And the journey, for all its faults, is suddenly more gripping, progressing with a confidence, clarity of purpose, breakneck pace and dazzling craftsmanship that's entirely Jackson and entirely engrossing. Secondary heroes and villains that were once sketches on the page are fully developed and that much more intriguing. The heart of Bilbo's tale continues to pump the saga's lifeblood, even when the brave little Hobbit is reduced to a less crucial hero in Thorin's company. The drama of the dwarves' quest to reclaim their homeland has been heightened, even enriched, exponentially. Divorced from the text, which is treated more like a rough outline than a sacred tome (a la The Lord of the Rings), The Desolation of Smaug is a brisk, thrilling, well-executed adventure through the dark wilderness of Tolkien's Middle-earth. The more you treasure Tolkien's work, the more your distaste for The Desolation of Smaug will grow as the film hurtles toward its action-packed endgame.Īs a film, though - particularly as the action-oriented midpoint of a much larger action-fantasy trilogy - Jackson's second chapter works, and works quite spectacularly. Defenders of the Original Text will neither be pleased nor amused, and find Jackson has taken several steps too many to expand and energize the second entry in his Hobbit trilogy. It not only represents filmmaker Peter Jackson's loosest Tolkien adaptation to date (far more so than An Unexpected Journey), it fundamentally alters key events, characters, themes and climactic encounters, sacrificing cherished story beats and subtleties for the sake of bigger, badder, grander movie magic and, worse, the expectations and attention spans of fickle audiences. Let's get one thing out of the way from the start: as a faithful adaptation of the second act of Tolkien's beloved book, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug fails, and fails spectacularly. Reviewed by Kenneth Brown, March 28, 2014 "It never ceases to amaze me, the courage of Hobbits." The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Blu-ray Review The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Blu-ray
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