Eight minutes shorter than its bloated 169-minute predecessor, “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’’ still feels like a five-hour slog as Peter Jackson continues mercilessly padding out J.R.R. Tolkien’s 300-page prequel to “The Lord of the Rings’’ as a trilogy to fill corporate coffers ($1 billion and counting for “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’’).
There are probably enough moments to satisfy hard-core fans, but for the rest of us, this amounts to the Middle Earth equivalent of “Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones,’’ a space-holding, empty-headed epic filled with characters and places (digital and otherwise) that are hard to keep straight, much less care about.
Martin Freeman is back as hobbit Bilbo Baggins, still trying to help Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) and his dwarves (somewhat less annoying this time because they don’t sing) reclaim their kingdom of Erebor from the sleeping dragon Smaug.
I have a feeling that Smaug isn’t the only one who’s going to be napping in the time it takes them to get there. Obstacles include those still-boring orcs and a bunch of thoroughly unfrightening, 3D-friendly giant spiders (I guess that’s what the ratings board means by “intense family action violence’’).
Because Orlando Bloom isn’t exactly in high demand between “Pirates of the Caribbean’’ films, his “Lord of the Rings’’ character of Legolas has been interpolated into this story, which also manufactures a wan romantic triangle that pits him against hunky fellow elf Killi (Aidan Turner) for the hand of a Katniss-ish warrior named Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly).
Ian McKellen’s wizard Gandalf once again serves mostly as the franchise’s master of ceremonies, explaining things as the action lurches forward with many stops along the way, including a pointless sojourn in Lake-Town, where Stephen Fry contributes a much-appreciated cameo.
Jackson throws in many scenic vistas of New Zealand to kill time, but they’ve been so digitally massaged, they end up looking like something produced by mall artist Thomas Kinkade.
Finally we get to Erebor, where Bilbo is sent to retrieve a giant gem and awakens Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, but not really sounding like him) for an interminable chase sequence followed by more anti-climaxes than “The Return of the King.’’
There was one sequence that I enjoyed, basically a series of sight gags employing barrels and dwarves. But it, too, goes on to the point of tedium.
Is “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’’ better than “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,’’ as some of my colleagues are claiming?
I guess, if for no other reason than Warner Bros. wisely didn’t show this one to the press in the 48-frames-per-second format championed by Jackson, which made the first one look like a cheesy video game. But “Smaug’’ is still being shown that way in some theaters. So caveat emptor.