The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

[Joel M]

It felt like more things were happening and the pacing was better but in the end I didn't find it that much of an improvement on the first one. I loved lotr but all the prequel/lotr connections aspects of the new movies don't do anything for me. Especially the forced epic tone in a story with much smaller stakes continues to annoy me. The bilbo-Smaug part (just as the bilbo-Gollum part in the first) it's so above and beyond anything else that it seems like it came from a different much superior movie.

 

The movie just like the previous one it's not bad, it's not even mediocre, it's just "there". Which is a shame because the main plot as of now seems like great stuff for a marvelous fairytale. I haven't read the book so I don't know if it was possible but in my mind I have a single 3 hour movie with the first hour centered around the gollum-Bilbo exchange, the 2nd around bilbo-smaug meeting and the 3d with whatever the main point of There and Back Again will be. I think this movie without all the interchangeable battles, legolas acrobatics and lotr homages would be an amazing fairytale for the ages.

 

C+

[luna]

a creative action scene set on a river and some fun dialogue between bilbo and the dragon are the only really enjoyable parts in this gigantic battle-fest. i do adore the high frame rate 3D though.

 

40/100

[TheMovieman]

Eh, still not impressed and I found this one, like the last, to be bloated and awfully hard to get through making clear once again this should have been two movies. The action was OK and there was a lot of work put into the costumes, sets and such but I found this to be pretty boring and by the end, was kind of numb to even care about anything or anybody. It's clear now this is not the series for me and I don't hold much hope the third movie will salvage it.

**½/*****, (C, 4.8/10, 2/4)

[Lordmandeep]

Rewatched at home I sort of fell asleep at the end.

 

Lower to B- 

[DAR]

Ok it's a very good almost great film. Smaug is simply a sight to behold and WETA's crowning achievement so far. And Cumberbatch simply nailed it. And I thought the pacing was better in this one. And I thought Sauron was a more interesting villain in this than in any of the LOTR films Nice to see Legolas and I did enjoy the addition of Tauriel. A minor complaint is after the barrel scene and until he meets Smaug, Bilbo seems like an afterthought. And a major complaint for a film that cost probably 200+ million, apart from Smaug the CGI was kind of awful. The barrel scene did not look good at all.Still I'm very much looking to There and Back Again.A-

[The Futurist]

300m snoozefest.

 

On a tehnical level, it is still impressive but everytyhing from the charaters, the story, the actors to the narrative are boring as fuck.

Every scene is streched way too long because in PJ's world, every 4th character has to have a moment that doesn't even fuel the  narrative.

I thought the first one was more cohesive, this one 's a mess, with Gandlaf visting ruins possessed by Sauron (fan service ?), the barrel sequence was kinda fun , dragon was great but it was so loooooooog that you got bored of him pretty quickly.

 

I give this bloated mess a nice C-.

 

The series is relly tarnishing the LOTR name.

Edited April 23, 2014 by The Futurist

[ShouldIBeHere]

This is a B+ (with AUJ being a A-B and the LotR movies being above A).

 

A little less indulgence on PJ's part towards the end and a little more progression on the Dol Guldur sub-plot and this would have been even better. The way PJ indulgeces is very smypathetic, though. I love how all his movies display his love for movie-making.

 

Has nothing to to with reviewing these movies... but I also salute PJ for making the documentaries that go with LotR and TH to be the best of the best when it comes to Behind-the-Scenes and Movie-making documentaries.

[Gopher]

SsmmmmAAAAAAAAAAuuuuggggg.

[miketheavenger]

Fantastic film. The Barrel Scene is awesome and the Gandalf-Sauron-Radagast parts were pretty interesting as well. You could criticise that Bilbo is only a secondary character throughout a big part of the movie, but Armitage is great as Thorin IMO. Smaug is obviously the highlight, Cumberbatch was the perfect choice to play him. Overall still not on LOTR-level, but a bit better than the first.

[darkelf]

More consistent than AUJ and Thorin isn't as much of a dickwad (except that one scene ) but that romance is stupid and the emotional moments (wait, are there any anyway? ) aren't as high which makes it a tad worse than the first one.

 

8/10

[baumer]

I've had trouble sleeping lately.  This has been on the movie network recently.  My insomnia is cured.

[MrFanaticGuy34]

A really fun and exciting film in the Hobbit trilogy. The best in the series, along with "Battle of the Five Armies". Smaug was a great villainous character in this, thanks to his design and Benedict Cumberbatch voicing him.

