Violent, epic and mysterious: The Desolation of Smaug delivers on all its promises

Our review of the second episode of Peter Jackson’s trilogy, to be seen again this evening on TMC.

Channel 10 rebroadcasts The desolation of Smaug, This evening. When it was released in 2013, First really enjoyed the show.

Dwarves singing under the stars, endless crossings of Kiwi steppes, not a single orca decapitation… An Unexpected Journey had disappointed the fans. For many, the film took (too much) its time and played on dilation to the point of flirting with boredom. Its scale, its stunning fantasy visions and its impressive narrative mastery did not appeal to critics. But a billion dollars later and, following the crescendo logic that Jackson had imposed on the trilogy of Lord (each episode was more spectacular, more nervous and darker than the previous one), this second part will put everyone in agreement. Violent, epic and mysterious: The desolation of Smaug keeps all its promises of a great digital spectacle, avoiding the shortcomings of large machinery to keep, anchored to the body, an extra soul, a human breath (thank you Martin Freeman And Luke Evans) which makes the supremacy of King Jackson.

The Hobbit or the Unfinished Quest (review)

King of Kong
With this second opus – an obvious counterpart to Two towers – Jackson points out the obvious. Namely: in Hollywood he is now the best storyteller, an old-fashioned storyteller who knows how to give the story a breathtaking dynamism, reinvents the binary rhythm of alternating montage (OMG the intermingling of Gandalf’s fight against the orcs and the visit to Smaug’s cave by the dwarves), succeeds in mixing its monsters, its new characters and its total cinema fantasy (it crosses the adventure film, the fantasy epic, the comedy and the initiatory journey) with a astonishing talent. Each scene is thought of from the sole angle of the piece of bravery and undermines the received idea according to which a film must spare its viewer with moments of hesitation and “breathing”. Here, there is no time to say phew and the escape from the kingdom of the Elves immediately follows with the crossing of the lake.

Too much ? Not enough rather: his supreme genius for cutting, his always readable management of action scenes (Hollywood directors should seriously start studying the descent of the river) and the sense of fun and wonder confirm that he is well the indestructible leader of theentertainment. The (relative) failure of Pacific Rim this year allows us to measure that no one, today, comes close to him.

Well: we will recognize that the filmmaker and his co-writers put all the chances on their side. With hair, skin, scales, leather and pointy ears, it’s a whole world of teeming and fantastical creatures that comes alive with delirious profusion. The spiders of Mirkwood (the most poetic and creepy sequence in the film), the hellish orc raids, 40 minutes (FORTY fucking minutes) of crazy duel with a dragon, a (now classic) river descent in barrels, a werewolf… We come close to a ruptured retinal aneurysm several times, but the magic happens; because everything is clear, galvanizing, over-exciting like in the 40’s serials.

How did Peter Jackson film the barrel roll in Hobbit 2?

In the previous episode…
Let’s start again. The film opens in a tavern. Thorin, the leader of the dwarves, meets Gandalf the Gray who explains to him that he must reconquer his land, his throne, and unify the 7 armies to save the world from the infernal powers. To do this, you will have to find your “burglar” and a team of daredevils ready to risk their skin to face a dragon. Flashforward: 12 years later. Bilbo and the 12 dwarves are still searching for the Lonely Mountain and Smaug’s Cave. Inspiration… Along the way they: lose Gandalf and go in another direction, find themselves chased by furious orcs, have to cross an evil forest, kill giant spiders, fight vengeful elves, meet men and finally confront the dragon. Phew!

As we have said: with this second episode Jackson is getting back on track. But above all he regains control of the saga. An Unexpected Journey was a transitional film. Between the trilogy of Lord And The Hobbit ; between the version of Del Toro who had left a little of his DNA lying around in some sublime shots like the fight of the stone mountains and Jackson’s visions. Film theorists will take this as a clue: the first face to appear in the film, just after the studio logos, is that of the filmmaker who offers himself a Hitchcockian cameo. As if PJ wanted to say that recess is over. That it is he who is in charge and who takes back the controls of his saga… Irony of the situation: this new film only tells that. The progressive unveiling of the main characters, their affirmation of identity. Thorin is not only a charismatic leader, he is also a man consumed by his own demons; Barde is not just a poor merchant who lives on smuggling; and Bilbo is no longer the comic relief, a clumsy and funny character. He proves to be much braver than all the hobbits in the Shire and possessed by a power that surpasses him…

Unsurprisingly, almost as promised, Jackson introduces new characters and densifies Tolkien’s story. Above all, he definitively imposes his vision as a total showman. In addition to being an extraordinary mythological story, The Hobbit 2 basically reminds us that, since his first films, Jackson has been a fairground filmmaker, obsessed with the spectacular. He delivers here, perhaps not his masterpiece, but the clearest, most obvious expression of his cinema. Galvanizing we tell you.
Gaël Golhen

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