We all knew a cliffhanger was coming, but this was a bad one. The theater I was in erupted in groans, and I can’t say as how I’ve ever seen that happen at a movie before. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is a nearly three-hour film, and it would be inappropriate to start talking about the ending first. But I can’t help it. As much as I enjoyed 99% of the movie, that cliffhanger overshadows everything. It deserved every groan it got. Even though director Peter Jackson has been dealing with this trilogy thing for several movies now, he picked the absolute worst time to leave us hanging.

At least the rest of the movie was very good.

Movie Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.

Much was said during production of this Hobbit sequel that Jackson and the studio decided to stretch two films into three, and while I’m not complaining, because I like spending as much time as possible with these movies, the stretch is obvious in The Desolation of Smaug. We’ve been in this situation before, with The Two Towers in the middle of the Lord of the Rings, but The Two Towers had a proper ending with its own closure. There was Sam’s big speech to Frodo about hope, and the entire battle for Helm’s Deep. The Desolation of Smaug ends with a battle against the titular dragon, but the film cuts off before the battle is over, robbing us of closure and excitement. Not only that, but the movie shoots itself in the foot by foreshadowing the stilted ending, turning the movie’s climax into an effort in futility.

Fortunately for all of us, by this time next year, we’ll get The Hobbit: There and Back Again, and this cliffhanger ending will be a moot point.

The Desolation of Smaug is a movie for LOTR fans. To really enjoy this film, I would recommend knowing the characters, knowing the world and knowing the adventure, because this film is mostly ‘more of the same’ of the previous films in the franchise. It’s got exciting, CGI’d fantasy action, a rich mythology and the comedic stylings of a band of dwarves. The characters all carry over from the first film and remain largely the same, which isn’t a bad thing. Most of the dwarven band remain anonymous, and the few standouts continue to carry the film – though none of them are as heroic or memorable as Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas from the first trilogy. Gandalf seems to get a reduced role, but he has his own fun adventure. New characters, like Smaug the dragon, Tauriel the she-elf, Bard the human and a guest-appearance by Legolas are all strong, especially Evangeline Lily as Tauriel, who gets the best sub-plot in the film.

The real standout remains Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, the titular hobbit. He’s clever and heroic, and the influence of the One Ring starts its mind-boggling effects on the poor guy in this film. Freeman handles the acting challenge well. He’s a very different sort of hobbit from Frodo, even where the ring is concerned, and it’s rather cool.

Join me after the jump for the full review. There will be SPOILERS, so tread carefully.

The best way to describe The Desolation of Smaug is that it really is just a continuation of the first Hobbit film, and little more. As I mentioned before, The Two Towers really had its own big moments and set pieces, which made it really distinct from Fellowship of the Ring and Return of the King. But Desolation of Smaug is really just kind of more of the same as An Unexpected Journey. There are new characters and locations, of course, and new monsters to fight, but nothing that really stands out as belonging to Desolation alone. Even the fight with Smaug at the end – and Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug is pretty awesome – is going to be continued into the next film. So really, Desolation of Smaug is just three hours more of the same adventure.

And there’s nothing bad about that, as far as I’m concerned.

Expect plenty of walking

You will never see me complain about the length of a Lord of the Rings movie. I can agree that sometimes there’s a lot of filler, and maybe a subplot or two could have been cut, but I just really like these movies, and I have no problem sitting through a long one. Bigger is better. I love the characters, I love the mythology, and I even (mostly) like the various call-forwards towards the LOTR trilogy. So I don’t mind length at all, especially when everything is so much fun to watch. Believe me, I wouldn’t blink at the suggestion of watching all six extended editions in a row some day.

Desolation of Smaug is filled to the brim with one action scene after another. There’s the man-bear (pig) at the beginning, a fight with some pretty gnarly spiders, the barrel ride down the river, sneaking into Lake-town and, finally, reaching Erebor and battling Smaug. And those are just what happens to the main band of dwarves and Bilbo! And I liked it all. Those spiders were disgustingly nasty, and I squirm just thinking about having to touch them, let alone fight them and their snapping, snarling fangs. The escape from the wood elves was a lot of fun, and while I thought the barrel ride looked silly in the trailers, it was actually pretty cool in the film. The showdown between Bilbo and Smaug was nice and tense, and a great showcase for Freeman and Cumberbatch (both of whom star in the BBC’s Sherlock, by the way, a show I absolutely adore).