 

Shame it didn't get to $1B, though.

 

A+

Edited August 13, 2015 by MrFanaticGuy34

[John Marston]

the best of the Hobbit movies. Has the best pacing, music, and locations of the three. 

 

 

Unfortunately a silly climax where they try to kill the dragon and somehow avoid getting eaten by it brings it down a bit. Too bad. If instead they took the beginning of the next movie and made it the climax of this movie, this would be LOTR level

 

 

8/10

Edited January 27, 2017 by John Marston

[misafeco]

I thought this was the worst until I went to see TBo5A.

[ShouldIBeHere]

With some time to distance myself from this troubled adaption I have come to think that the Extended Edition of DoS is the best of the three Hobbit movies.

 

Maybe a B- or so. The worst parta are the unnecessary bloated Smaug/Dwarves fight and the Bolg mess in Laketown but overall it does not suffer as much from the chaotic narratives as Bot5A (were everything failed to come together).

 

It has some of the moments in it, though, that come closest to the wonders of LotR (Thranduil as a great character, the extended Beorn scenes and the prologue have that great sense of a bigger mythology to them, Laketown is a great setpiece, the conversation between Bilbo and Smaug is pretty great and Smaug in general is a wonder of CGI).

 

Unfortunately... all in all it is still not better than okay.

 

There are two great movies in that trilogy and watching the (great) behind the scenes material (where they also talk about the massive problems during production), they often were on the right track, I think, to deliver something truly great. But the switching around of stroylines, the extension to three movies with no additional planing time and PJ's absolute belief in CGI landscapes and OTT action scenes made them completely lose a clear direction.

 

But I agree that cutting the Dwarves/Smaug and Laketown stuff at the end and making "Fire and Water" the climax of this movie would have gone a long way to making this one really good.

Edited January 27, 2017 by ShouldIBeHere

[RobinHood26]

C+

[Avatree]

On 1/27/2017 at 11:45 AM, ShouldIBeHere said:

With some time to distance myself from this troubled adaption I have come to think that the Extended Edition of DoS is the best of the three Hobbit movies.

 

Maybe a B- or so. The worst parta are the unnecessary bloated Smaug/Dwarves fight and the Bolg mess in Laketown but overall it does not suffer as much from the chaotic narratives as Bot5A (were everything failed to come together).

 

It has some of the moments in it, though, that come closest to the wonders of LotR (Thranduil as a great character, the extended Beorn scenes and the prologue have that great sense of a bigger mythology to them, Laketown is a great setpiece, the conversation between Bilbo and Smaug is pretty great and Smaug in general is a wonder of CGI).

 

Unfortunately... all in all it is still not better than okay.

 

There are two great movies in that trilogy and watching the (great) behind the scenes material (where they also talk about the massive problems during production), they often were on the right track, I think, to deliver something truly great. But the switching around of stroylines, the extension to three movies with no additional planing time and PJ's absolute belief in CGI landscapes and OTT action scenes made them completely lose a clear direction.

 

But I agree that cutting the Dwarves/Smaug and Laketown stuff at the end and making "Fire and Water" the climax of this movie would have gone a long way to making this one really good.

is the extended versiono worth watching?

[ShouldIBeHere]

8 hours ago, Treecraft said:

is the extended versiono worth watching?

 

DoS definitely.

 

The singular added scenes of AUJ and BotFA are interesting as well... Don't help as much as those in DoS to make the movies better, though (one particular scene in the BotFA cut makes it even worse...).

But the DVD sets are worth it for the hours and hours of extra material. In which they even address why the end product of this adoption might also not be what they really wanted...

[Avatree]

2 hours ago, ShouldIBeHere said:

 

DoS definitely.

 

The singular added scenes of AUJ and BotFA are interesting as well... Don't help as much as those in DoS to make the movies better, though (one particular scene in the BotFA cut makes it even worse...).

But the DVD sets are worth it for the hours and hours of extra material. In which they even address why the end product of this adoption might also not be what they really wanted...

hmm, maybe I'll buy it at some point. DoS is clearly the better Hobbit movie and for me, at least in part, it's closer to what the lord of the rings should have been than the lotr trilogy actually is. I love the LOTR movies but DoS is more like what I had always imagined the books to be.

[The Stingray]

I watched this yesterday. It's probably my favorite of all the Lord of the Ring movies. Evangeline Lilly was really beautiful in it.