Trailer Trashin’: The Dragon Unleashed in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Today is a great day, dear readers, because my favorite movie of the year so far, Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing, is finally out on DVD and Blu-ray, so everyone who wasn’t able to check it out in theaters will finally have the chance to see it. Also, this Friday finally sees the release of Machete Kills – you can expect my review later this week – and us getting to see whether Robert Rodriguez has made a worthy sequel to his exploitation-movie tribute. And just to make things even better, this week’s new installment of Trailer Trashin’ takes another look at one of my most anticipated movies of the upcoming holiday season – Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

Premise: After successfully crossing over, and under, the Misty Mountains, Thorin (Richard Armitage) and company must seek aid from a powerful stranger before taking on the dangers of Mirkwood Forest – without the help of their Wizard. If they reach the human settlement of Lake-town, it will be time for the hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) to fulfill his contract with the Dwarves. The party must complete the journey to the Lonely Mountain and Bilbo, acting as burglar, must seek out the secret door that will give them access to the hoard of the dragon Smaug (voice of Benedict Cumberbatch). But where has Gandalf (Ian McKellen) got off to? And what is his secret business to the south?

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My take: As I’ve discussed previously in this column, Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy are my favorite movies of all time. Last December, we finally got to see the first part of Jackson’s three-film adaptation of The Hobbit, the first of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth books. I loved the film, although I certainly admit that it had it flaws, but I’ll always cherish the opportunity to see more of this world on the screen. The second trailer for the second part of this trilogy, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, has arrived, and I’m quite impressed by what I see.

In terms of the cast, everyone who survived the first movie is coming back, so I’ll focus on what we see of the new characters. Lee Pace looks like he brings the appropriate combination of majestic and slightly menacing as Thranduil the Elven King, although for some reason I found his eyebrows kind of distracting. I’m still glad to see Orlando Bloom back as Legolas, although I have to agree with the people who say that something seems slightly off about his look, which I imagine comes from whatever makeup and/or visual effects are being used to disguise the fact that Bloom is twelve years older than when we first saw him in this role. We also see a little more of Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel, the new character who is sure to produce huge amounts of fanboy rage by her very existence, regardless of how her role in the actual film plays out; for the most part, I’m willing to take a wait-and-see stance. There’s also a bit more of Luke Evans as Bard the Bowman, and he looks like he’ll get to do some pretty badass stuff here. And best of all, we finally get to hear some of Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of Smaug the dragon at the end of this trailer. It’s still recognizable as his voice, but it’s been altered in a way that makes it sound more menacing and like it’s coming from something much larger than a human. But unfortunately, we still haven’t gotten to see any of Mikael Persbrandt as Beorn or Stephen Fry as the Master of Lake-town, both of whom I’ve been looking forward.

The trailer reveals more action and creatures, and that warms the heart of this lifelong Ray Harryhausen fan. After being teased in An Unexpected Journey, the Mirkwood spiders are going to be out in full-force this time, and what we’ve seen of them so far is just as creepy as I hoped. Azog and his Orc horde are also on the warpath, and I’m interested to see how his subplot will play out. Frankly, I was a little surprised that we didn’t really see anything new of Smaug, considering that the teaser trailer gave us our first good look at him. But they do have to save something for the actual movie.

The issues I do have are mostly the same as what I had with the teaser trailer, and have to do with stretching the events of The Hobbit out into three movies, and the overuse of CGI in creating the Orcs. Other than that, I’m annoyed by the line here which seems to indicate that Legolas has some kind of unrequited love for Tauriel. I’m willing to give the new character a chance, but this addition leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially since Peter Jackson had previously said that Tauriel would have no romantic connection to Legolas. There may be more to this subplot, but I hope it will be resolved in some way and not take too much attention away from the important stuff.

But even with my qualms, this is still one of my most anticipated films of the forthcoming holiday season. It may be stretching things out too much, but I love Jackson’s vision of Middle-Earth so much, and I’m never going to turn down a chance to see more of it. Mark my words; you can be sure that I’ll be checking out The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug at my local theater on opening weekend.

P.S. Although I didn’t feel like writing a column about either of them, the last week also saw the release of the first trailers for Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (due out December 25th) and I, Frankenstein (due out January 24th). Frankenstein looks like it will be pretty dopey, but hopefully also fun and entertaining. On the other hand, Jack Ryan looks like what I feared it would end up being, taking the character created by the late Tom Clancy and sticking him into what looks like a generic action-thriller. Well, I’ll just have to wait and see how these two movies turn out.