The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

What? A new post!? I know! Crazy.

I saw The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug the first weekend it was out, but haven’t had time to sit and write something up about it until now. Gotta get myself back in writing mode!

Anyway, I would first like to say that I really enjoyed The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. That being said, I should add that the second installment of The Hobbit movie trilogy is 95% fabricated and has nothing to do with the book. Sure, there were some parts, like them reaching the mountain and Bilbo meeting the dragon, things of that nature, that were part of the book. But besides that, everything else was made up by the writers of the script. But that’s OK because the movie turned out to be pretty awesome.

Continuing on their quest to reclaim Erebor, the dwarves and Bilbo Baggins get into some trouble when they run into a horde of spiders while going through Mirkwood. Using the one ring, Bilbo saves the dwarves, and we get to see first hand how the ring is beginning to affect him. Unfortunately, as they fight off the last of the spiders, they are overtaken (and saved from the spiders) by the wood elves that live in the forest. All the dwarves are jailed, but Bilbo escapes using the ring and manages to save his friends from capture. As they escape in barrels down a river, they are pursued by both elves and orcs. Luckily, they outrun both and make their way into Lake-Town and finally to the Lonely Mountain to reclaim their gold from the dragon.

Even though the movie was mostly creative license, I thought it was very well done. The stories weren’t farfetched and went very well with the rest of the story line. In fact, I feel if you haven’t read the book in a very long time, it would be difficult to figure out what was and was not part of the book (unless you have a great memory).

Grade: A+