The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Listen, I'm as surprised as you by what I'm about to say. Truth be told, I already had my review for this movie written in my head. It went something like, Perhaps these movies aren't for me. I must not be the target audience. You can have your Hobbit movies and I'll take my Batman movies and we'll let bygones be bygones. But, then I saw the movie. And I actually really liked The Desolation of Smaug.
The movie picks up exactly where the torturous Unexpected Journey left off. Our heroes - Bilbo, Gandalf and a myriad of assorted dwarfs - are on their journey to a mountain where one of the dwarfs, Thorin, must reclaim his rightful place as King. Along the way, obviously, they get into a lot of trouble and face a lot of adventure, as they often do. From the Orcs that have been chasing them from part one, to the archery wielding elves (more on them in a minute!), to the hottie on the river barge who helps smuggle them, to their final confrontation with Smaug, who happens to be a pretty bad ass talking dragon. Where the Unexpected Journey felt long and laborious, Desolation of Smaug feels swift and action packed. Gone are the 45 minute dinner party scenes (seriously, the first Hobbit movie made me irrationally angry for 3 hours and it all started with that scene) and in place of them are seriously bad ass fight scenes. The crowning jewel of action sequences in The Desolation of Smaug happens to be a particular fight scene in which the dwarfs are in barrels, rolling down a river while the nasty Orcs fight them from the shores and just when you think our heroes are doomed, those stuffy bad ass elves come and save the day with their bows and arrows.
Okay, sidebar: I love the elves. I seriously want to watch an entire trilogy about the elves because they are pretty bad ass. I mean, is this why people love Orlando Bloom, because I never quite understood it before, but I also have never seen the original Lord of the Rings trilogy. But if he's this bad ass in that trilogy, killing Orcs and taking names, with that beautiful, long, flowing hair, then I totally get it. But he's not even the coolest elf. That honor goes to Lost alum Evangeline Lilly who should be the biggest female action star on the planet right now. I guess they invented her character for the movie, and fan boys everywhere were horrified, but she's easily the coolest thing about the movie. She should get her own spin off, and also should be in every action movie in the world, and also, she's so beautiful it physically hurts. Did I mention she is super cool? End, sidebar.
Anyway, The Desolation of Smaug is not without its problems. Obviously, it's nearly three hours long which I think is sort of ridiculous. Every one of these movies is 3 hours long. If you wanted to watch the original trilogy and the Hobbit trilogy after it's complete, it would take you about 18 hours. That's ridiculous. However, Smaug doesn't really feel long until near the end. You know the end is coming but the movie just keeps going and going. It feels like it might never end. Also, I'm not a fan of this new filming technique Peter Jackson is using. I guess it's a higher frame per second but it mostly makes everything look so uber clear that it looks fake. It's very distracting. Sometimes, instead of noticing how awesome the filmmaking is, I would get caught up in how disconcerting the whole fakeness of the scenes look.
Still, The Desolation of Smaug is a damn enjoyable movie, filled with awesome action scenes, a truly great acting ensemble, and great CGI (Smaug may be a dragon, but he's more of a developed character than anyone in Man of Steel). It may not be perfect, but it is the super fun popcorn movie we were sorely missing from the summer blockbusters. It took me a while, but I'm finally on board with this whole Middle Earth thing.
Grade: B+