Before I start this review, let me just give you a little background so you can understand how much I was building this movie up in my mind. I read The Hobbit when I was 8 years old, and when I read it I was seized by the image of Smaug the Terrible. He filled me with awe and terror just by reading the book, and I can remember myself wishing that they would make a movie of this book so I could see Smaug on the big screen. 9 years later, and that dream is coming to life. And I am happy to say that both Smaug himself and the rest of the film keep my childhood fantasies intact.
The movie opens just where An Unexpected Journey left off. Bilbo, Gandalf and the dwarves are being pursued by Azog and the other orcs. They flee into the woods and are aided by Beorn, a huge man who has the ability to transform into a massive bear. They then are forced to journey through Mirkwood without the aid of Gandalf, who goes off to investigate the activity of the Necromancer at Dol Guldur. I won't detail the entire plot for you, both because of spoilers and because it would take far too long, but suffice to say that the tale takes the company into many interesting locations and pits them against many foes, such as the aggressive wood elves and the particularly disgusting giant spiders. The movie is much more busy than the first one, since it has all of the exposition and background out of the way. This film moves very quickly through each jaw-dropping set-piece moment, and I think that is a good thing. We had a more slow-paced, thoughtful film in Unexpected Journey, and Desolation is a nice change of pace. We also receive a good deal of development of the Necromancer subplot, which was not strictly speaking in the book. Gandalf's investigations confirm his initial suspicions and reveal the true extent of the problem. You feel the weight and dread of the Necromancer's rise to power, and realize that there is something going on even more dangerous than Smaug. However, that isn't to say that Smaug is no big deal.......
Smaug is absolutely awe inspiring. I literally gasped in the theater when the first full shot of him appeared. He completely fills the screen with his fiery, glittering glory. Every ounce of flattery that Bilbo tries to appease him with is completely warranted. Its one of those things in movies where you just have to see it for yourself; no amount of description I could give would explain the magnitude of this dragon. Also, the CGI on Smaug is nearly perfect. The amount of detail on him is stunning, from every wrinkle on his face to the coins encrusted on his underbelly. In fact, the CGI in the entire movie has been stepped up from Unexpected Journey. In the first movie, the animation on Azog was a little shoddy. However, there is a noticeable difference in this film, and I found myself occasionally forgetting that he was a CGI character. It was much less of a distraction. In all, the visuals are even more dazzling in this film than the first one. Also, I would still recommend seeing it in the HFR 3D version. It adds a lot to the experience, much like the difference between blu-ray and DVD.
Back to Smaug. Despite Smaug being visually stunning, the real reason he shines is because of Benedict Cumberbatch's performance. Cumberbatch lends his voice and some motion-capture to the dragon, and it really brings Smaug to life. Cumberbatch's deep, rich voice is perfect for the ancient beast, and the motion capture makes Smaug's facial expressions seem more human than would have been possible with a simple CGI creature. And once again, all the other actors shine once more. We see some interesting development with the Ring, as it starts to affect Bilbo's character, causing him to lie and even kill. Martin Freeman pulls this off very well, I would say better than Elijah Wood did in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. We also see Thorin (Richard Armitage) begin to devolve into single-minded ambition, disregarding others in his desperation to reclaim the mountain and his throne. The rest of the performances are still sturdy as well, and haven't changed much. However, the one exception to this is the romance between Kili and Tauriel. This could've been much worse, but honestly, a romance between a dwarf and an elf is just an incredibly cheesy idea. I honestly don't think there could've been any way to redeem that subplot. There are several corny moments that really broke up the flow of the film, since everything else was perfectly acceptable. However, in the grand scheme of things, this was a total of 10 minutes in a 3 hour movie, so it wasn't that awful.
As I'm writing this, I'm becoming more amazed that this movie lived up to the amount of hype I was giving it. Practically everything about this film was how I pictured it when I first read the book years ago, and then some. This is the movie I've been waiting for for 9 years, and it lived up to my expectations. That is quite an achievement. 9.5/10
CONTENT: This movie is comparable to the first film in terms of content. Violence is at the same level, with many decapitations (albeit bloodless) and a very high body count. There is a brief scene of some mild innuendo that might take some explaining to your younger kids.....if you want to avoid that conversation, you might want to find that scene and mute for a minute.
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