2014 Movie #1 - The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Picking up just after "An Unexpected Journey" left off, "The Desolation of Smaug" is a far more action packed affair than the first movie.  Although I liked the first movie, many complained it was too long and slow.  They won't say that about this one!  It bounces from action setpiece to action setpiece as the quest continues.

Our party of dwarves and one becoming braver Hobbit are still being pursued by Azog the Defiler and his gang of ugly orcs as they try to get to their goal (The Lonely Mountain) before the end of Durin's Day.  Escaping Azog, our strange company encounter a huge bear, navigate the dark and twisted Mirkwood, and are captured by the wood elves ruled by the greedy Elvenking Thranduil (father of Legolas).  Imprisoned, the dwarves despair until they are rescued by Bilbo in what has to be one of the funniest, most entertaining escape scenes ever put to film.  They then have to sneak in and out of Laketown to ascend the Lonely Mountain, but will they make it in time, how will they get into Erebor and what will Bilbo do when he tries to steal the Arkenstone and meets the dragon Smaug (seen singeing Erebor in the first Hobbit movie) who has been slumbering peacefully in the treasure filled throne room of Erebor for many years?

A side story involves Gandalf heading to Dol Guldur to investigate whether The Necromancer is gathering dark forces to start a war on the various races of Middle Earth.  Going in alone might not be the best decision he has ever made....

The film is hugely entertaining because it really has to further the action along so that we can reach the conclusion by the end of the next movie, which still has to cover what happens to Smaug, what the Necromancer is up to and the Battle of Five Armies.  It's still long (2 hours 40 minutes) but as long as you take a trip to the bathroom before hand you won't have a problem with the running time which zips past with all the action.  We still don't get to know all the dwarves very well, with only Thorin, Balin and Kili (the least dwarfy dwarf in the group) getting much screen time - Kili's interaction with female Silvan elf Tauriel (an invented character not from the book) giving the film a much needed lighter edge.

Thank God for Tauriel (played by Lost's Evangeline Lilly) because she is virtually the only female presence in the 2 movies so far, but she is a real butt-kicker apart from the soft spot she has for Kili, much to  the distaste of Legolas (returning Orlando Bloom who has been very CGI'd to look 10 years younger than his first trilogy character).  She also ups the gore factor of the film with some spectacular orc kills. Yeah!  A lot of practical effects have obviously been used here (harking back to director Peter Jackson's earlier horror movies) but at times I found the film used a very strange mix of CGI and practical effects that really pulled me out of the movie.  Maybe seeing it in High Frame Rate would have been better.

The heart of the movie is still Bilbo and his transformation from homebound hobbit to brave adventurer and One Ring resistor, and he again plays this role to perfection.  His scenes with the dragon Smaug are amazing, before the film ends in a cliffhanger which leaves you wanting the next movie "There and Back Again" immediately.  Sadly, we now have to wait until December 2014 for this after it was bumped from a planned July release date.  But of course we will all go and see the end of what is now becoming a rollicking adventure.

I give this 4 stars.