Smaug may desolate, but Legolas steals
the show in a superb epic fantasy adventure
Ostensibly,
The Hobbit film series is about its
namesake character: Bilbo Baggins. The first film, An Unexpected Journey (2012), focuses on Bilbo, who
undertakes an expedition both physical and mental. However, in this second
installment, The Desolation of Smaug (2013),
returning director Peter Jackson (who also directed the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) trilogy) moves further back, assuming a
wider view on a group of unlikely and in some cases likely heroes. Those
coming to see Desolation aren’t just
coming to see Bilbo; they’re coming to see a collection of beloved characters. Moreover,
true to the contemporary western culture that spawned such blockbusters as The Avengers (2012), Desolation has minimized those pesky
internal struggles, and taken external challenges and battlefield bravura to
the next level.
