasn’t from the book, but wasn’t unwarranted or against the tone of the book. An action scene started, but then ended before it distracted from the story. A chapter from the book that had made me cower under the covers as a kid was adapted perfectly, and I physically recoiled in my seat, all with the thrill of a good, proper movie scare. A new character was added to the story (Tauriel, Captain of the Guard of Mirkwood) who was completely unnecessary, but interesting to watch and well acted.

I began to feel my dread, my fears, melt away. Has the director of Lord of the Rings, my favorite movie, started to return to form? Has the book I loved as a kid been adapted faithfully? Has the perfectly cast lead, almost wasted in the first movie, finally been given his due?

These thoughts were passing through my head at the exact moment that Thranduil, Legolas’s father and the King of the Elves, first appeared onscreen in the most ridiculous editing I’ve ever seen. Like, this editing is so bad. Other people have pointed out how bad this editing is, this isn’t just me being picky. It’s just- holy crap, it was insane. And then the character starts speaking, and I just thought, “Oh no, he’s not going to talk like that the whole movie is he?” And suddenly, the scene ended.

I nervously relaxed, hoping that I had just seen an odd fluke that wouldn’t be repeated. A movie that had been this incredibly decent up to this point couldn’t have that many more things that were that silly in it, could it? Then, minutes later, just as I started to relax- There! Another! Even sillier than the last! Is Legolas the Elf really fighting Orcs while running down a moving river using floating dwarves as stepping stones? Did Bomber just become a fighting barrel? What is this doing in The Hobbit?! What is this doing ever?!

In smaller and smaller pieces, the silliness started to seep in. Bard, a character from the books, brought amazing humanity and a good, strong story arc to the movie. Ratagast returned, and brought complete and utter nonsense. I was so confused. What was happening?

The best scene in the movie comes when Bilbo finally reaches the mountain and talks to Smaug, the dragon who has been jealously guarding his hoard of gold. The special effects are fantastic on Smaug, the acting (Martin Freeman as Bilbo and Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug, probably the two actors with some of the best chemistry against each other out there) the best in the whole theatrical LOTR universe, and the tension is palatable. This was what I wanted from The Hobbit. This was the movie I’d been waiting for. This was-

The scene abruptly cuts halfway through to Gandalf fighting The Necromancer, a nothing storyline that was glossed over for most of the film. The entire scene consists of them fighting, and Gandalf seeing that the Necromancer, shockingly, is in fact Sauron. Fire surrounds the dark human silhouette, and the camera zooms into the pupil of the great fiery Eye, which contains a great fiery Eye, which contains about six more and it just keeps zooming and it looks like something from a James Bond opening sequence. At this point, I did not lose faith or stop caring. I never stopped caring. But around an hour before the end of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, I transcended caring.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is a very good movie, and a good adaptation of the chapters it adapts from the Hobbit, that also contains a movie of such overwhelmingly enjoyable terribleness that it might as well be Plan 9 From Outer Space. I’m not saying it has the dumbest scenes I’ve ever seen, but I am saying that it includes a scene where a man surfs down a river of molten gold on a shield. Because it fucking does.

In a way, it’s the complete and unfathomably awful parts of The Desolation of Smaug that make it an actual improvement over The Unexpected Journey. The additional action scenes and nonsense in The Unexpected Journey were boring and distracting, with nothing to keep you entertained, but even the most unnecessary scenes added to this latest chapter at least have the added value of being hilarious. I saw Anchorman 2 earlier this week, and I honestly found myself laughing harder at Legolas and Thranduil’s pissy argument about Legolas’s girlfriend than I had at anything in that movie. The action scenes are equally silly, but if an action scene can’t be tense, the least it can do is be mindbogglingly stupid.

A lot of things in this movie were really, genuinely good. Like I mentioned before, the dramatic narrative given to Bard and the men of Laketown added a lot of needed humanity in a pretty well-done sideplot. The acting is as good as it was in the last one, but a little less action gives more of the dwarves more time to develop as characters and feel like more of a band. Though I thought a scene or two from the book wasn’t done well, most (but especially the ones at the mountain and the earlier spider scene) were actually done as well as I could have hoped for, and felt a lot more like the novel The Hobbit than I was expecting. It’s still overly long and a little overdramatic, but feels a bit less so than the first one.

For what the movie did right, I say go see it, especially if you were disappointed by the first one. For what the movie did wrong, I say go see it anyway, because oh my god, was it still enjoyable as hell. Did anyone else notice the walnuts?