But what bugs me is the climax, where Bilbo, Thorin and the rest of the dwarves battle Smaug in the ruins of Erebor. It’s this big finale, taking up nearly 20 minutes of time, if not more. There are even times when it looks like the dwarves are going to win, and it would make sense for them to win. But there was a scene earlier in the film with Bard the smuggler that I couldn’t put out of my mind, and it kind of ruined the whole climax for me.

Bard and Son Smuggling Inc.

Be warned, here come some SPOILERS for the ending.

So Bard was a cool guy, and the adventure in Lake-town, while dreary, was still good. I especially liked when Thorin Oakenshield rallied the townsfolk behind him and their quest. That was a nice turn around. But with Bard, there was this whole backstory where his ancestors failed to kill Smaug a long time ago, using the legendary black harpoon-arrows. And when it looks like Smaug might attack Lake-town, Bard reveals that he still has one of those black harpoon-arrows hidden in his home. So the entire time the dwarves are battling Smaug in Erebor, I kept thinking to myself, ‘they can’t defeat Smaug, because Bard still has to use that black arrow’. And sure enough, I was right. At the end of the film, Smaug escapes the dwarves and heads for Lake-town.

And that’s the ending. The dwarves spend upwards of 20 minutes on a big plan to kill Smaug, but at the very end, he just shrugs it off and heads towards Lake-town to meet his black harpoon-arrow end.

Therein lies my problem with the ending: so many storylines are left dangling. Smaug is still alive, Bard is still locked up, nobody grabbed the Archenstone, Gandalf is still imprisoned, and the film’s new ‘evil orc’ character is still alive. Nothing gets resolved at the end of Desolation of Smaug. And while we know the next film is coming, at least The Two Towers had some endings.

Oddly enough, I think the best part of Desolation of Smaug, at least the part I was most interested in, was the romance between Tauriel and the handsome dwarf, Kili, played by Aidan Turner. This subplot is probably something a lot of people could have done without, and was definitely padding, because Tauriel was never in the books. But I liked it because it added some real emotion to the movie. It was pretty much the only thing that wasn’t just action and adventure. It was cute – even if it was a little silly that the handsome dwarf is the one who gets the subplot with the hot she-elf. Because of course he’s the one.

She could have fallen for Bombur, the fat, clumsy dwarf

Speaking of elves, I thought Legolas’ cameo was largely superfluous. He didn’t really add anything to the adventure, and he looked overly CGI’d. Or maybe that was just makeup. I think they were either trying to make him appear younger, or lightening his features to make him more elven, but whatever the case, he looked plastic in this film. That was a bit weird.

The strongest part of the film was the performance by Freeman as Bilbo Baggins. As Gandalf points out, he’s not the same hobbit who left the Shire in the first film, and it shows. Bilbo is tougher and more courageous, willing to throw himself into danger to help his friends or stay alive. And a lot of it has to do with the One Ring. Its bewitching influence is definitely effecting Bilbo in this movie, but in ways the first trilogy never touched upon. At this point in the timeline, Sauron isn’t a giant, glowing eye, always watching Frodo whenever he puts on the ring. Instead, in The Hobbit, the ring might be evil, but it’s mostly a magic invisibility ring. And that’s awesome! Bilbo pops it on his finger and he can free the dwarves from the wood elf prison. He can hide from Smaug. And when the threat of losing the ring comes up, he turns into a badass spider-killer. Basically, whereas the One Ring turned Frodo into a weeping, depressed soul, it’s turning Bilbo into an action hero. And that’s just pretty darn cool to watch.

At least when he’s not weeping over it

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was a very enjoyable experience. But it really only works as part of the larger trilogy, and franchise as a whole. As a stand-alone film, it just doesn’t carry the same impact. The characters, adventures and mythologies are all part of this larger tapestry – which totally works for me, because I love the Lord of the Rings films. Desolation of Smaug has a lot of filler, but I enjoyed most of it. I liked the tacked-on romance subplot, and I even liked watching Gandalf battle an evil menace, even if that didn’t go anywhere.

The only real problem with the film is the ending. Not only is this a nearly unforgivable cliffhanger, but the ending makes the preceding 20+ minutes worthless, so what was the point?

A year from now, it won’t matter. See you all in 2014!