Film: The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug

Director: Peter Jackson
Genre: Action
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Glynn Place Stadium Cinema
Grade: A

What a great improvement over the first film.

I have to admit that part of the experience of the film was diminished due to a really poor projection by the less than interested employees at my local cinema, but that didn't prevent me from really enjoying Jackson's 5th Tolkien film--in fact, it's a step up in almost every way from the first of the Hobbit trilogy films.

Three major changes really helped this film work for me. First, it ditches the songs (for the most part) that may have been a really fantastic part of the book, but that really dragged in the Hobbit part one. Maybe this is a change that die hard Tolkien fans will not like, but for me it helped the world seem less frivolous and more focused. Second, he allowed the dwarfs (aren't there like 12 of them) to actually have a little bit of differentiation. There's the leader dwarf, the old dwarf, the dwarf who falls in love with Kate from Lost, the dwarf who's really fat, and so on and so forth. That may not sound like much, but I feel like it's gallons more characterization than we had in the first film, where they all seemed relatively interchangeable. Third, he emphasized meaningful action sequences with a lot of fun staging. The battle along the river and the confrontation with Smaug were particularly delightful to watch. Doing action has never been a challenge for Peter Jackson, but the mine sequence in the first Hobbit really fell mostly flat for me, so I was glad to see him back to creative and energetic staging here.

The film definitely feels like the middle chapter of a trilogy. It begins without really much reminder of who our characters are and what they're doing, and it ends right in the middle of what looks to be a large scale upcoming battle in the final film (Jackson seems to love his massive film battles, and though I don't think this will equal the size or scope of the Return of the King clashes, it still should be pretty hairy and fun). I'm guessing the Hobbit series will be a popular one to marathon for this reason, but either way I enjoyed it. I'm hoping that some of the new characters here (the human bargeman, for example) continue to get fleshed out in the last film.

As the final film I saw in the theaters in 2013, I was pretty pleased. I can't complain about the fun or spectacle . . . only about that terrible projection. I tried HFR with Hobbit 1 and just plain 3D with Hobbit 2. Neither really impressed me. Maybe I'll just plan on regular old digital projection for the series' final film.

I guess there's still a while to wait to see.