He has an everyman quality that the dwarves lack. The one character here who is given at least some depth and complexity is Bilbo, for whom the journey here is a rite of passage. It starts confusingly, ends abruptly and doesn’t even begin to tidy up all its own loose ends but Smaug still has enough spectacle, sleight-of-hand, action and lyricism to enrapture most viewers. For all its use of 3D and digital technology, this is an old-fashioned romp at heart – a piece of pure cinematic escapism. Jackson gives us rousing, matinee-style action, which rekindles memories both of old Ray Harryhausen creature-driven fantasies and of Douglas Fairbanks swashbucklers. Nonetheless, what makes it palatable is the relish with which it is served up.
With more than a dozen principal characters and a stringy plot that pulls in all sorts of different directions at once, Smaug is sometimes very gristly fare, indeed. It is every bit as difficult to digest as its predecessor. The Desolation of Smaug is the meat in the Hobbit sandwich – the middle part in Peter Jackson’s gargantuan, three-film adaptation of J R R Tolkien’s slender novel.
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