"I am fire! I am... DEATH!"
Famous last words.
The Plot
After braving through the treacherous lands of the Goblins, Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and the Dwarves must make their way through Mirkwood Forest. But to do so, they must get out of the clutches of its Elven King, Thranduil (Lee Pace). And if they are lucky, they'll then have to make it to Lake-town, a human settlement near the edge of The Lonely Mountain. Inside the mountain is the kingdom of Erebor, the dwarves home. Inside is the coveted Arkenstone of the dwarves that Bilbo must steal from Erebor's current king, the dragon, Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch)!
Meanwhile Gandalf (Ian McKellan) is investigating a possible dark conspiracy being perpetrated by a mysterious Necromancer (Benedict Cumberbatch...again).
Review
Okay now, this is much better!.... by a very small margin. And I mean a very small margin. I'll just start with the positives.
The best part of the entire movie is definitely the one that fans have been waiting for: Bilbo (Martin Freeman) versus Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) in a battle of wits! A hobbit talking his way out of getting killed by a dragon! What is not to like about that? The Sherlock duo is reunited in probably the most ingenious way possible. Cumberbatch is terrifying as a villain. Just look at his portrayal of Khan... I mean John Harrison (really?) in Stark Trek Into Darkness. He just does it so well, and he is even more terrifying as a highly intelligent dragon the size of Godzilla. The sheer vastness and most of the film's CGI budget is definitely shown on screen. He is probably the most realistically rendered creature in this trilogy besides Gollum, and it is completely necessary. The detail of Smaug helps sell that this massive thing is having a conversation with a tiny Bilbo, who is made even tinier because he's a hobbit. Freeman and Cumberbatch are excellent as dueling and complimenting personalities on Sherlock, but in here they are even more incredible as extreme rivals. I find it funny that they did not actually interact with each other on set, but it feels just as natural as they do on Sherlock. These two are pure gold in this movie, and the fact that they're conversation takes place on mountains of gold helps too.
Then there's Gandalf and Radagast's story about finding a Necromancer that is supposedly stirring things up. I guess I just like the wizard characters so much because I found what they're doing to be a lot more interesting than what the actual plot of the movie is. This is probably because I always wondered why does Gandalf keep disappearing in the book and Tolkien fans have also wondered what the f**k happened to Radagast? While I know the Radagast portion of his involvement is made up in the film, Gandalf's search for the Necromancer (also played by Cumberbatch) is canon in the Appendices. Though as much as I like this story, it does seem to be a little bit out of place in this film and does not flow smoothly with the main plot. But there is an upgrade to the main plot.
One of them being Luke Evans as Bard, a man who has to live with his forefather's disgrace of being unable to kill a dragon. Which if you know how big Smaug is compared to a regular human, I think his fellow Lake-town people are over exaggerating how easy it should be to kill one. Because it's not. Though he serves only to be the one guy who helps the dwarves, he doesn't really have much going for him other than a weighted backstory. In fact it really is the only thing that drives him, which I'm sure will follow through in the next film. Evans is a highly underrated actor who makes even the worst roles in terrible movies far more compelling and memorable than they have any right to be. The same goes for this movie. But for now he's just a tool to help the dwarves. And speaking of dwarves...
Richard Armitage's Thorin Oakenshield is starting to become a sympathetic character. Hints of it were shown at the end of the previous movie, but in here is where we really start to see the strong no nonsense king start to break out of his shell. It shows both the best and worst qualities of Thorin, giving Armitage a lot of room to show off why he's casted in this movie. However what I'm afraid of is that this will be the movie where ALL of his character development happens given that the story was unnecessarily stretched out to three movies. Hopefully the next film has more to offer for Thorin.
As for the other dwarves, they don't really change that much. With the exception of Kili (Aidan Turner) who is given the role of giving this movie a love story. Who is the lucky lady? An elf. In fact, a completely original character created for this movie. Because there needs to be another woman in this movie who seems important, but really isn't.
I'm talking about Evangeline Lily as Tauriel, an elven warrior of a lower caste in the kingdom of Mirkwood. She has the luxury of being the woman of Legolas's desire. Yup, Orlando Bloom is here again playing Legolas. While some are wondering why is he in the movie, for fans it makes sense. Why? Because his father, Thranduil played by Lee Pace, is one of the anti-villains in the book. So it would be kind of weird if the filmmakers didn't take an opportunity to sneak Orlando Bloom back into the franchise. Though I was just hoping for a small role, his role has been expanded in order to explain why Tauriel is important. And Tauriel's purpose is solely to make Kili important. When really the one who should be important is Thranduil, the most assholish elf ever put on film. Pace does an excellent job playing a dick, but I keep referring to him as wasted talent. There is so much that could've been done with this character, but he comes off as a one dimensional dick. And people wonder why Legolas hates dwarves initially in The Lord of the Rings? For one: his father was a dick to them. And two: a dwarf is pretty much sending him to the friend zone. Him! So if you really think about it, Tauriel and Kili's love story is only meant to explain this initial animosity between Legolas and Gimli in the trilogy. There really is no other reason to have her or this sub plot in the movie other than that. But on the subject of Pace's Thranduil, he's still a far more compelling one dimensional dick than anyone else in the film. I'm looking at you, CGI orcs.
I'm once again really irked by the overuse of CGI. It is not just the orcs this time, it is the action scenes as well. There was something real about the original trilogy's action because it actually dealt with real people in costumes and make up fighting each other. In here it is mainly CGI guys doing all the action sequences. And this would look incredible in a Pixar or Dreamworks animated movie, but this isn't an animated movie. The hyper stylized action in the movie is just way too over the top compared to the more toned down fighting that happened in the original trilogy. Though people would point to Legolas as doing some pretty over the top things in the original films, I'd argue that those moments were earned because of how cool and collected Legolas is. In this film, Legolas does some ultra ridiculous stuff that makes people wonder why he hasn't done of that stuff in the original. I like Orlando Bloom as Legolas, but in this film I don't like his CGI stunt double. And it's a real shame again that I have to cluster Manu Bennet into this category because he's compelling, but I just wished he wasn't a CGI character. Just thinking about CGI reminds me of how awful the final act of the film involving the dwarves attacking Smaug was, especially when Smaug is much more highly rendered compared to the other crappy CGI that he's surrounded by.
Final Thoughts
While the confrontation between Bilbo and Smaug does not disappoint, and Thorin becomes a more compelling character, that doesn't mean the movie has vastly improved. Instead I find myself complaining about the same things that I did in the last movie. Too much CGI, uneven pacing, and ultimately a large ensemble of forgettable characters. Just now I remembered that Beorn and a guy played by Stephen Fry was in the movie, and I didn't even mention them in the main review. That just tells me that this film trilogy should not have been a trilogy and instead just two movies. Hell, I think it should only be one movie. Because everything is so spread out that it is killing any excitement in the film. Yet part of me still wants to enjoy it because of that one scene between Bilbo and Smaug, but really it isn't enough.
SCORE: 6.2/10 - It gets slightly better, while at the same time gets slightly worse.
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